Restless Legs Syndrome

[JudithF]

Hi, has anyone tried reducing / cutting out salt from their diet. I find this helps enormously.

[Hidden]

No! Not salt as well

You know I've a notion someone on here has mentioned that. Glad it works for you. Can you take a salt substitute?

[JudithF in reply to Hidden]

I have cut it out as much as possible with no substitute but it's difficult as there is so much salt in everything! It is definitely a trigger for me so thought worth sharing but I know it's not the same for everyone.

[Madlegs1 in reply to JudithF]

Yes- I think a lot of people would agree with you on that.

That's why it's important to keep well hydrated.

[Joolsg]

I gave up salt, sugar, dairy, all processed food, grains, caffeine, alcohol.....Oh Lord this sounds so boring. Anyway, I now follow a strict paleo diet and have also excluded any med/high FODMAPS foods & been doing it for months. It has made NO difference to my RLS. The only thing that's improved is my figure!

I suspect there are different types/causes of RLS which explains why what works for one person doesn't necessarily work for another.

If it works for you that's brilliant- keep it up and it may well work for someone else..

Take care,

Jools

[Graham3196 in reply to Joolsg]

Asd a matter of interest is your RLS inherited from a parent or started with injury or illness?

[Joolsg in reply to Graham3196]

No record of RLS in my family but lots of auto immune diseases and I have MS so suspect my RLS is caused by the many scars in the brain and spinal cord.

[Graham3196 in reply to Joolsg]

I think that if you can trace the RLS to an event or physical condition then its called secondary. If it comes with your genes then its called primary.

Based on you as a sample of one person perhaps we can hypothesise that the diet might work for primary RLS but not for secondary. With almost zero statistical reason.

[Joolsg in reply to Graham3196]

RLS makes pseudo scientists of us all. If only one thing worked for us all. Strangely enough, the dopamine agonists work for both primary and secondary....

Take care

Jools

[Hidden in reply to Joolsg]

RLS makes pseudo scientists of us all.

Exactly! I've looked at diet, drugs, lifestyle and even genes identified with RLS.

I've read up on how to activate and deactivate genes through diet, (can't remember what I discovered as I have really poor concentration and memory with M.E.), with little success.

I think in general a low carb non processed diet offers us the best chance at good health. Avoiding all the additives, sugar, etc we minimise disruption to our body. Sweeteners are poison and are in many foods that would surprise - crisps and jelly sweets made almost entirely of sugar, got to read those labels.

An important part of this often ignored is the effect of the likes of Omeprazole/losec on our digestive and absorption. Anything that alters our ability to properly digest will lead to a lack of proper nutrients.

Our food has changed drastically over the years loosing much of its nutrients. I remember reading that a cabbage had about 10 times less calcium today than in the 70's due to growing methods. Our 5 a day is probably inadequate if we are eating these sorts of fruit & veg, (can't remember if it was down to hydroponic growing or fertilisers stripping the soil).

Minerals and vitamins are important too - Iron as prime example. For those of us in Ireland & UK we are likely Vit D deficient, particularly this time of year and would need supplemented.

[lorrinet in reply to Graham3196]

RLS occurs very sporadically in several members of my family, but only my nephew has regular RLS and that's when he's sleeping, like the man in the documentary. He generally sleeps through it but his wife got kicked often until she moved out of the bedroom.

There are also several cases of Epilepsy, one lifelong, two in childhood. Other things include Asthma, Eczema, Migraine, and a brother, a sister and my son are quite severely Dyslexic. Another brother is on the Autism spectrum. We are also an artistic family (I am a painter/illustrator).

Do these things ring a bell with anybody else?

[Pippins2]

We will all soon be existing on just water as the list of possible food triggers grows!

Glad you have found something to help your symptoms.

Up to now it isjust alcohol in the foodand drink line which sets off my RLS.

Pippins2 x

[Eryl]

I reduced my sodium intake to the minimum, because of high blood pressure, but it made no difference to my RLS.

[Graham3196]

I stopped most added salt because of potential high blood pressure and it made no difference to my RLS

Now I am, jealous of you because I have to eat all this food without flavour (salt) and still haVE rls gOOD LUCK TO YOU

Graham

[Hamish58 in reply to Graham3196]

Hi Graham3196,

Definitely finding cutting out Wheat, dairy and sugar is helping. Also caffeine, chocolate and alcohol are a given as we all now know. I eat very little salt anyway.

[BarbaraMacQ]

Yes I read on a website years ago that eliminating salt was the miricle cure for rls so I stopped adding it to food, also cut out all processed foods, cafine, alcohol, sugar, starchy foods like pasta, bread, potatoes....made little or no difference to me so guess it's down to experimenting with what works for you. Good luck.

[Graham3196 in reply to BarbaraMacQ]

May I suggest that it might be quicker to start with an elimination diet in which you eat only a limited range of foods that are believed to be easy for your gut to process. IOf this is successful in eliminating the symptoms of RLS then you have immediately advanced one giant step. You now know that a food control method can work for you. The you can start re-introducing other foods and noting whether they affect you or not. In some cases there will be groups of foods so that if you test yourself with one food you can be reasonably confident that the rest of the foods in the same group will be OK. This is the FODMAP process. This has worked for some lucky RLS victims.

What do you do if you stickl to the FODMAP elimination diet and still get RLS? Then you have one more string in your bow regarding food and you adopt the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital's low chemical diet to see if that works.

If it doesn't work for you then you are probably stuck with Pharma's chemicals.

Although other hopes keep springing up Vitamin B12 plus Folate might even be worth trying before the diets just because its easy to do.

I hope one of them works for you and keeps you off the drugs that have mixed success and many problems with side effects.

Good Luck

Graham

[DicCarlson]

I have done just the opposite! Drinking sea salt (1/4 tsp/20oz water) all day. Helps with muscle cramps and twitches.

[Graham3196 in reply to DicCarlson]

Run this past your doctor at your next meeting and he will probably be worried that you might not be paying any bills soon. Most doctors think salt causes high blood pressure and shorter lives. I have heard of people using substitute chemical instead of sodium chloride. It might work as well or better.

I dont want to guess what the compound is because I am not certain.

[DicCarlson in reply to Graham3196]

If I trusted my doctor to know anything I might. But - they are Rx pushing and not really health pushing. Just Google "why salt is not the culprit" Here's one result - salt is probably not linked to hypertension... empoweredsustenance.com/sal...