Could Those Creepy-Crawly Nighttime Leg Sensations Be A Treatable Medical Condition? One Woman’s Search For Relief

Could Those Creepy-Crawly Nighttime Leg Sensations Be A Treatable Medical Condition? One Woman’s Search For Relief

For more than 10 years, Beth McFadden, a 44-year- old mother of three, lived with strange leg sensations that were not only difficult to describe, but were also uncomfortable and disruptive.

“At night, I would be lying in bed, just on the verge of going to sleep, and I would get these feelings in my legs that I needed to make go away. It was a tingling sensation-my legs would feel like something was crawling deep inside them. I felt like I had to move my legs and then would start tossing and turning. Sometimes, I had to get out of bed and walk to relieve the feelings. This would usually go on for quite some time, preventing me from falling asleep.”

Beth knew that what she was experiencing wasn’t normal, so she started talking to others about her symptoms. At the time, her doctors did not know how to help her. Beth even thought the symptoms might be related to her diet or exercise habits.

“I was frustrated. Night after night, I would feel the same creepy-crawly sensations in my legs, and getting up to relieve the feelings would keep me from falling asleep. Sometimes, I would get these sensations during the day if I was sitting for a long time: I couldn’t really sit and read, watch TV, go to the movies. Travel became difficult because I couldn’t sit for long periods of time on airplanes or in the car.”

Recently, Beth saw an article about Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS) in a local newspaper. It described RLS as a common and disruptive neurological condition that is characterized by a compelling urge to move the legs and by uncomfortable or sometimes painful sensations in the legs. These sensations are frequently described as creeping-crawling, tingling, pulling or tightening in the legs.

Beth wondered if this could be the same condition she had lived with for all these years.

She brought the article to her doctor to help her describe what she was experiencing. After an examination, Beth’s physician diagnosed her with RLS, a recognized-and now treatable-medical condition.

“I’m relieved to know that what I’ve been experiencing is a recognized medical condition. For me, my RLS diagnosis was an important step forward in my quest for relief from the disruptive creepy-crawly feelings that I had lived with for so long.”

In May 2005, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Requip® (ropinirole HCl) Tablets for the treatment of moderate-to-severe primary RLS, making Requip the first and only treatment for RLS of any type or severity.

In a recently published study in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, researchers found that patients taking Requip reported significant improvement in RLS symptoms when compared with placebo, and onset of symptom improvement was observed after two nights of treatment.

Important Safety Information About Requip®

Prescription Requip Tablets are not for everyone. Requip may cause you to fall asleep or feel very sleepy while doing normal activities such as driving; or to faint or feel dizzy, nauseated or sweaty when you stand up from sitting or lying down. If you experience these problems, talk with your doctor. Tell your doctor if you drink alcohol or are taking other medicines that make you drowsy. Side effects include nausea, drowsiness, vomiting and dizziness. Most patients were not bothered enough to stop taking Requip.

Requip should be taken once daily one to three hours before bedtime.

In the study published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings and entitled “Therapy with Ropinirole, Efficacy And Tolerability in Restless Legs Syndrome” (TREAT RLS US), the most common adverse events reported in the ropinirole group (n=187) versus placebo (n=193) were nausea (43 percent versus 8 percent), headache (17 percent versus 19 percent), somnolence (13 percent versus 7 percent) and nasopharyngitis (11 percent versus 12 percent). The withdrawal rate due to adverse events was similar between the two groups (ropinirole 3 percent versus placebo 4 percent).

