Posted on 07/20/2007 1:51:27 AM PDT by neverdem
Are you aware of the risk of hemochromatosis, and that primary hemochromatosis is the most common genetic disorder in the United States, affecting an estimated 1 of every 200 to 300 Americans?
I have this syndrome and it had plagued my poor wife and I for about a decade. It came shortly after a sleep lab showed I had severe sleep apnea. That may be a common denominator/link.
We could never pin down the cause. Sometimes if I didn’t walk a mile or so each day I had it. Then sometimes I had it after nice long walks.
Finally, my wife, an RN, suggested that we try Dr Gott’s recommendation of putting bars of soap under the sheets.
We did, and it worked for a week. Then, we put the bars unwrapped under the sheets, and they worked for months.
On a recent 10 day cruise, I used the bars only for one night and had no problems. We feel that the constant motion of the ship at sea (at sea every night) had a neutralizing impact.
My wife and the FP she has worked with for decades recommend the bars of soap for their patients, and their patients have had excellent results. One friend said that bars of wood would probably work. He feels that you bang your leg against the bar soap and it stops the RLS syndrome. He still uses the bars of soap.
Dr Gott’s web site has a lot of excellent comments on this weird but often very effective and low cost way of treatment for RLS syndrome.
I once had a patient with hemochromatosis who was from Transylvania. The treatment, of course, was phlebotomy (bleeding). It made me think that maybe Dracula has gotten a bum rap.
I cannot recall the exact circumstances of the instances when I experienced this, but my recollection at the time is refined carbs came to mind. I do know this for a fact, it is something in the food supply because it seemed very much to depend on what I had been eating.
Exercising would tend to burn excess carbs, as carbs are burned first. Ice cream is probably the last thing you should be eating before going to bed in my book depending on your lactose tolerance especially. I actually find fruit or peanut butter on a crusty rye cracker works well for me.
If you want some sugar I found that canned fruit even in syrup was no problem for me or sometimes I have a Popsicle or frozen fruit bar in the evening.
Half of a 3mg melatonin really helps sleep too.
I will also say that I am a type O blood - meat eater type.
If you are the same, maybe this will help you because I do not believe we all can eat the same things with the same result necessarily.
I think we all will benefit from never eating conventional white bread except as a last resort.
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