Wednesday, July 21, 2010

RLS

I have cyclic insomnia. It's not bad, but one week a month (you figure it out!) my restless legs drive me insane enough to bother my sleep. This is my week, so I'm tired, a cranky mom, and annoyed that I'm up at 4:24 AM. But all the nerves in my legs are activating and making me want to move, wiggle, and kick my legs.

I get restless legs from my mom. I inherited a lot of things from her. I have her hair, her eyes, people think I'm her when I answer her phone, but at 4:24AM, this is not my favorite inherited trait. For as long as I can remember, she has jiggled her legs through each and every evening. When she was forty, she started medicine for it. Hers isn't once a month, it's every day, all day. I dread mine getting that bad in ten years.

But mine is already getting worse. Just in the last year or so has it begun to disrupt my sleep at all. Before that, it was limited to when I was bored or just really tired. But luckily, when I was tired I could go to sleep and that would resolve it.

I hope when I'm forty, they have this RLS thing more figured out.

1 comment:

Heather said...

I feel your pain!! I get RLS rarely except when I'm preggers and then it flares up like a mad woman! My doctor had me take out salt, cane sugar, drink a lot more water (especially before bed), exercise reguarly and upped my nutritional supplements. It definitely helped but I don't know what you have ever tried. I've also heard when it is heredity that causes it, it could be something neurological. Maybe some tests are in order?? So sorry!