The end of a "syndrome"

heh...

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/06/23/080623fa_fact_boyer

...and Libbie's suspicions are confirmed. Restless leg? What? I've felt twitchy and restless at night. It's usually a sign that I haven't been eating well or exercising enough, and it often leads to insomnia. Restless leg my achin' A. I'm sure there are people who really do have weird neurological things going on with their legs that interrupt sleep, but so many that an entire ad campaign is warranted? That's allergy- and erectile dysfunction-level commonality, man. I just don't buy it.

Did anyone really believe it was real?

I prefer to take damitol when things are tough. And when they get really bad, there's always fukitol.

I've had this problem for decades. When I was a teenager and in my twenties, I had it almost every night.

If I go to sleep on my back with my knees up, no problem. Simple enough.

Of course, if you have a few drinks before crashing, that seems to cure the problem, too.

Big Pharma and the FDA collude to build a straw tiger and sell a bunch of drugs? Nah, that would never happen. Those selfless regulators at the FDA wouldn't let that happen.

If Medicinal Marijuana could only be grown in laboratory conditions, it would have been legalized and shoved down the patient's throats just like this. Since there's no profit in it for Big Pharma, the citizens are told no way, no how... you'll have to use something that has to be made in a lab.

Just who is it the FDA works for again?

Damn, and I was going to get a grant for a new product that instantly cures priapism because it contains no acetol.

Actually, people with severe disc and neurological systems from injured backs DO get restless legs--the kind of thing where your legs are compelled to move because lying still--in any position--causes pain. My doctor counteracted it with medication to help me sleep, which probably is the only reason I get any sleep at all.

So regardless of the BS quotient of the medication/syndrome--there are circumstances which bring these conditions about.

Thanks William, I was wracking my brain trying to remember who recently came out of the RLS closet ... ta da, it was Keith Olbermann. Not to be confused with coming out of the closet.

I suspect that true RLS is a real phenomenon, but that it's probably so rare that TV commercials were not warranted --because TV commercials assume that something like 15% or more the general population has the condition, and if you can get 6% of the population to buy your drug, you make a killing.

I don't want to discount to true pain and suffering of those few people who really do have this problem, but I wonder if this whole thing might have wound up as an "orphan drug" had GlaxoSmithKlein not manufactured the additional market of auto-suggest patients via those TV commercials.

My legs will twitch and that at night if I didn't get proper exercise, answer, exercise every day.

As for those with the real condition, it's too bad you got mixed in with the people who really just needed to get off their butts more.

I've had very infrequent attacks of RLS... I remember the first time I got it, I was a kid on my way to Disney with my aunt. I chalked it up to excitement. Nope. I've never been treated for it (other than to down a couple of beers, or to just swipe my feet together until I fall asleep which drives the wife nuts) but I do know that the syndrome exists. I'm 6'5"... I always attributed it to perhaps my legs needing blood (I do cramp up from time to time)... but maybe not.

Blanket dismissals regarding this issue and its existence are just plain stupid.

I didn't doubt it was real. I do dislike commercials for perscriptions. i read an article several years ago that Doctors see two results, patients who don't need a specific RX demanding it and then patients that rec'v and RX and don't want to take it because they heard all the side effects on the TV. I also dislike certain ones while I'm eating- heck while I'm doing ANYTHING for that matter.

I read most of that article in the OP, and my thought is if the FDA approved a genric, and sales drop, that means only the people who really need it are getting it. To me that is a good thing.

Blanket dismissals regarding this issue and its existence are just plain stupid.

Click to expand...

I agree.

But I also see no need for this drug when easy alternatives are successful.

Can I get a prescription for beer?

Instead of pumping money into research for a drug, why didn't a study of those afflicted research cause or the home remedies noted in this thread?

Perhaps it's a matter of exercise, perhaps a lack of potassium (banana prescription, anyone?), any number of possible causes. In my case, I considered it a muscular phenomenon. I ran miles a day and played soccer as well. I still don't think there was any neurological component to my issues with it.

Plot Device said:

I suspect that true RLS is a real phenomenon, but that it's probably so rare that TV commercials were not warranted --because TV commercials assume that something like 15% or more the general population has the condition, and if you can get 6% of the population to buy your drug, you make a killing.

I don't want to discount to true pain and suffering of those few people who really do have this problem, but I wonder if this whole thing might have wound up as an "orphan drug" had GlaxoSmithKlein not manufactured the additional market of auto-suggest patients via those TV commercials.

Click to expand...

right, exactly the point I was trying to make.

Too many pills for slight ills.

My 80 yr old father used to take so many pills that it was comical. He took pills to counter other pills.

He started cutting out the pills, starting with the ones that needed other pills. He started walking, he's now up to three miles a day.

He's down to three pills and is feeling better than he has in years.

I met a woman yesterday who told me she was retired. I expressed great surprise because she looked in her mid-30s. She told me she had to have a liver transplant because of a Lamisil prescription which shut her liver down in less than a month.

A cure for toenail fungus that can kill you? Holy crap.

Take up water skiing. I guarantee the toenail fungus will be gone after a couple months.

No Xanax for me... vitamin B Complex... it's great for stress, I highly recommend it.

Joe270 said:

Too many pills for slight ills.

My 80 yr old father used to take so many pills that it was comical. He took pills to counter other pills.

He started cutting out the pills, starting with the ones that needed other pills. He started walking, he's now up to three miles a day.

He's down to three pills and is feeling better than he has in years.

I met a woman yesterday who told me she was retired. I expressed great surprise because she looked in her mid-30s. She told me she had to have a liver transplant because of a Lamisil prescription which shut her liver down in less than a month.

A cure for toenail fungus that can kill you? Holy crap.

Take up water skiing. I guarantee the toenail fungus will be gone after a couple months.

Click to expand...

Yeah but the water skiing won't allow me to sue a big pharma company and retire in my 30's.

I wouldn't go through a liver transplant to retire early.

The article doesn't actually say it doesn't exist. It just says that all this hype about it will die down now that generic drugs are being made. Most people have never heard of RLS until the pharmaceutical companies found a drug for it. And once they found a drug for it, they advertised in order to increase their market. RLS is a real syndrome, I suffer from it. Not often, but there isn't much to do about it. It mostly happens at night, it feels like ants crawling under your skin and you just need to move your legs, it's a compulsion. I always convince myself that if I hang my legs over the edge of the bed it'll help but it never does.

I don't take meds for it because it's not exactly life threatening nor does it affect the quality of my life in a major way. I take 3 extra strength tylenol. They don't help with the RLS but they put me to sleep. Once I'm asleep, everything's cool.

Can't drink alcohol because of all the other meds I take. hahahaha. only sort of kidding.

If it's not real, then what's that weird, twitchy, kicking thing I do two or three nights of the week? Weird-twitchy-kick-itis?