Can Restless Leg Syndrome Be Cured?

Feb. 19 -- During the day Florence Mews leads a normal life, but when it's time to wind down at night, her legs just keep going.

The Baltimore woman is among the estimated 12 million Americans who suffer from restless legs syndrome, or RLS. It is a neurological disorder characterized by unusual sensations in the legs and an uncontrollable urge to move them in order to relieve these feelings.

The disorder's unusual sensations can strike at any time. Some patients with restless legs say it is like having caffeine shooting through their veins. Others say it feels like a surge of electricity.

"It keeps building — it's not just one shock," said Mews, 74. "It builds in momentum until the leg jerks. It can be either leg, any time of the day or night."

For now, most patients are treated with dopamine drugs, including Requip, Mirapex and Permax, which are commonly prescribed for Parkinson's patients. Ropinerole, the newest in a long line of treatments, is currently being reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration. If approved, it will be the first drug to specifically treat the condition.

‘You Can’t Make It Go Away’

Mews says the hardest part about the disorder is that she can't make it stop.

"Like a jack-in-the-box, it keeps winding and winding and it's there, you can't make it go away," Mews said. "And all of a sudden it springs."

The disorder has caused some patients to go to extremes, said Dr. Richard Allen, a neurologist at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore.

"One patient we had actually took a baseball bat out and hit his legs with a baseball bat in sleep to reduce the sensory phenomenon," Allen said.

The ratio of women to men who have RLS is 2 to 1. Researchers haven't pinpointed exactly what causes the syndrome, but believe that in a number of cases, certain conditions may bring it on.

"It will commonly, for women, come on their last trimester of pregnancy," Allen said. "A quarter of women will experience some of this."