Restless Leg Syndrome Treatment Some Current Medications

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A number of prescription drugs are available as restless leg treatments. You should be fully aware though that they all come with possible side effects and some severe downsides. The access and control of drugs varies from country to country so you will need to check with your doctor or pharmacists for local details.

Quinine Sulphate is generally prescribed for malaria or leg cramps but can be an effective for restless leg syndrome treatment. It’s initial use can be very effective but it is likely to become ineffective quite quickly if taken daily. There is a serious problem with overdose as the line between normal dose and overdose is quite small. Other serious side effects are only recently being understood and most practitioners will not now prescribe quinine except for malaria.

Levadopa is regularly prescribed as a restless leg syndrome treatment. The best known is probably Madopar. Current thinking believes that RLS stems from problems in the brain rather than the legs. This is supported by the almost absolute effectiveness of levadopa. Levadopa is a substance that the brain converts into dopamine which in turn controls the movement/brain interconnection. Unfortunately the body suffers from extreme nausea when it produces dopamine (as the drug will be in your whole body and not just your brain) so an additional drug (benserazide hydrochloride) is mixed with it to stop that side effect. Levadopa tablets or capsules come as 12.5/50 or 25/100 where the larger number is levadopa in mg and the smaller number is the anti nausea drug.

These drugs have a number of problems. Firstly they will become ineffective over time. Secondly they can cause augmentation where the actual symptoms can become worse, they can happen earlier in the day or later during the night and can can expand to other parts of the body. Taking higher doses work for a short while but the same cycle will continue. Side effects often include pains in the extremities i.e. feet and toes. Life threatening side effects are known when taking higher doses but this is more normally seen in Parkinson’s disease patients where levadopa is extensively used as a treatment. 200mg per day or more is considered a high dose.

See more on this in my previous post Restless Leg Syndrome Treatment Some More Current Medications

All you want is to get rid of those horrible feelings in your legs but drugs are not always the answer

Dopermine agonists are more recent restless leg syndrome treatments. In their early use they seemed to be a miracle cure as the drugs seemed to suffer much less from augmentation and failing efficacy. More recently though there have been some big problems beginning to show through. The two name you will likely see most are Mirapex (pramipexole) and Requip (ropinirole). A third contender Permax (pergolide) was removed from sale in the US as it was shown to cause heart valve issues in patients.

The list of potentially dangerous side effects of these drugs is well documented but more recently there have been cases reported of the treatments causing ’social addiction’  problems in patients including gambling addiction, sex addiction and shop lifting.

One of the newest contenders is Neupro (rotigotine). Another restless leg treatment that showed great promise initially. Although another dopamine agonist rotigotine is applied to the skin in a patch, much like a nicotine patch. The idea was to give a very low dose over 24 hours. The idea being reduced side effects and greater efficacy. Unfortunately the actual patch mechanism has proved a problem and the US and many European countries have now recalled the patches. Side effects seem to be mainly related to skin reactions to the actual patches although this is a new drug and , like it’s predecessors, I am sure time will tell if it is the miracle we are all looking for .

Another drug group used to treat restless leg symptoms is benzodiazepine, a family of drugs including Clonazepam (klonopin) and Valium (diazepam ). Primarily used to treat anxiety they act to inhibit brain activity. They are effective as ’sleeping tablets’ and can enable severe RLS sufferers to catch up on some sleep but the side effects are well documented but the most obvious and most impractical is the sedation effect that lasts well into the next day if taken at night. In many cases taking these drugs at night means you should not drive the next day and normal work functions can be seriously impaired until well into thee afternoon. These can also be highly addictive if taken regularly so your doctor is likely to only prescribe a few tablets at a time.

The bottom line is that you would be advised to avoid taking any drugs for RLS unless absolutely necessary. You should pursue all natural avenues before taking this route. I speak as a sufferer and not a medical practitioner so I understand the drive to ‘take the easy fix’ but none of the medications above seem to be a long term solution.

There are many prescription drugs available but you should get all the facts and think very carefully before taking them.

Restless leg syndrome is also known as Ekbom syndrome. Named after Dr Ekbom who characterized RLS as a creeping or crawling sensation in the legs over which you have no control, accompanied by an irresistible urge to move your legs. The symptoms generally appear when the suffer is at rest especially in the evenings or night time  The feeling has been given numerous descriptions by sufferers ranging from actual pain to burning or itching or even things crawling inside their legs. If you are a sufferer you will already know just how hard it is to describe the feelings.

The feelings in your legs can make it almost impossible for you to rest or sleep.  Lack of sleep aggravates the symptoms creating  a vicious circle of restless leg and fatigue. In severe cases the lack of sleep can make it impossible for the sufferer to perform normally during the day and can bring about all the side effects of sleep deprivation.

About 10 percent of the population is affected by this disorder. Anyone can get restless leg syndrome but it more commonly begins in middle age. Although many people are life long sufferers from early teens or even early school age. In many of these cases there appears to be a hereditary factor. Some other well know triggers are hormonal changes, diabetes, stress, and pregnancy. In the case of the later two the cessation of the cause (I.e. de-stressing or giving birth) will stop RLS symptoms immediately.

The symptoms of restless leg can be aggravated by drinking alcohol and by smoking. Some medications like antihistamines are also known cause or aggravate the restless leg syndrome symptoms.

When the symptoms start you just cannot keep those legs still.