Restless Legs Syndrome Foundation Blog

December 20, 2022 Food is Now My Only Medicine By Janice Hoffmann, former RLS Foundation Board Chair Restless legs syndrome has different manifestations as well as different triggers. Here is my story that can best be described by the Hippocrates quote: “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”. Oakley Township, Macon County, Illinois It is...

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November 21, 2022 Dear Honorable Chairs and Ranking Members: On behalf of the 63 member organizations of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Constituency Group, we support your efforts to finalize a Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 omnibus funding bill and include a robust investment in the National Institutes of Health, including at least $3.946 billion for...

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November 8, 2022 The 2022 CDC Opioid Prescribing Guidelines released on November 3, 2022, replace earlier guidelines that had led to confusion, misinterpretation, and faulty application by medical providers. Like the 2016 guidelines, the new guidelines focus on acute, subacute, and chronic pain. Unfortunately, the new Guidelines fail to recognize that restless legs syndrome (RLS), a serious disease...

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October 4, 2022 The Honorable Patty Murray, Chair The Honorable Roy Blunt, Ranking Member The Honorable Rosa DeLauro, Chair The Honorable Tom Cole, Ranking Member Labor-HHS Subcommittee, Committee on Appropriations U.S. Senate Washington, DC 20510 Dear Chairwoman Murray, Chairwoman DeLauro, Ranking Member Blunt, and Ranking Member Cole: Thank you for your support for critical public health initiatives and...

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September x, 2022 Why I Serve on the RLS Foundation Board By Lew Phelps, former Chair, Chair Emeritus and current member of the RLS Foundation Board, 2018 Ekbom Award recipient. I first heard about the Restless Legs Syndrome Foundation from a cousin, Margaret McCleery Fuhr. Her father and my mother were siblings. They both suffered from what the...

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August 15, 2022 Board Spotlight: Paul Rochester By Clara Schlemeyer, Program Coordinator, RLS Foundation Q: How and why did you get involved with the RLS Foundation? A: A friend named Bob Waterman introduced me to the Foundation. You know Bob as a former chair of the board and founder of the RLS Foundation Research Grant Program. Bob and...

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July 28, 2022 Start on www.rls.org/login and click on “Forgotten Username/Password” to request a password reset email. Be sure to check your "junk" folder for the email. Before clicking on the link in the email be sure that you are NOT logged in to www.rls.org (home page says “Member Login” indicating that you are not logged in). Create...

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July 26, 2022 The drug ecopipam shows promise for bringing relief to RLS patients who develop augmentation, a common side effect of dopamine medications. Stefan Clemens, PhD, HdR, a professor of physiology at East Carolina University, is a member of the RLS Foundation’s Scientific and Medical Advisory Board, and chair of the Foundation’s Research Grant Committee. Regarding the...

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July 18, 2022 Planning Travel with RLS Travel with RLS is possible with advanced planning to help manage unwanted symptoms during travel by plane, bus, train or car. These tips will help you to create a plan that employs several strategies to manage symptoms. Make a List of Strategies that help you to cope with symptoms. Travel presents...

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June 27, 2022 Frequently Asked Questions About RLS Foundation Membership At the RLS Foundation, we appreciate your support through membership. All RLS Foundation members can be proud of the part they play in making our mission a reality and reaching our goals to improve treatments and, through research, find a cure. If you have additional questions about membership,...

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June 6, 2022 People who have moderate to severe restless legs syndrome, or RLS, are four times as likely to suffer from clinically severe depression and suicidal thoughts as the general population, according to a new study by the RLS Foundation. Despite patients’ symptom severity, primary care physicians frequently misdiagnose or mistreat the condition, the research also found....

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May 20, 2022 The Neurologist Prof. Dr. Mauro Manconi, Head of the Department of Sleep Medicine at the Neurocentre of Southern Switzerland of the Regional Hospital of Lugano, received the EFNA Award 2022 'Advocating for Gender Equity in Neurology' in the category "Outstanding Achievement by a Medical Professional" for his continuous and outstanding scientific work on the topic...

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May 4, 2022 BBC Reel Examines Restless Legs Syndrome Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is a condition of the nervous system that, in its most serious form, can be highly debilitating. It is thought to affect roughly 10 percent of people worldwide, so how come it is still relatively unknown and poorly understood? BBC Reel's Howard Timberlake goes in...

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May 4, 2022 The Sleep Community Rallied The RLS community responded quickly to a recent Action Alert to request our Representatives to sign on to a bipartisan letter in support of sleep disorders and sleep health disparities. On April 25, 2022, an amazing total of 36 U.S. Representatives signed that letter, which is very impressive by Congressional appropriations...

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April 26, 2022 Iron Treatment Shows Promise in Children with RLS or PLMD By Karla Dzienkowski, RN, BSN, Executive Director, RLS Foundation Restless legs syndrome (RLS) and periodic limb movement disorder (PLMD) are two neurological conditions commonly treated with oral iron in children. Some children do not tolerate or respond sufficiently to oral iron, and there is not...

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April 19, 2022 Board Spotlight: Jeffrey Durmer, MD, PhD By Clara Schlemeyer, Program Coordinator, RLS Foundation I spoke with Dr. Jeffrey Durmer, a former member of the RLS Foundation’s Scientific and Medical Advisory Board and current member of the Foundation’s Board of Directors. He also serves on the Sleep Disorders Research Advisory Board (SDRAB) of the National Institutes...

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April 3, 2022 A Week to Stand Up for RLS Advocacy is part of the important work of the RLS Foundation that we focus on year-round. Please join us April 4–8 in contacting your representatives to educate them about RLS and our advocacy priorities. To learn more about our advocacy priorities and agenda, check out our prep packet....

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March 1, 2022 RLS Community: Provide Your Comments to CDC by April 10 Background The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Injury Prevention and Control is in the process of updating the 2016 CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain. The draft updated Clinical Practice Guideline for Prescribing Opioids is available for public...

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February 21, 2022 RLS Foundation Certifies UPMC as Quality Care Center The Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS) Foundation announces it has certified the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) in Pittsburgh as an RLS Quality Care Center. As an RLS Quality Care Center, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center is certified to provide expert care to patients who have...

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