Restless Leg Syndrome

[elegua]

Hey folks...I have little doubt that this has been brought up before, but the search engine is acting REALLY weird -- it says I can't search for anything with fewer than 4 words?!?!? Weird...ok so please be tolerant.

One time during a withdrawl, I started experiencing definite restless leg syndrome. Since then, I've experienced recurring RLS, often in cyclical form matched with depression (though never when opiated). Anyone else experience this? Did it ever go away?

Also, given that some people have had good results with anti-RLS meds during withdrawl, do you think there could be some kind of connection to the biochemical processes of withdrawl and those of RLS?

Thanks for your replies!

[Seedy]

Yeah I've always thought there was a connection. I used to suffer rls before I got into opies, codeine is sometimes prescribed as a cure...

[Duckfeet]

I was describing this very thing down in Texas to some girl junky from New York, a few years ago, and she looked at me like I was crazy or a cop or something for not knowing the obvious: "that's why they call it *kicking*!", she tells me. I never heard that out here in Calif, in all my years of doing heroin, but I knew a lot of people mentioned having leg jerking problems in passing. But according to her, that original slangterm for withdrawal symptoms, derives from the leg thrashing that goes along with it, hence, "kicking."

FWIW column... I don't know if that's common knowledge on NE coast, or is one of those "lost to history" deals.

[tui]

Oh yeah, unfortunately i'm all too familiar with RLS. I get it in my arms too. this tops my hated-w/d-symptom list, so i know a few things that help.

1. taking calcium + magnesium supplements REALLY works
2. hot baths, with epsom salts (epsom salts contain magnesium and the heat helps)
3. benzos

hang in there. they DO go away... eventually.

t

[elegua]

Interesting! Yeah it's one of my least favorite events, too. I can stick out the sweat/chills, but when you get to the stage of RLS by night and total listless boredom where the clock never seems to move by day, that period thoroughly sucks.

Regarding 'kicking,' I was familar with the term and the descriptions, and I can understand it lasting only through the wd period, but it seems like something liable to hit me at any non-opiated night. Which makes me wonder if fooling with the body's homeostasis TOO much can end up causing life-long chronic illnesses...

[Duckfeet]

My curse is as long as I *didn't* know about it, I also don't think I had it all that often. But as soon as she explained to me that *kicking* was commonplace during withdrawals, I got it all the time. Part of withdrawals, to me, is that yer brain is subconciously trying to find things it can do to make u sick enough to get what it *really* wants, which is more dope, so any new trick, it'll throw it at me. I never *sneezed* either during withdrawals, until I heard about it... :-(


Interesting! Yeah it's one of my least favorite events, too. I can stick out the sweat/chills, but when you get to the stage of RLS by night and total listless boredom where the clock never seems to move by day, that period thoroughly sucks.

Regarding 'kicking,' I was familar with the term and the descriptions, and I can understand it lasting only through the wd period, but it seems like something liable to hit me at any non-opiated night. Which makes me wonder if fooling with the body's homeostasis TOO much can end up causing life-long chronic illnesses...

[Saint]

I don't actually kick but I do get this weird and constant feeling like my legs are on 200 volts or something, tingling, buzzing feeling. Sucks big time and THEN I will start to kick and move my legs around deliberately to get rid of that feeling for a minute, but it'll immediately start again etc.etc.
Nights are always the worst. Lying in your bed, listening to your own heartbeat, not being able to lie still.. hate it.

[doctor diesel]

For me it's the loss of temperature control that's the worst thing in WD. The cycles of freezing sweating, the casting off of the blanket, only to freeze and pull it back over you, incessantly.
Fortunately I've never suffered from *kicking* when withdrawing, although I have had non-opiate-related RLS at times, often with a fever.
Codeine is definitely good for calming it, and so is phenergan, but ironically, some people get RLS from too high a dose of phenergan, so you gotta be careful.

Doc.

[Moonrock]

Tramadol works quite well for calming down the Chicken Legs effect associated with wd.

[jacky]

if your in withdrawl, and late at night, and you start getting those leg jerk/kicking/muscle cramps, then start gobbling calcium and magnesium as mentioned above,...
seriously.

a dr told my junkie roommate this when he recieved treatment for opiate dependency, that opiates and chronic addiction in general help deplete these and other nutrients from the muscles.

I cant stand this symptom of withdrawl, I also get a total body urge to stretch,
that stretching and stretching to try and relieve the feeling in the muscles really wears you down.
stretch and stretch for 5 hours and you might get 30 minutes sleep from exhaustion.