I recently went to see a neurologist. A very nice man who spoke well about his experience with RLS. He listened to my story and was very supportive. Made me feel better and reassured. When it came time to make a treatment plan he recommended a neuro patch, Rotigotine 1mg increasing to 2mg in a week for RLS and 2-4mg of melatonin for sleep, to start.
Having been educated by this forum I will further discuss the inclusion of a DA and the prescribed jump in dosage but was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on or experience with melatonin? Not sure if I read here that it makes RLS worse?
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Covenant1962
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Melatonin will trigger RLS. Especially at the ridiculously high doses that are still being prescribed.Newest research indicates that less is better. 300 to 500 MCG should be adequate, without too much side effects. That's a tenth of usual dose.
How to get such a small dose, I hear you shouting! Well!!!! Get the liquid form ( internet) I get the 1 mg dose and use the dropper to graduate the dose down. 1 dropper full is 1 mg, so not too difficult to figure out a tenth of that! Or whatever.
Has worked well for me. I only use it for about 2 or 3nights at any one time.
That's interesting, Madlegs. I recently heard that also - RLS sufferers who previously found they could not tolerate melatonin now taking a dose of 0.75 mg and finding it has a huge beneficial impact on their rls associated insomnia. I was thinking of giving it a try.
Great to know, Madlegs, thanks. I tried melatonin years back and I was up all night, totally wired. Maybe I will try the lower dosage. The dosage I used was from a store bought supplement, so no doubt WAY too high.
Some find it helpful in low doses. but really not recommended for RLS, especially if you're older.
A natural way of boosting melatonin levels is to get as much exposure to natural (full spectrum) light during the day and avoid it at night. i.e. no flourescent or LED lights, avoid backlit devices, TV, PC, laptop etc unless they have a blue filter.
Indeed-- way too much. One tenth of that should be the max dose for anyone.The current dosing regime of between 2mg and 5 mg is based on outdated research, and has led to so many side effects, that have given melatonin such a bad name.
I get liquid melatonin from " Vitasunn". 1mg. Which can be divided very easily by using the supplied dropper.
Of late I'm using a 3mg time release from Natrol but for a long time I would use a 1mg sublingual tablet - broken into 4 pieces about 0.25mg. It's all you need to initiate sleep.
I would be more concerned with the inclusion of a DA in your treatment when it is NOT a first line treatment anymore.
As others have advised, I would think again about starting a dopamine agonist. If you have never taken one before, you are in the fortunate group of people who have not experienced augmentation. This means that other treatment options have a better chance of success. These include iron therapy (iron infusion with injectafer - depending on your serum ferritin), alpha2delta ligands (pregabalin/gabapentin) and - based on a recent study which showed a high degree of efficacy in treatment naive subjects - dipyridamole. All these options are less likely to be effective for those who have been through dopamine agonist induced augmentation.
Then, if all else fails, you could resort to a dopamine agonist. This way you keep more options open.
Till 3mg melatonin dose usually doesn't aggravate symptoms but beyond that can make it worse for most. Its up to you to try and decide whether its helpful for you or its affecting otherwise.
I avoid melatonin like the plague. It was one of the first otc things I tried when my rls progressed to giving me insomnia. After taking the recomended dosage I my rls became many times worse than it have ever been moving from my legs only to my legs, back, shoulders, and arms. It left me wiggling my whole body for many hours instill it finely wore off. I would say if a doctor recomended it for rls he isnt very well informed on the subject. I would find a different doctor.
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