Do you have Restless Leg Syndrome?

1. When sitting or lying down, do you have unpleasant or creepy-crawly sensations in your legs (and sometimes in other parts of your body), tied to a strong feeling or urge to move?

2. Do the sensations and urge to move during periods of rest or inactivity and relieved by movement?

3. Do the sensations and urge to move bother you more in the evening and at night rather than the day?

4. Do you often have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep?

5. Does your bed-partner tell you that you jerk your legs (or your arms) when you are asleep; do you sometimes, have involuntary leg jerks when you are awake?

6. Are you frequently tired or fatigued during the day?

7. Do you have family members who experience these same sensations and urge to move?

8. Have medical tests not revealed a cause for your sensations and urge to move?

If you do have restless legs syndrome (RLS), you are not alone. Up to 8% of the U.S. population may have this neurologic condition.  Many people have a mild form of the disorder, but RLS severely affects the lives of millions of individuals.

Features of RLS

Adults with RLS will typically have all four of these primary features.

·        The bothersome, but usually not painful, sensations deep in the legs produce an irresistible urge to move. Some words used to describe these sensations include creeping, itching, pulling, creepy-crawly or tugging.  (These sensations may only involve a strong urge to move the legs. They may also occasionally occur in the arms.)

·        Symptoms are worse or exclusively present when the afflicted individual is at rest, and the sensations are typically lessened by voluntary movement of the affected extremity.

·        Symptoms are worse in the evening and at night, especially when the individual lies down.

·        Movements of the toes, feet, or legs (known as restlessness) are typically seen when the afflicted individual is sitting or lying down in the evening. This restlessness may be seen as fidgetiness or nervousness.

Associated Features of RLS

RLS symptoms can cause difficulty in falling and staying asleep. Approximately 80% of people with RLS will also have periodic limb movements of sleep, which are jerks that typically occur every 20 to 30 seconds on and off throughout the night, often causing partial arousals that disrupt sleep. 

Because you may experience difficulties with falling and staying asleep at night, you may be abnormally tired or even sleepy during waking hours. Chronic sleep deprivation and its resultant daytime sleepiness can affect your ability to work, participate in social activities, and partake in recreational pastimes and can cause mood swings, which can affect your personal relationships.

Cause

Research into the cause of RLS is ongoing and answers are limited, but we do think that RLS may have different but perhaps overlapping causes.  RLS often runs in families. Researchers are currently looking for the gene or genes that may be responsible for this form of RLS, known as primary or familial RLS.

RLS may be the result of another condition, which, when present, worsens the underlying RLS. This is called secondary RLS. During pregnancy, particularly during the last few months, up to 15% of women develop RLS.  After delivery, their symptoms often vanish.  Anemia and low levels of iron in the blood are associated with symptoms of RLS, as are chronic conditions such as peripheral neuropathy (damage to the nerves in the hands and feet) and kidney failure. Recent literature also points toward an association between RLS and symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.  If you have no family history of RLS and no underlying or associated conditions causing the disorder, your RLS is said to be idiopathic, meaning without a known cause.