A Brief History of Tablet PCs

A Brief History of Tablet PCs

In the late 1980s, early pen computer systems generated a lot of excitement and there was a time when it was thought they might eventually replace conventional computers with keyboards. After all, everyone knows how to use a pen and pens are certainly less intimidating than keyboards.
Pen computers, as envisioned in the 1980s, were built around handwriting recognition. In the early 1980s, handwriting recognition was seen as an important future technology. Nobel prize winner Dr. Charles Elbaum started Nestor and developed the NestorWriter handwriting recognizer. Communication Intelligence Corporation created the Handwriter recognition system, and there were many others.
In 1991, the pen computing hype was at a peak. The pen was seen as a challenge to the mouse, and pen computers as a replacement for desktops. Microsoft, seeing slates as a potentially serious competition to Windows computers, announced Pen Extensions for Windows 3.1 and called them Windows for Pen Computing. Microsoft made some bold predictions about the advantages and success of pen systems that would take another ten years to even begin to materialize. In 1992, products arrived. GO Corporation released PenPoint. Lexicus released the Longhand handwriting recognition system. Microsoft released Windows for Pen Computing. Between 1992 and 1994, a number of companies introduced hardware to run Windows for Pen Computing or PenPoint. Among them were EO, NCR, Samsung, Dauphin, Fujitsu, TelePad, Compaq, Toshiba, and IBM. Few people remember that the original IBM ThinkPad was, as the name implies, slate computers.
The computer press was first enthusiastic, then very critical when pen computers did not sell. They measured pen computers against desktop PCs with Windows software and most of them found pen tablets difficult to use. They also criticized handwriting recognition and said it did not work. After that, pen computer companies failed. Momenta closed in 1992. They had used up US million in venture capital. Samsung and NCR did not introduce new products. Pen pioneer GRiD was bought by AST for its manufacturing capacity. AST stopped all pen projects. Dauphin, which was started by a Korean businessman named Alan Yong, went bankrupt, owing IBM over million. GO was taken over by AT&T, and AT&T closed the company in August 1994 (after the memorable “fax on the beach” TV commercials). GO had lost almost US million in venture capital. Compaq, IBM, NEC, and Toshiba all stopped making consumer market pen products in 1994 and 1995.
By 1995, pen computing was dead in the consumer market. Microsoft made a half-hearted attempt at including “Pen Services” in Windows 95, but slate computers had gone away, at least in consumer markets. It lived on in vertical and industrial markets. Companies such as Fujitsu Personal Systems, Husky, Telxon, Microslate, Intermec, Symbol Technologies, Xplore, and WalkAbout made and sold many pen tablets and pen slates.
That was, however, not the end of pen computing. Bill Gates had always been a believer in the technology, and you can see slate computers in many of Microsoft’s various “computing in the future” presentations over the years. Once Microsoft reintroduced pen computers as the “Tablet PC” in 2002, slates and notebook convertibles made a comeback, and new companies such as Motion Computing joined the core of vertical and industrial market slate computers specialists.
The primary reason why the Microsoft-specification Tablet PC is reasonably successful whereas earlier attempts were not has two reasons. First, the technology required for a pen slate simply wasn’t there in the early 1990s. And second, the pen visionaries’ idea of replacing keyboard input with handwriting (and voice) recognition turned out to be far more difficult than anticipated. There were actually some very good recognizers that are still being used today, but they all require training and a good degree of adaptation by the user. You can’t just scribble on the screen and the computer magically understands everything. With the Tablet PC, Microsoft downplayed handwriting recognition in favor of “digital ink” as a new data type. This was a very wise decision.

With a Grain of Salt (Due To The Fact That You Can Not Constantly Believe Whatever You Listen To or Read).

With a Grain of Salt (Since You Can’t Constantly Believe Every Little Thing You Hear or Review).

I always ask yourself if the ‘professionals’ who show up on the early morning shows (The Today Program; Great Early Morning America; CBS Morning Show) have any type of suggestion that they regularly appear silly to probably half individuals that are paying attention to them.
Consider the various other early morning, as an example. According to one ‘expert,’ dental experts around the country are extremely stressed because individuals are drinking a lot bottled water, as well as, as a result, are not getting enough fluoride from alcohol consumption tap water.
” It is easy to consume alcohol fluoridated faucet water,” the specialist stated. “Everyone can simply switch on their tap as well as drink fluoridated water.”.
Really?
Everybody?
What about those individuals who consume well water and are not hooked into a community water supply that fluoridates the water?
I do not find out about people that endure in the country in other components of the USA, yet around right here in Wisconsin, we do not mount systems to fluoridate our well water. Often people will certainly provide fluoride tablets to their youngsters to stop dental caries, and also the institution areas will certainly likewise provide fluoride tablets to country kids, but from what I have actually reviewed, fluoride tablets may not be such a great suggestion, either. I have actually checked out that fluoride can depress thyroid activity and that physicians utilized fluoride up till the 1950s to treat thyroid problems.
Whether the insurance claims concerning the threats of fluoride are true or otherwise, I can not claim for sure due to the fact that I am not a research study scientist that has actually investigated fluoride. What I can say for certain is that if you do a Google search for “fluoride” and “thyroid” even more than 300,000 references turn up. And when you start to check out through the websites summaries, you see that a number of the websites are doubting the safety and effectiveness of using fluoride either by tablet or in the drinking water.
In respect to the issue of alcohol consumption faucet water for the fluoride, the specialist on television took place to claim that lots of people are afraid to drink their faucet water as a result of contaminants.
Truly?
Isn’t that why towns go to wonderful pains to test their water? To make that certain the water is totally free from impurities? Isn’t that why there are many guidelines concerning the testing done on local water to make certain that it is secure to consume alcohol? Isn’t that why metropolitan water supply have filters as well as various other devices as well as procedures to make sure the pollutants are eliminated?
All the same, the professional accelerated to ensure everyone that the bottled water business were coming to the rescue and also would soon sell MINERAL WATER WHICH CONTAINS FLUORIDE.
Ah-hah!
Now we concern the real crux of the matter.
It isn’t that dental professionals fear for our teeth and general oral wellness since numerous people consume alcohol unfluoridated bottled water.
It isn’t that community water systems consist of contaminants.
It’s that the bottled water business wish to create a market to sell more bottled water.
So currently I wonder, the length of time did it take the press agent (employed by the bottled water business, obviously) to talk the producers of the early morning news reveal into broadcasting the segment?
It all makes me rather unwell to my stomach.No one respects the health and wellness of our teeth. It’s just that the bottled water business desire to market even more bottled water.
However, it acts as an exceptional suggestion.
When I see or listen to something on television, or check out it in a newspaper or magazine, I must always ask myself– whose agenda is this?
And also as soon as I find out who stands to make money by a certain train of idea or a specific opinion or a specific item of “information”– I am simply that much closer to the truth.
© & duplicate; LeAnn R. Ralph 2006.