Questions & Answers

What Causes Restless Legs and How Do You Treat It?

Restless leg syndrome. Have you heard of that one? My mum had it really bad, and it’s particularly… Is that a fly on me? Come on go away, fly. And many people get it. People my age, older people like me. I’ve seen some younger people get it. So it’s basically, it doesn’t seem to affect the person so much early hours of the morning. It’s sort of like late afternoon, but when they get to bed they get this urge to move their feet around a lot. They sort of kick them around and they’re moving around under the sheets. Sometimes associated with neuropathy, like a burning feet, but quite often just restless and they have to move these feet or legs continually so it can be really annoying, but what causes this? How the hell do you treat it? Well there are many different types of recommendations.

If you go online, I mean you’ll see everything from rubbing coconut butter on your nose to putting god knows what on your feet and all sorts of stuff. So one interesting thing though, when I did research on this condition years ago I found that between a quarter to a third of people with restless leg syndrome have got iron deficiency. In fact severe iron deficiency. So this, the first thing you check is iron, and also check the iron storage protein called ferritin. Like a ferret. F-E-R-R-I-T-I-N. Get that checked as well. So that’s definitely worth checking out for you. Iron.

The second thing that I recommend that you do is a zinc taste test. So go to your naturopath or you go to your drug store or chemist and ask for a zinc taste test because you could be zinc deficient. That’s another one I found.

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The third one are B vitamins. Especially B2, B3 and B6, but take a good vitamin B complex. Next thing that I recommend that you give a try is 300, sorry, 400 international units of vitamin E. You take one per day with your lunch meal for about five or six weeks. So the vitamin E, the zinc, the B complex and the iron, they’re all worth a shot.

Other thing you can go and do is go and see somebody, a… What do you call them? Reflexologist. Okay, so someone who can work on your feet because that can work also quite well. And I had one lady who got tremendous relief from she went to this guy who did sports massage on her calves, her feet and legs. That helped significantly. So sometimes certain things work for some people and they don’t work for others.

I had another patient I remember telling me that she got benefit from putting Tiger Balm, a small amount of Tiger Balm under her feet and it sort of warmed it and tingled it, and that stopped the sensation. So hey, I mean everything’s worth a try, but what the hell causes this? I mean, I don’t know. That’s a good question. It’s a good question. It’s like tinnitus. It’s just one of those things. I mean personally I see it tied up with stress with people, the restless leg, and I see tinnitus also linked up with emotional stress for people a lot, especially as they get older. But then again, that’s my theory for what it’s worth. Thanks for tuning in. Try those things.