A cry for help.

Hello everybody .I am 17 years old boy from the Greece.Ever since the quarantine started i think i have developed RLS.What I am experiencing fits the criteria:an urge to move my legs, strange feeling of crawling ants under skin,it's worse during the night and periods of inactivity and is relieved by movement.It's mild enough to where it doesn't bother me too much but what bothers me is that those symptoms start soon after i wake up and are not only in the afternoon/evening like for most people.I fear that since it is a progressive disease it will get worse in the future and prevent me from doing me from job during the day .It started 4 months ago but the good news is that there were period where i didn't have RLS.The first lasted about 25 days after i had had RLS for a week.The next one lated 2 months and was after i had had RLS for about 2 and a half weeks.The only thing that I did during the periods when i had RLS was take magnesium tablets.They didn't give me instant relief from RLS but i took them because I was defficient and not for the RLS.Could my magnesium defficiency or something else have caused my symptoms.I noticed that they usually come back after I stop taking magnesium tablets for about 3-4 weeks which are basically my main sources of magnesium since i hardly ever eat legumes,nuts,spinach and the sort? My serum iron is 28.8 mmol/l.I and I don't know what my ferritin is.My parents are busy and paired with the thoughts that RLS is just a made up disease the refuse to take me to a neurologist.Please help!

[Madlegs1]

Welcome.

Our experience of Neurologists, from the majority of posters, is that they don't know very much about rls. Your parents will be saving money by not sending you to one !

The fact that the rls comes and goes for you, strongly suggests a trigger.

Can you recall if you had taken anything at those times.?

Medications such as antihistamines or antidepressants?

Almost any processed food. Msg, artificial sweeteners, sulphites ( processed meats eh in pizza??

A food diary can help to pinpoint such events and causes.

All the best.

I'm pretty sure you will find what is causing your problem. More than likely something you really like!!

Cheers.😎

[Hidden in reply to Madlegs1]

I have not taken any antidepressants nor have i taken antihistamines.I have generally noticed that it comes after stressful times in my life .The first time I experiensed it was after my grandpa had been hospitalised for a month due to heart problems,during said month i almost forgot to eat because of worrying.The second time was after a month of anxiety because I had an incoming operation to remove a bening growth from my genetalia(during that time i thought it was cancer).I am currently experiencing RLS sympoms and have been for 3 days .Before my current RLS episode started I was very anxious about my school grades because school here is about to finish.Is that sensible? It happens after periods of continuous stress.It could also be because of sugar because when i am stressed i become the cookie monster.I hadn't eaten sweets in 3 days until yesterday and when I did my legs just started going haywire and twitching left and right.The last thing i can think of is magnesium deficiency because i rarely eat mangesium rich foods like spinach,dairy,legumes and such and each time the return of symptoms coincides whith periods where I hadn't taken my supplements.

Cheers

[Madlegs1 in reply to Hidden]

You've said it yourself ,you cookie monster, you!!!🤪😜

High sugar and rising agents.( Baking powder)

Magnesium supplements are easy to get. In general, the -- ates are best.

[Hidden in reply to Hidden]

It's sounds as if magnesium may be at least part of your problem.

Taking tablets will not work immediately and if you stop taking thrm, the effect will not wear off immediately.

Better then, as Madlegs suggests, just keep taking them.

Thete is also no harm in taking supplements of iron, vitamin B 12 and vitamin D.

Your serum iron is possibly too low for someone with RLS, despite it being normal. Your ferritin is better to be at least 100ug/L.

As Madlegs says, your off and on RLS sounds like there is some trigger.

Added sugar, anything with simple sugars in it or refined carbohydrates can be a trigger. Alcohol is trigger and so is caffeine or nicotine fir some people.

Stress/ anxiety can be a significant trigger for RLS and it would be helpful for you to learn some stress management strategies. These are a great life skill and I wish I'd learned about them when I was your age.

Relaxation exetcise are great, breathing meditation but I always recommend "mindfulness" strategies. These have been researched and found to be very effective fir mild to moderate anxiety and/or depression.

Particularly if these things help your RLS you should avoid seeing a neurologist because they will only prescribe medication, furthermore what they prescribe may cause more harm than good.

If you let your parents read some posts on this site, if their English is OK, they will see how horrible RLS can be.

[Hidden in reply to Hidden]

Thank you .I would show them the site but I fear they know as much english as I do rocket science (which is zero).I will try to find if something is triggering the symptoms.My symptoms are quite mild right now compared to previous times so could that mean that if something is triggering them I am exposed less to?

[Hidden in reply to Hidden]

It is possibly something that you're not currently exposed to.

It's usually something you've ingested i.e. swallowed.

Try keeping a daily diary of what you eat and drink and what your symptoms are like.

That might show a pattern.

[Jumpybean]

Hello there! I’m so sorry you have been afflicted with this awful thing at such a young age and when you still have so much else to contend with in your life. Your English is absolutely superb so I’m sure you will do well in your exams. Nobody who has not suffered it, believes the description of RLS, but don’t worry, we all definitely do!

Lack of sleep pervades every area of your life making the whole world seem darker and making you less able to deal with stress - so I think that a lot of your problems, which seem like separate issues, could be directly caused by lack of sleep - which is caused by your restless legs.

It sounds to me as though your diet is somewhat limited and forgetting to eat suggests that food is a low priority to you. Good nutrition is so vital at your stage in life as you are still growing so I would strongly recommend you take some “gentle iron” (it doesn’t make you constipated) as well as a good multivitamin that includes vitamin D and magnesium. Take them every day. As Manerva says, the effect won’t be immediate so don’t get discouraged. The iron is especially important. Take it about an hour before bed with some vitamin C as that helps it be absorbed by the body - this could be fruit juice or one of those fizzy vitamin C tablets dissolved in water. This “prescription” is what I took and continue to take and it has stopped my RLS completely.

I very much hope that this works for you and wish you all the luck in the world.

[Hidden in reply to Jumpybean]

Thank you for being concerned about me.I will look into buying iron supplements.Were you anemic when you started taking them or were your iron levels in the normal range ?

[Jumpybean in reply to Hidden]

My iron was in the normal range but I was borderline deficient in Vitamin D. I wouldn’t attach too much significance to the “normal” ranges though. It seems to me a bit like saying one pair of shoes should be a perfect fit for every 17 year old boy in the world - when clearly that is not the case. Your particular body might just need or use more of some nutrients than others at different times. Stress, for example, plays havoc with digestion and appetite hormone levels. You may be having a growth spurt and needing more iron, calcium, magnesium - or whatever. That’s why a broad ranging multivitamin is a good place to start. Your body will take whatever it needs and dispose of the rest. (There are some nutrients that the body stores, however, which is why it’s important not to take too much of anything in isolation without medical advice.)

Iron is what worked for me, and looking back over my experiences with RLS I can see that I probably have a tendency to be low/need extra iron in my diet. I’m still taking extra vitamin D on the advice of my doctor, as well as a general supplement.

If your RLS can be cured with an iron supplement, as mine was, then it has to be worth a try.

I wish you all the best and would love to hear how you get on.

[Hidden in reply to Jumpybean]

I will make sure to update you if anything happens.