rls and my neurology appointment

[Guest guest]

well my friends today i met with my VA neurologist - i went armed with

copies of email messages and the latest rls foundation newsletter. some

background: my neurologist is the chief of the neurology department at the

university of rochester and very familiar with rls..............i consider

my rls/plmd to be on the mild to moderate side since while i twitch and

spasm especially early evening i fortunately have little trouble falling

asleep but i sure have trouble staying asleep almost never sleeping for

more than 3 hours at one stretch. i've been taking neurontin 400mg tid

for the past 3 months.

i first asked him to order a blood test for ferritin and he almost laughed

at me - after some discussion he said he didn't believe there were any

valid studies that demonstrated that ferritin levels had any effect on rls

BUT he promised me that he would do more research on the subject. i also

asked him about switching over to permax or mirapex since the neurontin had

seemingly ceased to improve my condition - he said that if i wanted he'd

switch me over to a low dose of siminet and if that didn't help then he'd

try either permax or mirapex. he also felt that all of those drugs were

essentially the same in that they might very well improve rls symptoms but

all have great potential for side effects that would necessitate a

changeover to a different drug eventually.

so we settled on an increase of neurontin to 2 300mg capsules tid since

the potential for side effects are minimal with little chance of rebound or

augmentation.

for those of you still reading this i thank you since i had to get todays

visit off my chest............

JACK

sunny and mid 30's in western nys

PLEASE LOOK AT OUR APRIL FOOL'S DAY SOOPER DOOPER HOMEPAGE!!!!!!!!!

NEW - homepage URL

http://www.frontiernet.net/~goviers

updated 3/21/99.

On the Internet, nobody knows you're a cat.

The total sum of the world's IQ is constant. If the population is

increasing, then intelligence is ...

A little village of Trids (like Smurfs only green) had built their water

well on the top of a hill. An evil troll took over the hill and wouldn't

let the Trids get any water. Every Trid that went up the hill was kicked

down by the troll. Frustrated, the Trids asked the local Rabbi for help. He

climbed the hill and got the water with any trouble from the troll. When he

went back up the hill he asked the troll why he had not kicked him down the

hill. The troll replied, " Silly rabbi, kicks are for Trids. "