Any sufferers of Restles Leg Syndrome here? I've a eureka moment to share!

I've been suffering increasingly from RLS, and recently it's been driving me mad. It's all over the place, not just in my legs (apparently, even when it's the whole body, it's still called 'Restless Leg Syndrome'!)

I've tried to mitigate it with cannabis, but to no effect. Finally, I've found something which helps immeasurably: quinine. Quinine is traditionally used to combat the muscle spasms which accompany malaria. I've found that a glass or two of slimline tonic water stops the RLS in its tracks. If you're a sufferer, let me know if it works for you too...

I usually get it after eating alot of sugary foods, it drives me mad pal,although not enough to put me off eatin my munch

What is restless leg dissorder?.iv been driving my misses mad with my right leg twitching in bed at night is that down the same lines.

That sounds like it. Sounds like some made up illness, but it's for real. Even some GPs haven't heard of it!

hxxp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restless_leg_syndrome

I wish.
I've got RLS, its a part of the peripheral neuropathy that's spreading from my back.
Tonic would be cool - I could have a nice G&T!
But as it is, its 600mg of Pregabalin. Which works, even if it has nasty side-effects.

Its worth trying to find out why you've got this. Because, and I dont want to alarm you, but it can be the start of something a tad more tricky to deal with. Of course it can be quite simply on its own and mean nothing, too. Have you had it thoroughly checked out?

I have it (or rather I'm always jiggling my legs when sitting down or in bed), but I think it's more to do with my manic episodes than muscle spasms/restless leg syndrome so I'm not sure quinine would work, but I'll buy some tonic water next time I'm out and give it a go. I may have to add some vodka though

i get it reallly bad if i dont smoke or vape any weed. but i used to get it for no reason even when i had weed(not that often with weed tho), id find myself kinda sitting down but joggin on the spot with my legs to get rid of it but it never worked i found it helped but not all the time, i havnt had it in a while though must be 6 months maybe more. maybe something to do with cannabinoid profiles of diff strains but i dunno,
weird an annoying shit that RLS is its jus like youve got to walk or do something with your legs they jus cant stay still. so fucked up, havnt been to the doctor as it doesnt happen that much any more. thankfully.
i googled it one day actually googling restless leg syndrome kinda on a piss take jus to see if anyone else had experienced it an found its an actual medical condition

Nice one Eddie - interesting stuff I'll get some tonic water, cheers Weed doen't make any diffarence to my clonus (gallopy leg) and neither does Baclofen (apart from giving me an exaggerated slur, so I quit it). I'll be fascinated to see if quinine does the trick

e2a - I just googled it Eddie and there's a decent info source at NINDS (National Institute of Neurological Disorders). I'm sure you'll have seen it already, but just in case it's helpful

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/restles...stless_legs.htm

Ninds are sound

e again to a: I think clonus and RLS are diffarent, looking at it - the only time the my left hand side limbs stop twitching and freaking since March are when I lie down. I'll still try quinine on the off-chance though - thanks man

Cheers for the heads up Arnie, much obliged. I mentioned it to my doc, but it's part of such a long litany of symptoms I get from hypersensitive coeliac disease that she doesn't single out particular symptoms as worthy of special attention. As far as I am aware, RLS isn't uncommon among coeliac sufferers, so I guess the cause is probably that...

Thanks for the link Arbuscule; I checked the site and searched for quinine. This following Q and A is what I found - it includes a reference to a 1995 study which showed that 27% of respondents with leg cramps achieved relief from the use of quinine:

TITLE 1: “Ask the Doctor”
DATE: August 2000
AUTHOR/S: Dr. Mark Buchfuhrer

Q. My mother, who is 91, has had severe RLS symptoms for years; I have occasional cramps (so far) but cannot sit through an evenings’ entertainment without looking like I have attention deficit disorder. I previously used Q-Vel with success when I knew I would be attending a theater performance, for instance. Then suddenly, several years ago, the product was taken off the market. What can you tell me about the use of quinine and why Q-Vel-type products were removed from the shelves?

A. Quinine sulfate is an alkaloid derived from the cinchona tree and was originally used as a treatment for malaria. It was then found to be helpful for muscle cramps and has been widely used for this problem. Many physicians have recommended quinine for RLS due to mistaking the patient’s RLS complaints for leg cramps or incorrectly thinking that quinine is an effective treatment for RLS. A small percentage of RLS sufferers (less than 5%) will get some relief with quinine, but most do not get any help from this medication.

