Hi there, it's Matt here and welcome back to the podcast. And today we're going to be talking

about the sleep disorder known as Restless Leg Syndrome or RLS for short.

It also has a different clinical name just to be aware.

It's also called Willis Ekbaum disease but from here on out we're going to be

calling it by its modern and typical name of Restless Leg Syndrome. So what exactly

is Restless Leg Syndrome? like syndrome. So what exactly is restless

leg syndrome? Well it's considered a neurological condition that causes a

desperate and utterly compelling and very uncomfortable, in fact almost uncontrollable urge

to move the muscles in your legs and also in your arms and massage them. And this happens principally at night when you're

trying to sleep and that's why we consider it a sleep disorder. Some of you may never have heard of this

condition of restless leg syndrome, but it's actually rather common. It affects

around 5% of the general population.

Now, I know that you're listening to this

and you're thinking, hang on a second,

5%, 5% as a medical condition is non-trivial. To put that in global context, it's around 400 million individuals that are currently suffering with Restless Leg Syndrome.

So not a small number by any means. But now let me transition into a little more detail regarding the symptoms.

And I want to do this just in case it either resonates with you or someone that you know in terms of what they're suffering from or what you're

suffering from and you didn't realize that it is a condition and it has a name.

So most commonly restless leg syndrome manifests in

you guessed it the legs hence the name restless leg syndrome but don't be fooled by that because it can affect people's

arms so both the biceps and also the triceps and when a patient comes to a clinician and describes the experience

what you'll commonly hear is the following expressions of what occurs during the night.

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