Living With Restless Leg Syndrome: A Personal Account

Tingling or burning sensations in the legs. A feeling as though there is an itch inside of your legs that you can't dig through the skin to scratch. A pressing desire to get up and walk around and when doing so, the discomfort subsides a good deal. An immediate way to get rid of the pain is to stretch.

If these symptoms sound familiar, you may be the victim of the Restless Leg Syndrome, or RLS, sleep disorder. Restless Leg Syndrome is characterized by a burning, itching, often "gnawing" type pain in the legs and the urge to stretch them. RLS sufferers have found that mobility in any form temporarily helps the pain, but once a person has stopped moving again, the sensations continue. Restless legs are usually worse at night and after an individual has been seated for a long period of time. Though there is no found cure for RLS, as of yet, physicians know that it is a neurological sleep disorder that is often hereditary. Sometimes, medications are available to treat it. The only problem, though, is that these medications can be addictive, many of them, and so not only is there risk of abuse, but also the potential for them to stop working over time. So what does one do for Restless Leg Syndrome treatment?

Until someone finds a cure, one suffers. One, being myself.

I have been suffering from Restless Leg Syndrome since I was about four years old. My grandmother used to take me to theatrical performances: ballets, operas, musicals, etc. I can recall how after a few years of experiencing the awful burning and itching sensations along with the more sightly twitches, I got to anticipate the onset of these symptoms and thus, came to dread going to the shows. I knew that what was ahead of me was a long night of sitting in a small, uncomfortable seat, and literally willing my leg pains to subside while simultaneously willing the performance to end.

Snack bars, bathrooms, telephones, the smoking area outside of venues I know these places all to well, in almost any arena where one might go to sit for longer than a half hour at a time. For when you have Restless Leg Syndrome, to sit still for that long is almost unbearable and truly truly painful. You sit through the performance and instead of focusing on what is on stage, your thoughts dwell on figuring out when is the next time you can find an excuse to leave your seat and not draw abnormal attention to yourself? I am sure that all RLS sufferers

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