Nicotine

[PiotrMarszalek]

Hello All,

I have been living with RLS since 2018—not continuously, but in waves lasting a few weeks, followed by breaks before it returns. I haven't identified the trigger. I've tested nearly all the medications mentioned in this forum, except for strong opioids, but with no clear or definitive results. The best effect came from levodopa, but it ultimately led to augmentation—believe me, you wouldn't want to go through that.

I started thinking about what happened in 2018—and eureka! I quit smoking then after over 20 years of addiction!

At first, I tried using nicotine in the form of Nicorette or NiQuitin, but it had no effect—probably due to differences in dosage and/or metabolites compared to smoking. Finally, I decided to smoke. A few cigarettes, one after another, completely stopped my RLS for many days! Now, whenever I feel an attack coming, I smoke one or two cigarettes and find full relief.

Now, my question: do you have any similar experiences with nicotine? Do you have any ideas for taking an appropriate dose of nicotine without smoking?

Greetings,

Piotr

[SueJohnson]

I'm glad you found a solution but you really don't want to smoke. The other methods are better. Perhaps try doubling the dose or more to get the same amount of nicotine.

[ChrisColumbus]

There was a post last month from someone who had success with a nicotine patch:

healthunlocked.com/rlsuk/po...

[ELLSBELLS]

As an ex smoker I would not be tempted to smoke again but when I smoked I used to occasionally run out of cigarettes for a few days and I discovered that when I started smoking again my RLS improved. It was often written on this site that nicotine exacerbated RL S but not in my case. Just another way in which we are all different in our reactions to foods/products/medicinrs.