Quinine sulfate was available as an over-the-counter product (Q-Vel by Ciba, Legatrin by Columbia, etc.) until February 22, 1995. The FDA had two reasons for making this decision. The first was that the FDA did not find sufficient evidence to demonstrate that quinine was effective for leg cramps. Until 1995 the effectiveness of quinine was based mainly on case reports. In 1995, Man-Son-Hing and Wells performed a study systematically examining the effect of quinine sulfate on legs cramps. The study showed that quinine, over a four week period, reduced the number of cramps by 27% but did not improve the severity or duration of the attacks.

The second reason was due to 157 adverse reports that the FDA received for quinine between 1969 and 1992. Of these, 60 were considered serious reactions: death (16), hospitalizations (40) and disabilities (4). The FDA also found that the incidence of side effects has been increasing during the last four years of the reporting period. On February 22, 1995, the FDA banned all over-the-counter quinine-containing products labeled for use in treating leg cramps. The FDA also concluded that prescription quinine can no longer be labeled for leg cramps because “data do not support the safe and effective use of these products at any dose under the care of a health care practitioner in the treatment and or prevention of nocturnal leg cramps.” Since 1995, the only approved use of quinine is the treatment of malaria. It is still used extensively for leg cramps, but this is now considered an off-label use of quinine and patients should be made aware of the risks (hypersensitivity reactions, headache, vomiting, tinnitus, cardiac arrhythmias, visual problems, liver and kidney problems, convulsions, coma) of taking this medication compared to its potential benefits.

Dr. Mark Buchfuhrer

Gallatin Medical Clinic

Downey, CA

Hi Eddie,
My friend has RLS badly, and her district nurse recommended tonic water for the quinine a few weeks ago, and she has found total relief from it
Just to say though that the slimline has the dreaded aspartame in it, which she has no desire to imbibe, so the not slimline ones (which are surprisingly hard to find) are better for her.
Glad to hear it worked for you
Owlz

hi eddie.

thanks for mentioning the quinine. i'll pick up some tonic water tomorrow and give it a try. though i might be tempted to pick a bottle of gin at the same time.........

but that's a no no at the moment as i promised my liver a holiday till next year.

You're welcome Eddie, as ever. What you say makes perfect sense, like me you have an obvious causative factor.
Must admit, I haven't had a tonic drink in ages, used to imbibe a few G&T'sd every day (at least). I may try it (minus gin, alcahol's a big no-no with me nowadays), and come slowly off the pregabalin. Be interesting to see how it works. Last time I ditched the pregabalin I thought my legs would fall off, they went absolutely mad! Be good to come off that toxic gear, I can tell you.

Crikey yes, pharmaceuticals are a pain in the arse compared to more natural methods such as cannabis! Although quinine hydrochloride isn't without its own side effects or dangers, according to the article earler in the thread. Apparently, quinine was taken off the FDA's prescribable list (save for malaria) due to problems including: hypersensitivity reactions, headache, vomiting, tinnitus, cardiac arrhythmias, visual problems, liver and kidney problems, convulsions, coma, and even death!

I can't stand the stuff without the gin, as it goes, but it's worthwhile if it provides relief. I quit the gin ten years ago after I developed a certain magnetic attraction to alcohol which was more powerful than my ability to resist...

Thanks Eddie!

Mrs. Sparkle suffers quite a bit with RLS from time to time. I'm even growing Satori at the moment as one of it's claimed medicinal uses is in treatment of RLS



Who knows I shall sort Mrs. Sparkle a G&T pronto and also let you know if she finds Satori any use, not that you'll need it if Quinnine is sorting the problem




Hmmm She does have a sweet tooth mind you....

If I remember rightly we had a few sufferers at Bud Buddies and Pot of Gold seemed to be the most effective strain

Eddie quine for RLS its mostly neuropathic in nature, you could have a similar trait, that belongs within the cramps spasm and tendon twitching , this does respond to Quinine,

Arnold said it, Pregabalin and Amyltriptaline does work for the neuro induced RLS, it does for me.

A good test to see if its Neuro induced the tuning fork and reaction of said implement on the muscles.

Pleased you found something for the symptoms

A friend of mine must have had rls since childhood, because whenever he stayed over night in the spare room who used to be laying on his stomach fast a sleep but his left leg would constantly lift up his lower leg from the knee until it was at a right angle (pointing straight upwards) and then it was like as if his muscles relaxed once his lower leg was pointing upwards, then it would just slump down on to the mattress, he would repeat this every few seconds for the whole night, even if I slept over at his house, but I had to sleep on the floor in his room right next to his bed because it was a box type room and it drove me bonkers and kept me a wake most of the night many times. By the sounds of everyone else’s experience, he may be still suffering with this to date.

