When a person gets tired and the conscious brain begins to check out - that's when quieter signals can get through.Įarley has a pet theory that RLS may be the body's way of reacting to reduced iron in the brain and saying, in essence, "Go get some iron!" His group has measured iron in the spinal fluid of people with RLS (which he says gives you some idea of what's going on in the brain) and found these patients tended to have reduced iron levels.Įarley isn't sure why the feeling seems to strike people when they are tired, but he imagines that when someone is busy or moving around, the brain is exerting strong control over the body. Christopher Earley, a neurologist at Johns Hopkins University thinks it has something to do with low levels of iron in the brain. It is unclear what causes the irresistible desire to move.
Rye thinks he and others are close to finding a gene. "If you go to a clinic, 65 to 75 percent of the patients will tell you they have a first-degree relative with RLS."
Rye says there is good evidence the condition has a strong genetic component. At one point, he attached a special device to his leg to measure how often he kicked while he was asleep. Rye also has the disorder and has used himself as a guinea pig. David Rye is a neurologist at Emory University and director of the Emory Healthcare Program in Sleep. You really wonder how we get any work done."Ī small community of scientists now studies Restless Legs Syndrome. "You see people lying around with their legs up against the wall, or walking around. "One of the funniest things is to visit one of our board meetings," Waterman says. One of the foundation's goals is education - and Waterman speaks freely about his condition now. "I just get very fidgety," he says "I make people nervous just to look at me." He hid his condition for years because, he says, it just seemed strange. Bob Waterman served as chairman of the foundation, and says RLS affects him almost every night. Today, there is a Restless Legs Syndrome Foundation, dedicated to getting the word out and encouraging research. Then, in the 1940s, a researcher made a more detailed study, and more work has been done in the past decades. Leaping and contractions of the tendons and so great a restlessness and tossing of the members ensure, that the diseased are no more able to sleep, than if they were in the place of the greatest torture!"īut that was it, for about 250 years. "Wherefore to some, when being in bed they betake themselves to sleep, presently in the arms and legs. An English physician named Thomas Willis wrote a description in 1683: There are some early references to what appears to be RLS in the scientific literature. Until recently, an average physician was unlikely to know what it was. People with RLS sometimes describe a "tugging" or "creepy crawly" sensation. And "bothered" probably isn't the right word - the study categorizes these people as experiencing "moderate or extreme distress." Three percent are bothered by it two or more times a week. The number of people affected by RLS is somewhat uncertain, but one large study found that almost 8 percent of people in the United States have experienced restless legs sometime in the past year. People with severe forms of Restless Legs Syndrome are sleep deprived and miserable. I had that eureka moment people must have when they find out that what ails them has a name. I had no idea what this was until a few years ago when I found a Web site about something called Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS). As an adult, the feeling periodically comes back to haunt me, during a slow movie, on airplane rides, or having a late drink at a bar, or just around bedtime.
It struck at the worst times - my legs kept me awake when I was tired and needed to sleep. When I did, the feeling would go away for a few seconds but then come back. When I was a kid on long car rides, I would sometimes experience a strange sensation in my legs. It's maddening to have a feeling that you can't explain. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke Sources: The Restless Legs Syndrome Foundation and
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