I use a gaba supplement (found at health food stores)during the day. and 300 mg gabapentin a hour before bed and that has worked for over a year with no problems. It even helps with my fibro as I do not get windup pain from the restless leg syndrome making my fibro worse.

Also i can't prove it but i think my sleep apnea is better when taking them.

I have RLS that is made worse by medications I have to take for depression.
My neuro prescribed Requip for the rls, and it made it unbelievably worse!
The doc said this is a rare occurance............
He also categorized the rls as a "cosmetic" problem". If he only knew how unpleasant it is. I agree with the person who said it can make you fell like jumping off a tall structure................
I also have a tic disorder (facial, arms, legs, clicking mouth noises), but he didn't say it was tourette's syndrome.
Both are driving me crazy at the moment.

500 mg of magnesium oxide does the trick for me. My legs get crazy...I walk the sheets! It is the oddest feeling that I could describe..sort of like there is something on the inner lining of my legs wriggling around...It drives me crazy!!!

Thanks, I'll give it a try.

It also helps with my leg cramps....but do not over do it..I do believe that milk of magnesia has magnesium oxide in it!!! If ya know what I mean

Goldminer,
I saw your post over in fibromyalgia.
I'm not familiar with gaba or gabapentin, but will look into it.

Well *that's* just rude.

Was just reading around this forum as I didn't realize it was here until tonight. Thought I might offer up a couple of things that might help.

I've seen back up stuff on MrsD was saying about the magnesium. I don't have it on hand but thought I would just give her comment a salute.

Also, since you mentioned that you're playing with GABA, I thought I'd mention, in case you didn't know, that magnesium also helps to improve mood: ADHD Mag. Supp. Impacts Behaviour

Also, if supplementing magnesium works for you then you may want to consider wondering why you are not absorbing enough magnesium in your diet? Are you ingesting things that are depleting your mag. stores (and maybe other things too?) For me, grain and coffee are big depleters (gluten grains are the worst offenders and coffee is next).

I don't eat gluten at all because of the many negative symptoms that arise when I ingest it. I limit coffee to the weekends but then I have to take supplements. Throughout the rest of the week I'm fine.

Dairy intolerance can be associated with enuresis and night leg pain/issues. Might want to look into that.

GABA supplementation is interesting. I've seen many studies on how to increase GABA using transcendental meditation and after using it as a therapy for my son who had behavioural issues (due to malabsorption of nutrients), it really helped him cope with stressful situations.

Actually, I said that kind of backwards, I started doing yoga with my son to help him gain control of his emotions. It worked really well (and I'm no yoga pro but it still worked) and I was wondering why... so I began to look up abstracts and it turns out that TM (transcendental meditation) is linked to higher GABA levels.

Here are some links that I thought were interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GABA

McGill University

Altering Biochemistry

Serum Hormonal Concentration following TM

Ketosis, GABA and TM

TM, Hormones and GABA


hth

I'd be for backing all of them up! I have over 4,000 bookmarks that I share between IE and FF and I use a program to put them to and HTML page. Now to find one that can categorize better than the freebie I used!!

I was diagnosed with PLMD during my first sleep study. They recommended Mirapex which did nothing for me. Then we tried klonopin which we changed, when on it I felt paralyzed and felt that I was awake all night. That was a scary time for me!

Finally my Doctor gave me Sinement (Carbidopa/Levodopa) and that fixed it. The really odd thing is that it took a while to get used to it. Waking up in the night was a hard thing to do as it seemed I had a screaming siren in the middle of my brain. That's lessened some today, but it seems to be still effective after about 4 years.

The one thing I have noticed is my legs sometimes feel 'itchy' so I'm beginning to think that I'm moving toward RLS that I didn't have before the Sinemet. I wonder if it's common to go from PLMD to RLS/PLMD?

I'm not sure if these treatments would last all night, but I've read individual recommendations of magnesium, hops, niacin with Vitamin C. One man used to say he drank an O'Doul's about an hour before bed for his, another ate Fava Beans. I can't remember the name of that email list, but I think it became or is tied to wemove.org (sp?). I'll have to start trying some of these.

I have been Requip for quite some time now. I am up to 2 mg per day, most days. I may talk to my neuro about rotating drugs and see what she has heard and noticed.

I had RLS before they had a name for it I swear. For me it is a familial thing on my Dad's side.

Can't say I have felt the need to jump off a tall building but I can honestly say I have entertained the idea of opening a vehicle door and trying to run beside the vehicle instead of just sitting there. And that has been while doing 70 down the expressway.

I'm glad they have put a name to it and have meds to help with the symptoms.