restless leg syndrome

[Jisha]

Do you have any suggestions for restless leg syndrome. I have a client who is suffering from this and wants to know if there is anything she can do to help this stop at night.

Is there anything else that I can do as a therapist to help her. She gets massage on a regular basis, but is there some technique or a specific massage that might help?

Please let me know...Thanks! :wink:

JulieB [/quote]

 

[Josephine]

I would recommend epsom salts in a bath. That may help.

Also for clients with restless leg, I like to do a lot of sweeping strokes-one right after another-to increase the circulation.

Start at bottom of the leg and work your way up increasing the length of strokes till you are effluraging the full leg then repeat the full leg for about 10 strokes. You can do this with the client prone and supine.

 

[Artemisc]

My father has suffered, and I mean SUFFERED, from restless leg syndrome over the years. Just a couple of months ago he finally found a solution and just in time too. For about 6 months neither he or my mom would get more than 2 or 3 hours of broken and restless sleep a night. What a nightmare physically, emotionally and mentally. Anyway, they bought this e-book (very skeptically I might add) for around $20 and sat down and read straight through it. Basically, it all came down to a high level of sodium intake. And believe it or not, decreasing his intake has worked incredibly. Although it has been an almost herclean task for him to change his diet. Sodium is in everything - especially in his typical diet! Anyway, if you or your client would like more info just PM me and I can track down that e-book address site.

 

[valet dabess]

Cvore, I had never heard about the sodium intake affecting RLS - very interesting!!!

My experience has shown that most of my clients who have RLS also have a breathing pattern disorder that predisposes them to sympathetic dominance. Essentially, since the body is in constant fight-or-flight mode the nervous system keeps sending signals to the muscles of the leg to make sure they are ready to activate at a moments notice - the flight part. Try incorporating some techniques to help regulate her breathing - work on the pecs, serratus anterior, costals, scalenes, etc. Also check out what her inspiration/expiration rate is. A normal breath consists of the expiration being 4 times as long as the inspiration. Most people have equal lenths between the two!!! If you find that this is the case there are exercises that your client can do to help regulate, but results typically take a while and must be done quite often.

That's about all I can offer in that category. Good luck, and thanks to everyone who posted, I learned alot more about RLS!!

 

[juliaa(:]

That is very interesting about the sodium intake effecting rls. As far as I knew there is no way to cure it, just relieve the tight musculture and keep the blood flowing normal in the legs. I will definitely study up on that sodium theory though.

 

[Annorax]

One of the MTs I work with has restless leg syndrome - currently being controlled with oral meds. However, when she is having a flare up, we do long smooth effluerage movements along her leg with the intention of increasing circulation. She also massages her legs at night before she goes to bed. We have found that regular body work with empahsis on her legs seem to prevent flare ups. massageplanetfine and stress seem to play a part in triggering RLS in her.

 

[Sheng Thao]

I had a few people pm me for the website address and e-book that deals with the connection between sodium and RLS. (see previous post) Since I now have it handy, I thought I'd post it for all. Note that the site itself is extremely gimmicky but the e-book was extremely well-written, informative, in-depth and worth its weight in gold according to my parents.

http://www.restlesslegscure.com