Restless Leg Syndrome Treatment Some Current Medications

Click on the book above for more information on RLS

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