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Restless leg syndrome causes, factors, and treatments.

For anyone who's experienced it,

the frustration can be miserable,

the countless tossing and turning,

the minutes that tick by turning into hours, and you still haven't

gotten a modicum of decent sleep. No matter how hard you try to ignore it, that urge to constantly

move or stretch your legs just won't let up. Restless Leg Syndrome, RLS, aka Willis Ekbaum disease, affects a decent chunk of the population.

Thought estimates very widely. One 2017 representative survey places its prevalence between 5.7 and

12.3% of the population. That's up to around 40 million people in the U.S. alone who go to bed

every night knowing they'll likely be kept awake for hours with that unrelenting, restless

sensation. Conventional RLS treatments. For people suffering from moderate to severe RLS, pharmaceuticals like dopamine

agonists, alpha-2 delta ligands, opioids, anticonvulsants, and benzodiazepines are often prescribed.

Dopamine agonists operate under the assumption that RLS is linked to impaired dopamine

function in the brain. While they do tend to produce good results in the short term, even at

low doses, they're also notorious for augmentation, a scenario in which RLS symptoms actually

worsen from taking the drug.

They're also commonly associated with an increased risk of impulse control disorders,

like pathologic gambling, compulsive eating, and compulsive shopping.

...