No more hot feet and much less RLS

[davidadill]

After about two years of taking 65 mg of iron every other night along with 125 mg of vitamin C, I no longer have hot feet when I get into bed. A Harvard study reported that taking it every other night is more effective and another study showed that taking iron with vitamin C is beneficial. More importantly, for the last 10 days I have not been awakened by RLS. I am continuing to take 24 mg of codeine each night along with 1.5 mg of robinerole and 200 mg of gabapentin. My hope is that eventually the iron pills will mean that I do not need the other drugs, but that is still a dream rather than reality.

[Hidden]

I'm pleased for you. Things appear to be going well.

It is advisable to take vitamin C or a glass of orange with the iron, it does help absorption.

Taking it every other day may also help absorption. Then again it might not. However either way it may not make it less effective and it's gentler on the digestive system.

Good your meds are working for you. I would suggest if they do start to lose effectiveness, do NOT increase the ropinirole. You could however easily increase the gabapentin, 200mg is a very low dose.

[Hidden]

Glad to hear things are good!👍

[DicCarlson]

Have you had your iron levels tested to support continuing the iron supplements? I'm so nervous of "going the other way" and getting into iron overload, especially now with testing somewhat unavailable (Covid-19).

[davidadill in reply to DicCarlson]

18 months ago my iron levels were very low. I have not had them tested recently. My legs still bother me when I sit too long during the day, so I assume that the iron levels are still somewhat low.

[Barbie1020]

If your iron levels are low iron males sense. Ferritin iron level is important t to have checked. Some people have a normal iron reading, but there ferritin is low. That can cause or aggravate RLS symptoms.

[Eryl]

Many of the dark leafy green veg have loads of vitamin c and iron, especially things like kale. I believe that kale has more vitamin c than orange juice, but no sugar.

[Loopylegs]

My dad suffers with these exact symptoms, he's swears by Indian tonic water before bed, the quinine in it helps, I've tried tonic water but it doesn't work for me, my blood test showed low ferritin so I was put on a 6 week iron course but it made no difference, perhaps I need to stay on iron for longer, that's very positive that the iron is helping your symptoms, codeine doesn't work for me anymore

[davidadill in reply to Loopylegs]

For how long have you not been using codeine? I find that when it becomes less effective (usually after 2-3 months), then I have to take a painful holiday from it for about 2 weeks. After that the efficacy returns. On the first night that I use it the efficacy is poor, but on the second night it is much better. Of course, I never use more than 24 mg of codeine each night and take it about 30 minutes before bedtime. After the holiday I start with 16 mg of codeine and then slowly increase the dose over a few weeks. I am not sure if a two week holiday would be enough if you are using much higher doses.