If you have rheumatoid arthritis and find yourself battling the urge to stop moving your legs, it’s not a coincidence. A recent review explains a possible association between restless leg syndrome and rheumatoid arthritis patients.
Restless leg syndrome (RLS) is a condition that causes a constant urge to move your legs, which can disturb your sleep and affect your quality of life. People who have rheumatoid arthritis (RA), an immune disease characterized by inflammation of the joints, are more likely to develop RLS.
It is estimated that RLS affects between 5-15% of the population, and women are twice as likely to have it. Patients with RA are more likely to develop RLS than the general population, the review reports that 30% of RA patients also have RLS.
Sleep problems are common for everyone at some time or another; therefore many RA patients may not look into their RLS symptoms. RLS remains under-diagnosed. 91% of the patients in the review could not tell the difference between RLS and RA sensations. Research has shown that poor sleep quality is associated with pain, mood, fatigue, stress and disease activity in patients with RA, so it very important that RLS be treated.
Although RLS is generally considered a neurodegenerative disease and RA is a disease of the immune system, there is a bidirectional communication between the brain and the immune system. The same molecules that are produced during inflammation by the immune system are involved in sleep physiology. The connection between sleep and the immune system may explain why sleep disorders are coming among people with RA.
The review recommended treatment for RLS, both in RA or non-RA patients, is that patients start in normalizing the iron stores and iron levels in the blood. Also, FDA-approved drugs that affect dopamine levels such as ropinirole, pramipexole, rotigotine, and gabapentin, be prescribed.
If you suffer from RA ask your doctor about being screened for RLS, especially if you have chronic sleep problems. You don’t have to suffer additional sleep complications; there are many treatments out to there to improve RLS and RS symptoms. You can be on your way to sleeping better before you know it!
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