Restless legs syndrome is a poorly understood and often misdiagnosed disorder and is believed to be a neurological disorder. Restless legs syndrome is a common cause of painful legs. Often called paresthesias (abnormal sensations) or dysesthesias, the sensations range in severity from uncomfortable to irritating to painful. It is characterized by unpleasant sensations in the legs and an uncontrollable urge to move them for relief. Disturbed sleep is the most common clinical manifestation of RLS and is often the primary reason patients seek medical attention. It should be noted, that while fibromyalgia patients also suffer from disturbed sleep patterns, RLS does not appear to be the root cause and sleep disturbances in fibromyalgia patients often occur in the absence of RLS.(5) However, RLS sleep disturbances do appear to exacerbate the fatigue and cognitive impairment already present in many fibromyalgia patients. Nobody actually knows the real cause for restless leg syndrome. Some research has been done and the researchers suspect it might be due to an imbalance of the brain chemical called dopamine. Dopamine sends messages to control muscle movement. The immediate cause of this syndrome is relatively unknown, but there are numerous symptoms associated with this condition. The main sign of restless leg syndrome is the deep urge to move about, primarily because your legs feel rather uncomfortable. You may experience an electrical charge, itching, pulling, pain and the feeling that your legs are on pins and needles. Some patients do not feel anything at all, but have the express need to move their legs. If these situations sound like something that has happened to you, you might be one of the millions of Americans who suffer from Restless Leg Syndrome. Restless leg syndrome, also referred to as RLS, or Wittmaack-Ekbom's syndrome, is an uncomfortable and widely misunderstood and misdiagnosed condition, thought to be caused by a neurological disorder. It is normally seen as a problem once you reach the age of about fifty and tends to get worse as you get older. It's also the 'poor relation' of sleeping disorders and unlike insomnia, sleep apnea or narcolepsy, all of which are studied in medical school and reasonably well understood by doctors, restless legs syndrome is given relatively scant attention. One study even goes so far as to suggest that in as many as 3 out of 4 cases the condition goes undiagnosed, even when the patient presents with all the symptoms of the disorder. Restless leg syndrome is a condition in which people who suffer from its affects find great difficulty in going to sleep. The symptoms, which include unpleasant sensations like burning, creeping, tugging like having insects crawling beneath the skin, of RLS strike just as one is lying down or has just drifted off to sleep. This creates an unavoidable urge to get up and move around, which in many instances causes the cessation of the symptoms. Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS) is a misunderstood but well known medical problem which causes the legs and occasionally the arms to twitch, normally before nodding off to sleep; this can result in problems getting to sleep.
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