Is there any relation between restless legs syndrome and Narcolepsy?

Friday 13 March 2020

English



     Hello, everyone.  I am Masa.  These days I have translated my Japanese article into English. I hope many people suffering from Narcolepsy all around the world will get some hints to live better from this website.

     Today I' ll write about restless legs syndrome because I supposed there was some relation with Narcolepsy. From the first stage of Narcolepsy, I was thinking that my legs were moving during sleeping. Every night in the nightmare, I was escaping from something running hard. In many cases, I woke up because of the movement of legs. The moment I woke up, I found that my legs were moving. Sometimes, no sooner had I kicked a soccer ball than I woke up. The feeling was correct. My doctor, who examined my brain-wave and body movements during sleeping, told me that my legs were indeed moving.
 
     In addition, I was feeling itchy especially before sleeping. At first, it was not so hard, but gradually, it got worse. Then one day, I found a notice about "restless legs syndrome" in the hospital specialised for sleep. According to that, the syndrome causes some uncomfortableness such as itchiness in your skin, especially in legs, and it is likely to happen and become stronger from the evening. As the symptom matched my case, I asked my doctor, then he said that it was possible.

    In fact, research suggests that there is a certain correlation between restless legs and Narcolepsy(Giuseppe Plazzi al, 2010). It seems that there is some problem in the nervous system. 

   My doctor was saying that the problem is that medicine which suppresses the itchiness induces sleepiness. (As to itchiness, look here)

  If you have any trouble like this, I recommend you to consult your doctor. 




Reference:
Giuseppe Plazzi, Raffaele Ferri, Elena Antelmi, Sophie Bayard, Christian Franceschini, Filomena I.I. Cosentino, Beatriz Abril, Karen Spruyt, Federica Provini, Pasquale Montagna, Yves Dauvilliers, Restless Legs Syndrome is Frequent in Narcolepsy with Cataplexy Patients, Sleep, Volume 33, Issue 5, May 2010, Pages 689–694,)