Orgasms are still good, though ;-)

I usually find that a good round of leg stretches (IT band, ham string, quads, etc) over the space of 20 minutes or so, helps almost all the time.

But thanks for the tip, its good to have options! Maybe more fun options as well!

One of the big sections I needed to cut out of my article for space was about the fact that I’ve been hearing anecdotal info about RLS and orgasm outside the medical community for years. I’ve personally known half a dozen people with it who said masturbation helps them. If the Brazilian article was a study of RLS and orgasm I would be completely behind that (though I don’t promise not to find problems with its methodologies).

But it drives me nuts when anecdotal information from patients is treated one way…and then it gets *reported by a doctor* and suddenly it’s “real.” The plural of anecdote is not data…but in medicine, anecdotes from a given patient or set of patients is sometimes all we have to go on. It doesn’t make it *more* real just because a doctor is now repeating it.

Since there are at least tens of millions and probably billions of RLS sufferers out there (7-10% just of the U.S. and European population!) I just don’t think a single anecdote should be reported in a sleep science journal or New Scientist. The experiences of patients should be shared with other patients because they’re helpful, not because one doctor in Brazil says “One patient reported this, and it’s upheld by ‘what we know’ about brain science,” when it’s actually not, because there haven’t been enough studies of dopamine in this context — and there should be!

Also, I have RLS myself (probably about 30% of nights), and so does my partner. I find the dopamine connection questionable only because of my own experience with orgasm — dopamine levels appear to climb generally as men approach orgasm, but being close to orgasm but not having one appears likely to give me *serious* RLS. If I have an orgasm, I often can’t sleep — the opposite of what it is often said “science shows” about male brain chemistry and orgasm. My brain and my orgasms are very strange things.

Which, as you point out, is not science — it’s exactly one patient’s experience. Everyone with RLS (or anything) should find what works for them, and meanwhile I definitely believe there should be more research into the science of the brain, on every level. And *that* is why I think when researchers and journalists report information with an agenda, or report information that’s fragmentary at best, it runs the risk of derailing our real understanding of conditions.

However, *patients* have no such obligation of newsworthiness or scientific rigor — the more that patients in every category share information, I think, the better. No matter how fragmentary (up to a point, I guess). Every share is a single person’s experience — and, assuming everyone is as honest as possible, the sum total is a MUCH better clinical picture no matter what the disease or condition.

Thanks again for commenting!