Causes and Treatments for Restless Leg Syndrome

Video Transcript

"It's not exactly known what causes restless leg syndrome and the ideology of the disease can be different from patient to patient and approximately twenty percent of cases, it's found that an iron deficiency is the leading cause of restless leg syndrome. And this can be a reason pregnant women have restless leg syndrome as a secondary symptom while they're pregnant. So a standard line of treatment, where I used to work is to put all patients with restless leg syndrome on iron supplementation to insure that they have proper iron and just to eliminate that as a factor. Iron is a precursor in the dopamine process, and there's theory and thought that dopamine levels and low dopamine might have a role to play in restless leg syndrome and this is why medication such as Requip and Mirapax, which are popularly advertised on network television these days are used as a treatment for RLS. They are originally Parkinsons drug, anti-Parkinsons disease drugs, and they can play a role in increasing dopamine activity and steadying the legs. Other more naturalistic treatments would include encouraging more activity in a patient during the day, exercise, stretching, yoga, and also it's necessary to rule out things such as thyroid disorders and again iron deficiency to make sure that the restless legs aren't being caused by something else. Once you've ruled out all the secondary causes of restless legs you would then have primary restless leg syndrome, which is then treated through primary line medication such as Requip and Mirapax. "