History: Good morning everyone... - Restless Legs Syn...

Restless Legs Syndrome

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History

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Good morning everyone , especially all of you who are interested in history. I am curious to know if any of you know how your parents and grandparents coped with RLS in the days when no medication was available. How did they try to sooth the pain/discomfort? Did they go mad by sleep deprivation? Did they go to the doctor and if so, what did he recommend/prescribe? Or was their life so difficult by other circumstances that RLS was only a secondary problem? I just wonder, because I think I would go mad or suicidal without medication.

6 Replies
Madlegs1 profile image
Madlegs1

Opium.

Think- Keats , Byron and the rest of them.

Willis prescribed opium as the most effective relief. Nothing has changed in 300 years.

I am almost sure there were suicides. My father had RLS, which is why i have it and my brother has it. My father only had mild RLS, and wouldnt have even known what he had back then. As far as i know he never went to his doctor about it. The reason i worked out why he had RLS and how i knew i had inherited it was because, i know he sat at the edge of his bed at night thumping his legs, i know it woke my mother up in the night as she often said so with him thumping his legs. His RLS wasnt bad enough to be disruptive in his life. Unlike mine and my brothers as we have severe RLS. And as madlegs has said, opium was used alot way way back.

Narcis profile image
Narcis in reply to

I remember my father ealking around the table at night when I returned from a party in the 70'. When I discover in 2006 my RLS I Understood that my RLS has some genetic component. Another symthom, when sitted my father was moving constantly the leg, me too, my soon too.

Thanks foe your replies.

Opium was probably only an option for the rich. RLS gets worse with age and we live much longer than our ancestors. So maybe many sufferers died of other causes before RLS became intollerable.

Legsandmore profile image
Legsandmore

My mum has RLS and so does my brother.

I am pretty sure my maternal grandfather had it too.

Growning up we referred to it as The Squeedles.

To the best of my knowledge they just lived with it and didn't really know what it was for years.

I am the only one who sought medical help and took prescribed meds for it, which were working fine until augmentation.

Since then it's been a nightmare as l don't tolerate the usual meds that are given for this condition.

Jeanniebeannie profile image
Jeanniebeannie

Hi yes i wonder too .tho without medication would not want to live .i would rather die and be out of misery .but i do not have any pain with rls in any way

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