I suffered tremendously from RLS for ten years and could only survive with pramipexole 1.05 mg prolong, a drug that is not approved for RLS in this dose in my country and basically not approved as prolong for RLS at all. Only special doctors were allowed to prescribe it to me as an off-label use.
Now I came into my menopause and from one day to the next I had a terrible surge of symptoms. It was sheer hell! I felt like I was going to die. I was bedridden for four weeks and considered calling the ambulance several times because I could barely stand the suffering and had no clue how to help myself. Then the episode subsided and two weeks later I was back on my feet. THANK GOD! But since this episode started two months ago, my RLS symptoms have been relieved by 90%! I have NOT needed a SINGLE TABLET since then! I have virtually no pain anymore, my legs are only a little restless and most importantly, I can sleep normally again without medication.
Is this a miracle or can some forms of RLS be caused by hormons?
Written by
silkyreg
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Wow you are lucky. Menopause did not make any difference to my RLS before or after and I’m now on HRT patches, I can’t imagine hormones would affect it but maybe I’m wrong hopefully someone on this site will advise. Count your blessings I’m envious.
I think this is wonderful..
I sincerely hope this continues for you and if it does, there's no reason to need an explanation for it.
There are several things you say that are unusual so it is certainly is intriguing.
I am so pleased for you - long may it continue. Unfortunately I had the opposite experience and my own RLS became much worse through and after the menopause. We are all so different!
I think there may be a hormonal connection for some of us with RLS. I know my RLS seems to follow a monthly pattern. the week before my period my RLS gets worse, then seems to ease back off a few days after my period starts. So its during the time when my estrogen and is lowest and progesterone higher I think. and when Estrogen is higher my symptoms are lower.
I know that my cortisol levels seem to stay pretty high. (hey lack of good sleep and anxiety will do that to you! but its not good.) I'm pretty sure that is playing into things too.
But I really don't understand it all
Anyway, I'm glad you have found relief. and I hope it is here to stay!
Well, you and the others reported, that the menopause worsed their RLS. Makes sense as menopause is like being pregnant and many pregnat women suffer of RLS their first time in their live.
Alternative explanation: due to Corona I only go shopping if really neccessary. That means that I often times don't have juice at home or don't want to drink what I have in storage. But what I had were multivitamin resp. vitamin c effervescent tablets. Some days I dissoluted up to 2 multivitamin PLUS 2 vitamin c effervescent tablets. I thought: well that's a hell of a lot of vitamins! Is this health harming or indeed good for you as the recommendations in my country are much lesser than in other countries?However, my experience is following:
1. my intermittend fasting plan soothes my RLS and as soon as go away from it my RLS make me suffer.
2. either menopause or "overdosing" vitamins soothed my RLS so much that I don't need any medication anymore
3. number 2 is in opposite to number 1 not a long term oberservation so
4. I recommend to everyone who suffers from RLS to try number 1: intermittend fasting, that means either one day eat one day fast or eat for 8 hours and fast for 16 hours. This maybe very hard but helped me tremendously!
Thanks for your warning but as you certainly read did I take Pramipexol for many years and so know about its augmentation. That's why I had additional medication as alternative at home: Neupro Patches, Restex, etc. Pramipexol worked best for me and I suffered deepest hell when augmentation started. I had to switch to the other medacations but they didn't help me by far as good as Pramipexol. I had to suffer for some weeks, couldn't sleep for up to 40 hours even with the alternative medications etc. until my body cleaned up and reacted to Pramipexol again in the usual way.
That's fantastic. Can you confirm you're not taking any medication at all for RLS? Usually if someone stops taking such a high dose of pramipexole, the Withdrawal symptoms are horrendous.
How could I confirm it than my bare word of honor??? Last night was very bad, my RLS woke me up several times BUT all in all I slept 10 hours WITHOUT ANY MEDICATION!!! And I guess I know why the last night was bad: I sinned against my INTERMITTEND FASTING for some days. I am an addict to eating, intermitting fasting is hell to me, but nevertheless, I try to keep to my schedule: 8 hours eat, 16 hours fast, and if I keep my intermittend schedule my RLS slow down TREMENDOUSLY!!! If I start to interrupt the INTERMITTING FASTING about 2 weeks later I AM IN RLS HELL AGAIN!
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