About four years ago I began to experience Restless Leg Syndrome. After various attempts at dealing with it, including a horrible addiction to the “safe” drug Klonopin (clonazepam), I have found a natural solution so ridiculously simple, I had to put up a blog and tell the world about it. I don’t know if it will help everyone, but it costs nothing to try so you might want to give it a shot. All it involves is shoes. Not kidding.
Let me just start at the beginning with my story.
Restless Leg Syndrome Begins
It began out of nowhere when I was around 48. I’m now 53. But I had no idea what it was—never heard of Restless Leg Syndrome. All I knew is that my left foot began to get a “twitch” when I lay down to go to sleep at night. My foot would sort of pivot up at my ankle, unexpectedly, as I lay there. Maybe about every couple minutes. It would not do this during the day, only when I was in bed, wanting to go to sleep. Not every night at first, but many. Eventually most.
Soon, my other foot started doing the same thing. It was exhausting, and I’m sure annoyed my wife, too kind to kick me out of bed. But I often got up frustrated, sometimes walking around a bit, sometimes doing some leg exercises, mostly not helping. Sometimes I just tired myself out and eventually feel asleep, sometimes I stayed up all night.
Eventually my left leg started to feel a bit “tingly,” almost a minor numbness, during the day as well. At times I’d start to get the Restless leg twitch in the evening while laying on the floor simply watching television hours before bedtime. Even when it was not flipping around, I had the irresistible urge to move my legs. I don’t need to get into all the details, because if you are reading this you already know what RLS is.
That was enough. I had to take some action.
Restless Leg Syndrome and Klonopin
So, about a year after it began I went to a local Neurologist to discuss it with him. He said, yes, I had Restless Leg Syndrome. He prescribed Klonopin, to be taken before bedtime, and said it was (paraphrasing here) a light drug like an Ambiem. I was to check back with him every six months.
It was magic! I not only stopped experiencing the Restless Leg symptoms, but I started sleeping better than I ever had before. It was great. For nearly two years. That’s when I decided I wanted to stop the Klonopin. I remember that December of 2007—something just was not right with my mental state, and I had urinary problems, and some other things out of whack. Nothing too serious, but something didn’t feel right. So I started reading about the drug I was taking. Holy smokes! It’s not a “like an Ambien” at all. It’s a very addictive and dangerous drug. I could explain here, but search the web for Klonopin addiction and you’ll get tons of stories of the addicted and their troubles. So I had to get off it.
I told my neighbor friend, a retired doctor, that I was going to stop taking it and he warned me that in no way I should stop it cold turkey. He said I would risk a seizure and death. Whoa! And he told me that I had to do it very slowly, reducing the dosage over 6-8 weeks. And it would not be easy to quit. So I went back to the web and searched for Klonopin withdrawal and read story after shocking story. Many, many people, if not most, could not get off it. And for those who did, the withdrawals where horrific.
I managed to stop the Klonopin after about a little over a month or so. And did I suffer! I had several weeks of extreme disorientation, numb limbs and an assortment of other problems. I’d never experienced anything like this in my life. After about a month I got somewhat stabilized, though I don’t think that I got “normal” for about six months.
Natural Treatments for Restless Legs
Well, guess what came next? My Restless Leg Syndrome came back. Back to not sleeping well.
So I then tried all sorts of natural ideas I read about online. No luck. Meditation, yoga, special exercise, no luck. Supplements of all types. No luck. Diet change? Massage? Still no luck.
I thought I started to get some relief from a chiropractic neurologist who did some spooky things with my brain I can’t really explain, aromatherapy and magnesium powder, and other things, but nothing really stuck. Maybe it was the power of suggestion.
The Restless Leg cure
But a couple months ago, the solution came to me when I didn’t expect it. I was seeing my physical therapist, a very brilliant person who has fixed various pains in my body over the years, and complained about my Restless Leg Syndrome. He said he’d think about it and when I came back the next week he suggested something to me that seems ridiculous at the time.
He knew I always wore sandals instead of shoes (I live in a nice warm California Coast town), and asked me to buy a pair of tennis shoes with good arch support, and wear them every day, including while at home in the evening. I laughed and asked what that would do, reluctant to try it as I hated shoes. He told me to just try it for a week and report back. I went to the shoe store and picked up some good New Balance tennis shoes and followed his exact instructions. I out them on in the morning and took them off when it was bedtime.
After just three days I noticed that the funny feeling I almost always had in my left leg was subsiding. Then the nighttime twitches started to subside too. When I went back after seven days, I told him that while I hated to admit it, it might be working. A few more weeks confirmed this.
As I write this, it’s been two months with no Restless Leg symptoms. None at all. No tingling during the day, no episodes at night. Why does it work? It’s kind of mysterious to me, but it has to do with fallen arches as a contributor to Restless Leg. I’ve searched the web for something related to all of this, and I now see a few articles about how wearing good arch support will help, but there’s not really out there that much, usually part of a laundry list of things to do when it is. I also have not found a great explanation of exactly why it helps. But the take away is that it does help.
So, if you are one of the millions of people who have Restless leg Syndrome, do as I did and see if it works. Even if you wear shoes already, do they provide great arch support? If they do, do you wear such shoes in the home, or are you walking around barefoot or in flat slippers? Wear great shoes as I did, all day and evening long, for a couple weeks, and see how it goes. What do you have to lose?
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