Why does it "twitch your legs" when you go to bed? What are the causes of restless legs syndrome, how to cope with this disease at home, what medications and folk remedies to use?

Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is:

• a condition characterized by unpleasant sensations in the lower extremities (shins and feet) that occurs when you lie down to sleep.
• a neurotic disorder that can cause exhaustion of the nervous system, deterioration and disorder of attention and memory, decreased performance.
• Other names for the disease that will be discussed: Ekbom or Willis syndrome (after the Swedish neurologist and British doctor who studied the pathology).

Restless legs syndrome leads to sleep disturbance and is the cause of approximately 15% of cases of chronic insomnia.

RLS symptoms most often occur at night or in the evening, but may also appear during the day at rest.

The doctor of medical sciences Buzunova R.V. tells.
Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is a neurological disorder characterized by discomfort in the lower extremities. There is no pain, but there is a burning sensation, tingling, "goosebumps", pressure, twitching - all this makes the patient constantly move his legs or walk, as these symptoms weaken when moving.

Symptoms of RLS worsen in the evening and subside in the morning. At the same time, a person cannot sleep normally, the disease greatly exhausts the nervous system.

Causes of Restless Leg Syndrome

The reasons are not precisely established, sometimes this disease is inherited.
Diabetes mellitus, renal failure, hypothyroidism, anemia, Parkinson's disease contribute to its development, but these diseases are not the main cause of RLS.
Certain medications, such as neuroleptics and lithium preparations, can be the cause of the disease.

Primary and secondary RLS

Distinguish between primary and secondary restless legs syndrome:

• Causes of Primary RLS
  In about 30% of patients, the disease is defined as a hereditary disease. This so-called primary sc. The case when the predisposition to this disease was inherited.
  The causes of primary restless leg syndrome are biochemical processes in the brain, in particular, a lack of dopamine, a substance that regulates motor activity.
• Causes of Secondary RLS
  Secondary RLS develops against the background of other diseases: anemia, with a lack of iron in the body, allergies, against the background of renal failure, spinal injuries, diabetes mellitus, etc. In these cases, to get rid of RLS, it is necessary to cure the underlying disease.

Comorbidities are additional causes of RLS.

• restless leg syndrome The child has often indicates problems with the cardiovascular or nervous system, severe stress.
• restless leg syndrome in old age may be the first sign of Parkinson's disease and a symptom of damage to the central nervous system.
  To prevent the development of Parkinson's disease, Mirapex is recommended as a dopamine stimulant, but in this case, the drug should be prescribed by a doctor.
• Severe itching in the legs and RLS with cramps is a symptom of some forms of diabetes.
• Cramps and discomfort in the legs are possible with anemia.
• Leg cramps occur during pregnancy.
• Allergies can also cause temporary RLS with itching, pain, and muscle cramps and involuntary, painful twitches.
• Restless legs syndrome can be confused with a disease such as peripheral neuropathy - damage to the structures of the peripheral nervous system. Neuropathy often affects the long nerve fibers located in the legs.

Video: Elena Malysheva about the symptoms and causes of restless leg syndrome

See the video below for more details.
Summary of the program:

Restless legs syndrome symptoms:

• At night you toss and turn and you can’t fall asleep, you don’t know where to put your feet, something that prevents you from falling asleep normally.
• The legs seem to “pull”, they always have to do something with them in order to avoid unpleasant sensations.
• Main symptom of restless leg syndrome- the pain in this disease can be relieved only by starting to move.

The video shows what restless leg syndrome looks like. A special phase of sleep, it is called REM - rapid eye movement. During such a dream, a person makes movements, they essentially wake him up.
If we see these people when they are sleeping, they really move their legs.

