After watching the video about what can cause Parkinson’s that was posted on this website, I started thinking about inflammation, and inflammation of the body and gut. I found this website from the gluten free society who have found correlation between gluten and rls.
My husband who has had RLS for 30 years and is weaning himself off of ropinerole right now and just got diagnosed celiac disease. He has been on the gluten free diet for 2 months now and in the last month has had no RLS ( he is also tapering with Buprenorphine 5 mg patch so that is definitely working too). Don’t know if it would have made a difference but is worth a consideration.
Some have found that going gluten free (or keto, or paleo, or ...) has helped them, but others say that they have tried every diet under the sun to no effect:
This 2020 RLS Foundation Blog states "While there is little evidence suggesting that gluten causes or exacerbates RLS, limited research has shown a link between gluten ingestion and changes in bacteria in the gut, which may result in SIBO"
Those who have tried "every diet under the sun," have they tried simply not eating at all for a day or two, rather than basically making wild guesses about what is causing the problem by eliminating things helter-skelter?
I see there are others who find relief by such things as going gluten-free, and I see this as having made a lucky guess as to the causes, while others have not guessed correctly.
I'm getting to sound like a broken record, but for those of you who have NOT tried distilled-water fasting, strongly consider trying it for a day or two. Short term fasting is not bad for you, and you may get a result that prompts you to investigate further. I was fasting not on purpose but because I had a severe digestive tract illness last April, and I went days without eating anything, and almost without drinking anything, because it was either coming back up or going right through or both. It was not fun, but my RLS went away while I was not eating. That prompted me to figure out what foods were doing it, and for me it is lectins, much larger than "just" gluten, and frankly, I can eat a small amount of white flour without a problem. But I surely cannot eat whole grains or whammo with the RLS.
Even if you are not coeliac, gluten causes leaky gut which means that you will absorb sugars (starch as found in bread is a bunch of glucose molecules weakly bonded together and enzymes in your saliva break apart) quicker which causes a larger spike in insulin which is the cause of the inflammation which is the root of RLS.
I think there is a leaky gut component for many, including me, because if I strictly avoid lectins I have no RLS. Gluten of course is from wheat which also has lectins. And for celiacs, there is verifiable damage to the villi in the small intestine. Since my RLS manifests several hours after I eat lectin-containing foods, to me it is obvious that there is a leaky gut thing going on, and I am addressing that as best I can along with avoiding lectins.
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