Donna's Story

I've suffered from WED/RLS my entire life - since I was a child.

I was always being told to sit still, which of course I couldn't do. I'm 63 years old now, but when I was about 50 I finally couldn't take it anymore and my general practitioner referred me to a neurologist for treatment.

I was going for several days without sleep. My condition was affecting my job performance and home life. The neurologist started me on Requip and almost immediately I was getting 7-8 hours of restful sleep a night for the first time in as long as I could remember. However with increased dosages the Requip, the medication soon started losing its ability to relieve my symptoms. My doctor soon switched to Mixapex. I started with low doses, then progressed to Mixapex ER 1.5.

I was still experiencing what I refer to as breakthroughs (sleep) during the night so we added another .5 to 1.0 mg at night. This helped most nights, but I soon could not find any relief during, and right after a full moon. I also find that drastic changes in atmospheric pressure changes impact my WED/RLS. I’ve tracked/documented these symptoms. In some cases, I’ve gone up to 5 days without any sleep.

I should also mention that my maternal aunt and paternal grandmother suffered from WED/RLS as well. This condition causes depression, sleep deprivation, confusion, and all around irritability. I should also mention that twice during major surgery and recovery I have woke up while under anesthesia due to the WED/RLS severity.

I hope that this will assist you in your research.