Posted on 07/20/2007 6:32:23 AM PDT by Kimberly GG
"WEDNESDAY, July 18 (HealthDay News) -- Icelandic researchers have discovered a gene that's linked to restless legs syndrome (RLS).
The research, which is in the July 19 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, found a gene variant that increases the odds of having RLS with periodic limb movements during sleep by 50 percent. The researchers also found that those with the gene variant were more likely to have low iron levels.
"There is a strong familial and genetic basis to restless legs syndrome," said the author of an accompanying editorial, Dr. John Winkelman, medical director of the Sleep Health Center at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.
Winkelman's editorial also pointed out that two other soon-to-be-published studies confirmed the link to this gene variant and RLS in a different population, and found two other genetic variants linked to RLS."....
*ping* fyi
I can’t stop my leg!
I can’t stop my leg, babe!
I can’t stop my leg!
I can’t stop my leg, pretty babe.
Can you stop my leg?
My leg stopped!
Woo-hoo, thank the Lord.
I want to thank the Lord for stoppin’ my leg.
Woo-hoo, yeah!
There it goes again!
There, there it goes again!
There, there, there it goes
There it goes again..!
And I always thought it was too much coffee and not enough beer.
Pres bubba has a bad case of “restless leg”; and should be in jail for it with the rest of the rapists.
KRAMER: (a little anxious) You know, after I have sex with Emily, uh, I don’t want her in the bed any more.
ELAINE: Ah.
KRAMER: Yeah, because she’s throwing off my whole sleep. She’s got the jimmy legs.
ELAINE: (confused) Jimmy legs?
Kramer raises one leg and judders it in the air, as illustration.
KRAMER: Jimmy leg.
ELAINE: (grasping the concept) Ohh.
I wouldn’t wish this devastating illness on my worst enemy, much less my own children. It has removed just about everything remotely ‘normal’ from my life. Now we need a cure.
There.
My wife has this and is on Requip, which is only marginally effective. She has undergone a battery of tests to find the cause of her anemia as well. This study does state a causal relationship between the two.
May God heal you.
thank you!
I’m sorry to learn your wife is suffering too. I tried Requip four years ago and all it did for me was prolong the onset of the movement (what I call ‘torture time’). I’ve had bouts of anemia too and required a transfusion last year. Don’t know the cause either. A great source of information and support can be found at www.rls.org the boards there were very helpful to me. I’ve had this for 30 years and am now disabled from it...if you’re wife ever wants to talk or ask questions, pm me.
LOL, that was my first thought.
I have RLS and I assure you, that is not the case.
Though I’ve never been diagnosed - Sometimes I feel like I have no legs - so I stomp, walk, slap them, whatever it takes to feel them because without movement or slapping them I can’t feel them at all. Thankfully it only happens ever so often for a few days at a time, then stops. I can usually tell when it’s going to happen and try to move around alot to keep it from hitting me too bad. My husband swears I have it in my sleep and has threatened getting twin beds. It’s a scary feeling, that’s for sure.
I, too, suffer from RLS. Have you found anything to help?
Can it be walked off?
Sometimes...but my work is somewhat sedentary. I am a computer consultant, and much of my work requires me to sit at a desk writing computer programs. Working is an option, but a lot of the time I am sitting still (except for my legs).
“Have you found anything to help?”
Depends on how severe it is.
For the first ten years I tried hot baths, heating blankets, massaging or hitting legs. As the RLS progressed into RLS with PLMD, the only thing that would stop it was standing and walking or shifting weight from leg to leg until I literally passed out, falling into bed at 4am. I have heard some people use a stationary bike or have built something similar for use in the car (I am NEVER a passenger) or use the type that allows you to recline and peddle. Needless to say, overdoing it with exercise WILL make it worse. Since mine is triggered the minute I get sleepy or try to nap/relax, I found that key (and opposite to what most doctors recommend for proper sleep hygiene)for me is visual stimulation or very loud music, but it must be something that holds your attention. On my best nights during ‘torture time’ (6-11pm) I sit in bed with the lights on, tv on, a headset with loud music and am on the computer...all at the same time. Otherwise I look as if I have turettes. If you have PLMD (uncontrolled movement) it can somewhat be alleviated with purposeful movement, like a rocking chair or simply sitting upright and rocking back and forth.
For years I tried every kind of medication available, including klonopin, parkinsons meds and epilepsy meds, even ‘requip’ but only a combination of both works, somewhat, for me. Mirapex and neurontin, at the highest dose, provides me 4 hours of interrupted sleep per night (11pm-3am). That’s an improvement over the 2 I was getting and then trying to work 10-12 hr days.
What makes it worse (for me)...antihystimine, calcium channel blockers, anti-depressants. Mine was triggered and has gotten permanently worse with anesthesia. When it gets so bad, sometimes a cup of coffee actually helps for some reason.
RLS/PLMS is progressive. It can be associated with Fibromyalgia and CF, (got ‘em) and everything that comes with long term sleep deprivation, i.e, hypertension, diabeties, weight gain, cognitive dysfunction, death.
Here’s to hoping yours is not severe! Provided as much info as possible in case it helps anyone.
Interesting. I’ve never heard RLS or PLMD described this way, only that it feels like pins and needles or as if you have too much feeling or ‘energy’ in legs/arms, in which case you are forced to move or have uncontrolled movement. Do you have that too at times or just the numbness?
My legs will go numb when I walk for more than 15 minutes, but I’m told it’s an entirely different issue, perhaps spinal/poor circulation?
Who’d have thought WE actually have something in common!
Sorry to hear it’s this and that you’ve got it too.
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