Adult ADD and Restless Leg Syndrome

[Andrew]

Anyone else have this problem?

Late in the evening, after my meds begin to wear off...my leg starts moving a mile a minute! Argh.

[Lafnalot]

My leg moves non stop the minute I sit down or slow down, it always has and I suspect it always will. When I go to sleep many times i need to let my leg do it's thing til it wears me out. Tea Bag Boy used to ask me to not come to bed til i was weary and ready to sleep because it kept him awake. Now he is used to it and it doesn't raise an eyebrow. I get alot of jokes about it at work, home and out. Sometimes it even annoys people because it will either make them nervous or it jiggles something ( it is the pronounced) like the dining table or the monitor to the pc etc.

[Kylin]

Don't know if this is "restless leg" ... but when I go to bed... I *HAVE* to shake my foot... only my left one. Hubby says it stops when I fall alseep. Drives him nuts because it shakes the bed...lol

[Flyfisher]

Yeah, my legs bounce as if there was a baby sitting on them all the time! If it quit, I guarantee I'd put on a quick 10 pounds!

[Lafnalot]

Mine doesnt stop, even in my sleep. My family likes to make fun of me sleeping with one foot in the air.

[Calicogirl]

Yea, I have had RLS for all of my life. I am going to a sleep study in May to get medication because it actually wakes me up at night. Though after taking Concerta my sleep pattern is better. RLS is that achy, tingly itchy "have to move or I will go crazy" feeling when we get tired. It also can cause leg jerks in your sleep with is Nocturnal RLS and will wake you up. So you are left feeling not refreshed in the morning. Medicine for ADD is suppose to make the problem worse.

My legs will always wiggle back and forth before I sleep. I have been doing this since I was knee high to a grasshopper and though sometimes it goes into remission it will always come back full force a few months latter.

[serenade]

Oh, Mystica, I am so glad you mentioned the actual feeling! I deal with this every night almost. Very rare, since starting meds, that I DON'T have it! I HATE it! It's horrible. And you (I) can just shake it off, I have to actually get out of bed and walk it off. I get it at work sometimes too, but then my work station is anything but ergonomic! It doesn't wake me up, but if I don't fall asleep fast enough, it will keep me up until I get out of bed and pace for a while. It's been so bad at times, I've had to take a Vicodin! I've even had the same symptoms in my arm!!!! Obviously you haven't found complete relief, thus the sleep study, but have you found any way to relieve it even a bit?

Originally posted by Mystica
Yea, I have had RLS for all of my life. I am going to a sleep study in May to get medication because it actually wakes me up at night. Though after taking Concerta my sleep pattern is better. RLS is that achy, tingly itchy "have to move or I will go crazy" feeling when we get tired. It also can cause leg jerks in your sleep with is Nocturnal RLS and will wake you up. So you are left feeling not refreshed in the morning. Medicine for ADD is suppose to make the problem worse.

[Lafnalot]

I cant take certain meds, like Benedryl, without this getting worse. I cant explain the feeling of having to move yet being so tired....

[serenade]

I've heard that about the Benedryl too. I think my mom told me she has that reaction too. She suffers from RLS too. Neither of us has been formally diagnosed.....but it's pretty obvious what it is, ya know!

As far as 'having to move yet being so tired...' I know exactly what you mean. I will lie in bed and just shake my leg hoping, even tho I KNOW it won't work, that it would just stop or I'd fall asleep. I'll be sooooooooo incredibly tired, and I will HAVE to get out of bed and walk until I know it won't happen again. Sometimes, I get back into bed too soon. It's really awful....like I (ADD) need anything else to disrupt my life! LOL!

Originally posted by Lafnalot
I cant take certain meds, like Benedryl, without this getting worse. I cant explain the feeling of having to move yet being so tired....

[LostandFound]

I just introduced myself on the introductions board, for those who missed it!, I am a 39 year old female newly diagnosed with ADD. I have been on Zoloft for 10 years, Strattera for 2 days, and Mirapex for restless leg syndrome for 3 weeks. The Mirapex is mostly used for Parkinsons Disease to increase Dopamine - evidentally low levels of Dopamine factor in restless leg syndrome. Now that I am on all 3 drugs I reckon (i live in Kansas, we say reckon here) I have all 3 major neurotrasmitters covered! In my Hyper Focusing quest to learn everything I can about ADD in the past few weeks, I ran across an article which stated something to the effect that 50% or so of people with ADD also have restless leg syndrome. I haven't seen anything on this forum about restless leg syndrome yet, although I haven't yet gotten to the archives, and am curious if anyone else suffers from it? The Mirapex by the way was a God send, worked the first night - although I still have insomnia, my legs feel good! Lost and Found

[fasttalkingmom]

I've not had a consent problem with restless legs but I have had this. One night I stayed up most of the night with a heating pad on my legs (I was desperate for sleep and tried everything) I've even combed my legs with a hair comb. This is a technique someone told me they learned to use on their hyper child to calm them down...It did work but only once...

I had the worst case of this during a 7 hour car ride ! My husband had to keep stopping so I could get out and walk. As soon as I got back in the car it came back. It was so awful !
My husband wants to take a trip one day to Niagara Falls a 10 hour drive !! I'm afraid to do it.......

I don't take any meds for it .........

[codeman38]

Oh, I'm notorious for having fidgety legs, regardless of whether I'm on meds or not... often I don't even notice I'm fidgeting until someone draws it to my attention.

[why]

My right leg is bouncing up and down as I type this. Sometimes, I do this for so long that I start to cramp. It's also very embarrasing when others notice first and point it out to me - sometimes they add "Hey, maybe you should cut down on the coffee?" I could save so much energy if I couls stop all this fidgeting... (When on vacation many of my "fidgety" syptoms go away though - so maybe we're not talking about the same thing)

i have this too sometimes.it seems to come on only at work.is it nerves?anxiety?psychosomatic?sometimes i think its because im wearing nice clothes.when im home in my jeans and tshirt, goes away.

[sleepzalot]

lostandfound: The theory of RLS and ADD is that they are both in part possible caused be some deficit in the dopamine pathways. They come to this conclusion based on what treatements seem to work on both (dopamine agonists). The possible technical theory is that the dopamine neurotransmitter is not sufficiently strong enough to pass the signals to the leg in it's entirety; thus the legs get intermittent signals which cause the spasms'shiocks/worm-like feeling.

As all people are different, and each persons symptoms are different, not all ADD people will have RLS; but I did read the other day that up to 50% of RLS people may have ADD. They studied people who had RLS and found that half the people were symtomatic of ADD, but most were undiagnosed.

My left leg goes crazy at nigtht, mild in the morning and the day can be either.

Thats as much as my research has found, but like ADD, RLS is still largely an unknown.

WHY: My leg bounces too!

Hope this helps.

Paul.