Cupping

[violetta254]

I take 10 mg of methadone which works most of the time except when I get too much exercise or get dehydrated or get too little exercise or lots of other unknown reasons and I wake up in the middle of the night with RLS. The most surefire way for me to go back to sleep with no RLS is to use Chinese acupuncture cups, kind of like suction cups, but not to find meridians or trigger points but to suction the skin on my legs and move the fascia around. I just suction all around my legs and run the cups up and down my thighs and calves. I often also do it to my torso, front and back, as that was its original purpose which was to help to loosen up scar tissue on my abdomen. I immediately feel way more relaxed and often go to sleep in minutes.

You can get a set of cups on Amazon for about $30 and really only need the biggest one and maybe a small curved one for neck and arms. But you have to buy the set. It usually takes about 10 minutes to do my whole body or 5 minutes or less to just do my legs. If you do try it, tell me how it goes. I have never seen any information about this before, just stumbled into it after using it for scar tissue. I am not sure it can be used as stand alone therapy, I have just used it as a supplement to drugs.

[ChrisColumbus]

The suction cups can improve blood circulation: I certainly found a circulatory element to my RLS so glad it helps you. Dehydration, too much or too little exercise, and other things like too much sugar, artificial sweeteners, caffeine, alcohol etc - particularly in the evenings - are all common triggers. (You probably know that the Mayo Algorithm gives the usual effective dose of methadone for RLS is in the range of 5-20 mg). Good luck!

[violetta254 in reply to ChrisColumbus]

Any higher dose of methadone and I would become a zombie!

[ChrisColumbus in reply to violetta254]

You'll know best on that front: good that you've found another form of relief. Weren't you/are you still taking dipyridamole?

[violetta254]

Dipyridamole was not effective at all, perhaps even counterproductive. And gave me a very bad headache. I reread the study and they used only medication naive RLS patients, or never had taken a drug for RLS. So not terribly promising for others.