RLS and Parkinson's

[tacomvti]

Ihave RLS and at times very bad. I am also being checked for Parkinson's. Does any one have both and is it common?

[Madlegs1]

They are not connected,except by medication.

They have different pathways of cause and while the symptoms of jittering may be common, they are not the same

[Eryl]

I have found that sugar and high carb foods are a trigger for me, and I recently read that avoiding sugar and carbs can help M.S. sufferers. Carbs are implicated in fibromyalgia, I.B.S. migraine, and other neurological conditions. It is thought that sugar and carb intake affect the gut microbiome which is increasingly thought to affect our 'second brain' the gut. If you're interested, read a book called 'Gut' by Gulia Enders. Another theory is that sugar is an imflammatory, and may cause inflammation and hence sensitivity of nerve receptors. Anyway, being another neurological condition, it may be worth investigating whether a change in diet might give reief from parkinsons.

[Bajatom in reply to Eryl]

Highly refined carbs yes, but complex carbs such as potatoes, whole grains, beans and winter squash feed good micro organisms. Meat and dairy feed the bad ones:

nutritionfacts.org/topics/m...

[Graham3196 in reply to Bajatom]

Its easy to think of good food being good for you. An apple a day ... But when it comes to food intolerance or allergies "good" is stuff you can eat and "bad" is everything else. Hence a good experienced dietician can help you apply a strict exclusion diet and then go through an orderly process to find out exactly what foods, or perhaps naturally occurring chemicals, your are allergic/intolerant to. Its quite likely that food doesn't affect your symptoms so the exclusion diet will give you no relief. If your lucky you will find a small list of foods that have to be permanently excluded from what you eat or strictly limited in the amount you eat. Its then a matter of balancing the joy of crunching a slightly acid apple against ruining your day in some unpleasant way. Very character building!

I just mention that a diet called the FODMAP diet, with a couple of extra exclusions, has proved to be very helpful to me. Not perfect but close.

I have a close friend with Parkies and their specialist does not recommend a diet. But then doctors aren't always correct.

Cheers

Graham

[Eryl in reply to Bajatom]

Yes I agree that complex, unprocessed carbs do help the gut but you can get similar nutrition and health benefits from other foods without so many carbs. No matter how much good stuff you throw at the gut if you're still feeding it with a lot of bad you won't get very far. I don't take the supposedly healthy prebiotics. I just have porridge for breakfast every day and keep away from processed foods as much as I can.

[Parminter]

I believe that Parkinson's patients are fairly likely to get RLS.

The opposite is unusual. RLS does not progress to PD.

[Kaarina Administrator in reply to Parminter]

My neighbour had RLS many, many years before she was diagnosed with Parkinsons. I have been given to understand they are not related except as Madlegs says, by medication.

[nightdancer]

Agree with what madlegs said. There is no connection according to the latest research. You can have both, but RLS does not cause Parkinson's, just some of the same meds are used in some cases. Much higher doses for Parkinson's, RLS doses are miniscule compared to a Parkinson's dose. We would call them "co morbid" conditions, or basically, 2 things at once that are not related. Like you can have headaches and RLS, but they are not connected. Most of us do have more than one disease we are dealing with, the lucky ones "only" have RLS, which is more than enough by itself. They like to check for Parkinson's to rule it out mostly. Back in the old days, it was thought they were connected, but it was only theory and not true.

[tacomvti in reply to nightdancer]

Agree with you. I am in iron infusions at the present time.Have had 3 out of 6 sessions.Before the 3 infusions I was taking 12mg Ropinirole a day,now 6mg.

Other replies were correct relation between RLS and Parkinson's.I have on this med

1 and 1/2 years from .5mg to 2mg pill. 12mg per day got me some sleep very few bad sessions.So maybe Parkinson's is first.Went to Gainesville UV of florida for tests and thats how the iron infusion came about.