[CorasMama]

I have Restless Leg Syndrome, even when not pregnant, but not every night. Now it's every night. Nonpregnant, I take Neurontin for it, but that's got some problems (birth defects observed in animal trials.)

I have tried:

exercising
not exercising
getting out of bed for a while
Magnesium + Calcium (varied dosage, trying to experiment)
Ambien
Night Time Leg Calm (my other prior go-to solution, now to no avail)
potassium
less potassium
sleeping on my stomach (used to be the best option, now belly's too big)
more water
less water
epsom salts baths
distraction

And it's not working. My doc said I should see a neurologist, but the wait is like, a month, and I'm not sleeping.

HELP!

 

[ivymae]

A good friend of mine found that cutting all sugar out of her diet made a huge difference. They actually went on the Schwarzbein diet as a preventive measure when they found out her husband was prediabetic, but as a byproduct she found that her RLS all but disappeared. Just another thing to look into!

 

[Rowansmama]

Okay, this sounds totally insane, but my mom swears by putting an unwrapped bar of Dove soap by her feet (under the covers) in bed. She read this in a Dr. Gott column years ago and has been doing it ever since. She swears it works. Might be worth a try!

 

[prancie]

the best remedy for me was to take a really hot shower and then go straight from the shower to bed. It calmed the RLS down for long enough so that I fell asleep.

 

[MaerynPearl]

Quote:

Originally Posted by prancie the best remedy for me was to take a really hot shower and then go straight from the shower to bed. It calmed the RLS down for long enough so that I fell asleep.

my doctor recommended a hot bath or shower before I was able to get a sleep study done to find out why I couldnt sleep at night (I was diagnosed with RLS from the sleep study though I dont see the symptoms of it while awake.. it happens after I start drifting off and wakes me back up) even though we didnt know what was wrong... it did help at least for a little while, until my legs cooled off. Maybe try a heating pad on just your legs?

I understand your frustration... my #1 cure is to sleep on my stomach also but lately (at only 10 weeks!) my stomach just is not comfortable with that position anymore.

With DD and DS pregnancies (I did not have the sleep study done until this time last year so this was before we knew what my problem was) I would take tylenol simply sleep or benedryl before bed (they are the same medicine and knock me out better than ambien could)

Also, if you think stress may be a trigger for your RLS (for some it does indeed make it worse) aromatherapy may help as well, like lavender.

 

[CorasMama]

unfortunately, most of my RLS is secondary, meaning triggered by something else, and one of my biggest triggers is that family of antihistamines (diphenhydramine, promethazine, etc.)

I've tried the warm baths. No luck. I think I may have to let the neurologist prescribe something and take the risks, because I can't go another 3-4 months without sleep.

MaerynPearl: try getting a wedge pillow, then two regular pillows. Put the wedge pillow with the thick end at the head of your bed, then the regular pillows in a "V" shape just at/below the thin part. Lie with the pokey part of your abdomen at the thinnest part of the wedge pillow, so the regular pillows support your hips. (You may not need the regular pillows in this setup, it's just how I was most comfy until I got too big for this about a week ago.) I also piled a couple of regular pillows at the head of the bed before the wedge pillow, to support my head, as I'm kinda long.

 

[Yiskah64]

My iron level was low and I found that a few weeks after I started taking supplements and got it to a high 10 or low 11 the RLS went down a lot.

 

[CorasMama]

they checked, and for some reason, for the first time in my life, my iron levels are great. Don't know why, but they are. It's odd enough that I'm asking them to recheck.