Peace,
GG

I suffer terribly from this, as I type now my right leg is connected to the floor by my toes and my knee is going up and down as fast as a sewing machine I usually sit with my left leg raised up off the floor, otherwise the single foot shaking becomes a rhythmic drumming of both feet. When I walk my hands sometimes start going, small movement but fast shaking.

At night time when I am in comfartable surroundings and smoked up it subsides a little but I then get these often intense creepy crawley feelings in my legs, drives me mad the itching. Then when I sleep the itching subsides and the leg shaking turns into jerks/kicks, my missus bares the brunt of this and is careful each night to not get to close to me.

I used to be prescribed Amyltriptaline for my jaw spasms/post surgical treatment, doctors took me off it because they said I had been on it far too long. It may have helped a little am unsure, memory is foggy these days. Am going to give the Tonic water a try though and I will report my findings, thanks for that info Eddie, good to know theres more of you twitchers out there

I often feel this is all some nervous disposition/reaction to stress in my life, sometimes I wonder though whether I am just finely tuned to the metrenome of my body, the twitches never slow beyond my heartbeat(long strokes) and vary between that and warp speed (short vibrations)

If only cannabis worked on its own! Ah well, at least it does for some folks, lucky so-and-so's!
I read your list of side-effects till the "cardiac" bit, then stopped. That kind of rules me out then, I suppose. Just about got the angina thing sorted, don't want to excite that all over again now! Mind you, think I'll chat with the Doc about it next time I see her.

Magnetic attraction huh? Aye, been there, got me a T!

its something i never think about nowadays, its when i'm tired it affects me most, my mum ued to tell me it was growing pains when i was a kid, i should be 20ft tall by now.

sorry guys didnt realise it was a propper medical condition,my aches seem unimportant compared

when im sat down

my right leg is moving up and down fast as fuck, i can do it forever

is this what you are talkin about???

Nah, that's called "Slayer's Kick Drum Leg".

@ Eddiesilence


Neuropathy can indeed be a cause of RLS. Min twitch gently now, but come off the Prgabalin and within 24 hours I'm kicking & twitching like a demented robot!

My sympathies to your mother, Neuropathy is a bastard, its very debilitating. My feet are so sensitive sometimes that even a light sock can feel like a red-hot lead casing, most unpleasant. And when I walk, its as if I have a shoe full of searing hot Lego bricks -
Thankfully, Pharma meds are helping reduce the symptoms nicely; hope your mum finds the same

Thanks for this Eddie - I'm going to give it a go...

I get it bad... usually when I'm over-tired

But it comes in acute bouts rather than being chronic (thank goodness) so I just have to keep myself a little active until it goes away (I have no other impairments other than I live in a very small flat!)...

Like you say - it can often feel like a whole-body restlessness.

Smoking weed (especially a strong indica) seems to make it worse so I generally dont smoke if I'm too tired...

ATB

Stan

Ive been getting this for some years, usually a good hard walk (if your able to) during the day does the trick.

Self-help tips for Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS)
During the day At bedtime

* Exercise regularly.
* Wrap your legs in ace bandages, or wear compression stockings or tight pantyhose.
* Take iron supplements for low iron levels. Be sure to get tested first.
* Stand up – Elevate your desk or stand at work if possible.
* Reduce caffeine, alcohol, and tobacco use, particularly in the evenings. These substances often increase symptoms.
* Keep a regular sleep schedule.



* Pace, walk, or jog for a few minutes to relieve discomfort.
* Stretch your legs, do knee bends, or rotate your ankles.
* Massage your legs.
* Relax with meditation, yoga, or deep breathing.
* Apply heat or cold. Take a bath or soak your feet in hot water, briefly use a heating pad or cold compresses, or apply a hot water bottle.
* Lie on your side with a pillow between your knees to initiate sleep.
* Get up – Fighting the urge to move might make the feelings worse.

No.
In fact, the very opposite. RLS is one of the symptoms I find gets intensified by cannabis, so I avoid smoking when my legs are feeling really bad. Same with facial neuraligia - cannabis is not what I want at all when that flares up, oh dearie me, no!



I have arthritis too, and in my case cannabis is of no analgesic value. I've never found it relieved any of the symptoms, be that pain, or stiffness or just general disacomfort in a joint or joints. But some folks use it with good effect, so I guess its down to the individual.
A Cannabis cream rubbed into the joints is said to be good.