There are several causes of restless leg syndrome:

• First cause of RLS: there is a deficiency of certain substances that are formed in the same zone of the so-called substantia nigra of the brain. In the depths of the brain there is such a black substance that produces special substances responsible for fine coordination of movements. It was found that patients with restless legs syndrome have reduced iron content in the brain (not in the blood, but in the brain). And iron is involved just in the creation of these substances. This disrupts the pathways that carry impulses from the brain through the medulla oblongata to our muscles.
• Obesity and diabetes Another major cause of the formation of restless legs syndrome. Sugar is increased - damage appears in the vessel wall, fat rushes further into this damage, fat forms a sclerotic plaque, the lumen of the vessel narrows, blood flow drops sharply. This in itself already causes discomfort. Sugar damages peripheral nerves, resulting in diabetic polyneuropathy. This is the second reason for the occurrence of painful sensations in the legs.
  All night we do not know where to put these legs, now this is a secondary restless leg syndrome.

How to treat restless legs syndrome at home. Lifestyle

To treat Restless Leg Syndrome:

• The first is to sleep properly. Lie down with a pillow between your legs.
• Before going to bed, it’s good to work physically, spin the bike, approach from heel to toe.
• Make a contrast bath: alternate hot baths with cold ones, increase blood circulation.
• The main thing in this situation is to continuously reduce sugar, keep it at a normal level, take drugs in order to reduce metabolic disorders.
• Reduce weight if there is excess.

See the video for more details.

Doctor of Medical Sciences Kadykov A.S.
Every fifth person suffering from insomnia, the cause of sleep disturbance is discomfort in the lower extremities. It's not pain, it's not itching, it's not numbness, it's Restless Leg Syndrome.
Most often, when examining such a person, no pathologies are found, joints, blood vessels - everything is in order. And mentally, the person is healthy. Therefore, RLS is diagnosed quite rarely, although it is common. In addition to unpleasant sensations during sleep, patients have nothing to complain about, and therefore they do not turn to doctors.

The disease usually begins to appear after 40-50 years, with age the number of patients increases. Women get sick more often than men by 50%. However, sometimes RLS occurs in children.

Often doctors find it difficult to determine the diagnosis, mistakenly associating the disease with the pathology of the veins, joints, and prescribe the wrong treatment. Therefore, the patient should describe in detail to the doctor the symptoms and nature of the discomfort.

How to diagnose RLS.

• To identify the exact causes of RLS, it is necessary to undergo a complete medical examination by specialists in various fields. First you should contact a neurologist, therapist or somnologist.
• Kidney function, thyroid function, anemia, pregnancy or diabetes should be assessed.
• Tests that can help diagnose RLS include:
  General blood analysis
  Blood test for creatinine, urea, total protein
  blood ferritin
  Folic acid, vitamin B12 levels
  blood sugar
  Thyroid hormones (TSH, free T4, AT-TPO)
  Urinalysis: Rehberg's test, albumin
  Pregnancy test

What to do if you wake up at night from RLS

You can walk or hold your feet under a stream of warm water, but then you can completely drive away sleep. It is better to sit on the bed and massage your feet.

Both home remedies and medications are used to treat restless leg syndrome.

Medical treatment for restless leg syndrome.

What pills and medicines can cure restless leg syndrome? How to soothe aching and twitching legs?

• They recommend drugs that treat Parkinson's disease and epileptic seizures (mirapex, madopar, nacom, clonazepam). If you give these drugs at bedtime in a small dose, then the patient sleeps peacefully until morning. These drugs do not cure the syndrome, but only relieve the symptoms, so they must be taken constantly. Do not be afraid of this, because. in Parkinson's disease, drugs are also taken for life, and there is no harm from them. And patients with RLS take the medicine in minimal doses and only 1 time per day.
• It is much more dangerous to take sleeping pills. In addition, if you take drugs that relieve the symptoms of RLS, then sleeping pills will not be needed. It is not recommended to take 2-3 drugs, because a person will not be able to understand: what made him feel better and what made him worse. And if the patient still takes sleeping pills, then herbal remedies that calm the nervous system are more useful: infusions of valerian, motherwort, St.
• To sleep better, before going to bed you need to do a massage. It is better to use massagers, manual or mechanical, needle or roller. Everyone should choose the device individually. You can simply massage your feet and lower legs with a fat cream.
• Feet with RLS love warmth more, with cold, the disease intensifies.

