I am on a vacation right now and for the first time in 60 years, I have been such a mess. My legs are proving unstoppable for the last 3 days exhausting me to the point that I am thinking of cutting short and going back home. Do you have any suggestions for the remaining week and a half which could help me get through this.
I'm currently taking 150mg pregablin, 0.25 Requip(started after 2 1/2 week break from 0.0625mg of Pramipexole) and 50 mg tramadol. Nothing is working.
I'm so annoyed and sad and angry. I don't know what to do.
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Heatherlss
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That is a bummer! If you want to experiment and have enough meds to do so, do one at a time. Because, if you don't get a minimum amount of sleep it will just get worse. But I think you know that.
Given the previous, if I were you in your current situation, I would either take a double dose of tramadol (i.e. 100 mg) or a double dose of Requip (i.e. 0.5 mg). If these (doubled) doses of either of these meds will prove to be sufficient for you, they should work right away. That is, after their normal absorption time. Pregabalin usually take several weeks to give relief, so is less easier to play around with. Then, if this works, you can try to reduce to 1.5 dose after a few nights of good sleep. Or you could wait until you have returned home. Whatever you decide, I hope the symptoms settle soon.
This is awful, you do have my sympathy. I imagine you were looking forward to your vacation and I can understand you being disappointed and angry.
I have noticed your progress over the last 9 minths when I recall you seemed to have your symptoms under control with a very small dose of pramipexole and things seemed to have gone haywire since.
I'm wondering if you went home now, would you feel any better at home than you are feeling where you are. I presume it's somewhere nice that you wanted to go thinking there would be things you could enjoy doing.
I think Lotte's suggestions are well worth following, I have always thought your fears about the possible consequences of your medicines have limited their effectiveness.
You're on vacation, give yourself a break from your RLS and by all means take more Requip, I doubt if you're going to slip into full blown augmentation within a couple of weeks.
I appreciate you may be feeling fatigued and with low energy, but your anxiety will not be helping and a little activity may actually help alleviate some of the fatigue and activity may relieve your symptoms and distract you from them.
Terrible when the damned RLS ruins your holiday!!!
Something that might work in a few days if you are very lucky is your diet. Perhaps there is something in the local food or drink.
Starting today you can avoid caffiene - (use decaf tea and coffee and no hot chocolate), sugar, lactose in milk, butter and most cheese (you can eat soft cheese like brie or Camembert and old tasty or vintage cheese) and avoid gluten or anything with wheat in it. I think cutting out alcohol would be worth while as well. I carry around my own decaf coffee and most shops will sell me hot water but lactose free milk is rare and its probably impractical for you to carry a bottle of milk around with you so you might have to take it black. Also cut out onions and garlic.
Unfortunately it can't be guaranteed but in my case most of my RLS is related to what I eat. Just avoiding gluten originally gave me a lot of relief after just a few days.
Its better than going home if there are interesting things to do during the day!!
I will send a private message with a list of things that might help but most of them are medium term rather than likely to have an immediate effect.
Again cutting out gluten had an almost overnight effect on me but that doesn't guarantee it will do the same for me.
If you can buy some iron supplement, iron biglycinide is best, then take a few iron tabs every second night with vitamin C or orange juice. Best on an empty stomach. Some people find an immediate improvement with this but usually its the start of a long process to raise your blood ferritin level.
Thank you for asking. I had been away trying to run far away from this RLS mess. Still got a week to go for my vacation to end. It has been up and down in this period. Some nights I have increased Requip while some nights increased Tramadol. Since I'm on a vacation, I'm eating as much as I can. I mean its vacation !!!!
Thank you for your suggestions. I look forward to trying them when I return.
Thank you so much people for your advice. I am a bit skeptical about increasing Requip. I'm thinking if I can get some Pramipexole here I would rather take that than increasing Requip to 0.5mg. I don't know. I'm so tired.
I have been taking Pregablin for 3 months now. It worked well for 2 months but since the last few weeks, it has become powerless. Same with Tramadol, which used to be my rescue medication.
Hi Heather, I don't know where you are. But generally it is not easy to get prescription meds in another country. You may need a written order from your gp. And it may be easier to get more of what you already take than to get switched to another med.
If you rather take pramipexole than ropinerole, remember that pramipexole is far more potent, so make sure you don't take too much. Just enough to get relief.
Hi heather less so sorry to hear your plight can only offer my recent experience on my recent holiday I almost didn’t go but I’m glad I did I too was experiencing awful rls and although I booked a holiday for 4 weeks before went I cut it to 3 weeks because I thought I wouldn’t tolerate 4. Weeks BUT I don’t know if it was change of scenery or the sunshine or the scocial side but I slept better than I had for a long time. It did take a few days for the benefit to kick in so stay with it and try to relax
Hi Heather, I'm so sorry your holiday has turned out like this. It is so disappointing and frustrating. No wonder you're angry. I would agree with Manerva and Lottie and try to increase the DA or Tramadol. As they say, you should get immediate relief if it's going to help. How long are you away for? It would be such a shame to cut it short and as Manerva says, not a lot can happen in a short time if you do increase. I do hope you get some relief and can try the suggestions. I know I have used Tramadol to good effect in higher doses when the low dose stopped working... As we all know, sleep deprivation can cause RL so even if you can get some sleep, it may help the whole situation. Good luck.
I first visited a Neurologist and got a prescription for RLS when we planned a trip to New Zealand. It helped most of the time, but not enough to sleep on the plane. This past fall we flew to Kenya and Tanzania for a photo safari, and I asked my neurologist for an extra prescription for the trip. He gave me levadopa-carbadopa (or maybe it's carbadopa-levadopa). It helped a lot. My legs tingled, but didn't twitch during the flight, and I got some sleep. I also recommend that you stretch your legs a lot, every chance you get. Possibly you're having trouble sleeping from a change of bed, and different noises, aches and pains due to missing your usual workout or PT or being immobilized, and jet lag? If I lie awake for too long my legs always start to bother me. Find a way to do some of the exercises you might be missing. Maybe a different diet causes trouble? I traveled with a topical cream, Topricin, which helps in the middle of the night. And stretch those calves. I stretch up to 2 minutes, if 30 seconds isn't good enough. I hope something in this helps.
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