Restless legs, restless nights: a case history

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

(HealthDay News) -- Pickett Guthrie first felt the unpleasant sensations in her legs during the third trimester of her first pregnancy, back in 1963.

"I couldn't sleep because my legs would jerk very uncomfortably," said Guthrie, now 68 and living in Raleigh , N.C.

She wouldn't know it for two decades, but Guthrie was suffering from restless legs syndrome -- a sleep disorder that would affect her throughout her life.

At first, she complained to her obstetrician. "He said, 'What did you expect, you are pregnant?' " Guthrie recalled.

The feelings disappeared after her child was born. But they returned when she was pregnant with her second child, only to vanish again after delivery.

"Mostly I was healthy and active after that, with no problems," Guthrie said.

But in her 40s, the sensations returned to stay.

"For me, it feels like an electric shock that goes through my legs," she said. "It's like putting your finger in a light socket every 30 to 40 seconds."

Guthrie's father had recently been critically injured in a car crash. He'd also been falling asleep during meetings and at odd times, and the police believed he had gone to sleep behind the wheel.

Meanwhile, Guthrie had been losing sleep because of the jerks and shocks to her legs, so she finally went to see her family physician. "The internist said, 'That's really odd. Your father mentioned the exact same sensations,' " she recalled the doctor telling her.

The doctor began researching Guthrie's mysterious ailment but came up empty-handed. So he ended up sending her to doctors at Duke University for an evaluation.

"By that point, I was in pretty serious stress," she said. "The sensations had moved from just at night until even at my desk at work, in the middle of the afternoon."

Guthrie couldn't sit still. She had to get up and always walk around, even on airplanes. She jokes that she has walked across oceans that way.

It was also embarrassing.

"If you're sitting in a restaurant with friends and have to get up during the meal, it can be very lonely," she said. "I would sit through an opera in agony, unable to get up."

To top it off, Guthrie was by now simply exhausted. "A good night would be three hours, up and down and up and down and up and down," she said. "That's a disastrous way to live."

The doctors at Duke made the diagnosis -- restless legs syndrome, brought on by an inadequate ability to store and process iron.

The U.S. National Institutes of Health defines restless legs syndrome as a neurological disorder characterized by unpleasant sensations in the legs and an uncontrollable urge to move when at rest in an effort to relieve the feelings. The sensations are often described as burning, creeping, tugging, or "like insects crawling inside the legs."

Guthrie now takes medication that helps moderate her symptoms.

"My sleep is not good, but it is so much better than it was 15 years ago," she said. "I think I have a good life. I am on my way to the symphony here in a few hours. I will spend the second half standing in the aisle. So that is still a challenge. But at least I am going."

The disorder has been passed down to Guthrie's daughter, who currently takes iron to treat it.

She has benefited from her mother's experience. "She never had to go through decades without a diagnosis," Guthrie said. "She knew what she had, and was able to get treatment."

Because matters are already much better for her daughter, Guthrie remains hopeful.

"I don't expect a cure in my lifetime, but we both expect a cure before she is disabled. So this is not a bleak story," she said.

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