Treatment of restless leg syndrome with mirapex.

More recently, RLS was treated with tranquilizers, and in severe cases with narcotic drugs, they alleviated the symptoms, but the side effects were more than the benefits. Now there are dopamine receptor stimulants in the brain, one of them is the drug Mirapex, which, in minimal doses, will help to cure this disease by almost 100%. In Parkinson's disease, this drug is taken 3 tablets per day. Mirapex for restless legs syndrome take 1/4-1/2 tablets once a day at bedtime. The results of treatment become noticeable almost on the first night - patients begin to sleep peacefully. Numerous reviews speak about the effectiveness of Miraplex treatment.

Tips for treating restless legs syndrome with miraplex from the newspaper "Bulletin of Healthy Lifestyle".

1. For more than 30 years, the woman had pain in her legs, and only from the “HLS”, from a conversation with Dr. Buzunov R.V., she learned that this disease is called restless legs syndrome. I began to take Mirapex 1/4 tablet, and already on the first night I slept like a child. She has been taking this medicine for 2 weeks now, and finally, at least by old age, she managed to get rid of these torments.
2. Another woman read this article and wrote a letter to HLS that the article and Mirapex helped her get rid of RLS after 40 years of suffering. On the very first evening, she bought and drank 1/2 tablet of Miraplex, fell asleep and slept until the morning. His legs have completely calmed down, as if they had never “walked shaking”, now he sleeps like all normal people.
3. 88-year-old woman, of which her legs have been hurting for the last 15 years. The diagnoses were varied. They tried to treat the legs with a variety of means: ointments, baths, rubbing, compresses, applications. And only after reading the article in "HLS" No. 22, 2009, the patient realized that she had RLS - all the symptoms completely coincided.
   The woman immediately bought miraplex and soothing tea. I took 1/4 tablet before bed. Sleep improved after a week. (Review from the newspaper "Bulletin of healthy lifestyle" 2010, No. 2, p. 17).
4. The woman had symptoms of restless legs syndrome every time she went to bed for 33 years, she was 90 years old. After reading the article, her children immediately bought Miraplex and gave her 1/2 tablet. Legs calmed down after an hour. And before that, RLS was treated with all sorts of means that did not help. The woman sat and walked at night, dozing during the day. And now everything is getting better. (Review from the newspaper "Bulletin of healthy lifestyle" 2010, No. 9, p. 27).

Treatment of restless legs syndrome with folk remedies.

Exercise treatment.

The woman had suffered from RLS for several years. The disease made him get out of bed in the middle of the night and walk to the point of exhaustion. The pains bothered me so much that I could not sit, stand, lie down for a long time, I had to move all the time.
In addition to RLS, there were severe pains in the knees. I decided to treat my knees according to the method of Dr. Sergei Bubnovsky. Every day she walked on her knees, wrapping them in rags with crushed ice, pouring cold water on her feet after a shower. Pain in the knees disappeared, the veins tightened, the restlessness of the legs also disappeared, and she began to sleep peacefully.
The problem was in the microcirculation of blood through the vessels, and the lower leg and foot were poorly supplied with blood. It turned out to be stagnation of blood, especially at rest. I had to constantly move my legs to restore circulation. With the help of exercises, the woman managed to restore blood circulation, and the disease disappeared. (Review from the newspaper "Bulletin of healthy lifestyle" 2013, No. 9 p. 30).

Prevention.

So that the legs do not disturb at night, moderate loads and walks are shown in the evening. It is better to give up strong tea, coffee, do not eat up at night. If the disease is accompanied by iron deficiency anemia, you need to increase the proportion of foods rich in iron in the diet: beef, lentils, buckwheat, peas, pomegranates, pistachios. (Advice from the newspaper "Bulletin of Healthy Lifestyle" 2012, No. 21 p. 6-7).