I have this issue often. I know if I scratch, it will wake me up and take longer to sleep because of my body movement. If I don’t scratch, my mind only focuses on the itch. Sometimes I’ll wait 5 minutes for the scratch to go away and then I just cave and start scratching any minor itch I have on my body. Has anyone just not moved and let the itch subside or does everyone scratch?
As someone who suffered from restless leg for more than ten years before the doctors had medications to help, I can tell you that it doesn’t matter which answer you pick, you’re going to be up all night.
Do the medications help?
It was the only thing that ever helped! I went for quite a few years getting maybe 3-4 hours of rest every night, I was a walking zombie. Up until that point I had found that leg stretches before bed were helping to ease the symptoms but eventually that stopped doing any good, and I didn’t have the energy to get out and walk or do anything else. Meanwhile marijuana got legalized here and my wife has been making edibles to help me sleep. That helped a little but I never really woke up feeling rested, you know? So between these meds and the cookies things have really changed in the last few years. The meds let me actually sleep, and the cookies make sure I can go back to sleep when I wake up in the middle of the night. I’ve been getting out for walks again and have dropped 30 pounds this year so things are really looking up.
That’s amazing to hear. What are the meds called?
This one is Gabapentin, although I’ve heard there are others available too. Definitely worth talking to your doctor about, they might send you to a specialist. That’s who figured out what would help me.