To JHolt

[Guest guest]

I am in constant motion...I rock when I sit, no matter where I am...work,

home, movies, etc. At meetings at work, if I can manage to sit at a table

or desk where no one sees my legs, I bounce the legs by just staying up on

the balls of my feet...don't let the heels touch the ground...this is also

a movie solution. I sway when I stand...from side to side...or I stand on

my right foot, the left foot neatly tucked on and against the right leg

just above the knee, rather like a flamingo or other long-legged bird

(hehehe). As my arthritis progresses, this becomes more and more difficult

to accomplish, but it feels SOOOO good I keep managing to do it anyway.

You just have to picture this little overweight " bird " standing there on

one leg, quite hysterical...probably like the bird when she has all her

feathers ruffed up...like a little ball on one pin...what a sight I am!!!

The bouncing leg thing works great at my desk at work as I hunch over the

keyboard....the only complaints I've had were from new hires who thought we

might be having an earth tremor!!!

Another thing that I do is ITCH..and that does drive me nuts...there is

always somewhere on my body that has an itch...like a fine needle being

poked into my skin...and it MUST be scratched or it will NOT go away.

Sometimes there is a very weird sensation when the feeling strikes in one

certain place on my leg, it will simultaneously strike in the center of my

back...or other combination of sites....it is so weird but happens again

and again all day long and night time too. I'm never free of the itch

feeling. I wonder what people think sometimes when I'm constantly rubbing

or scratching at some spot or another on my face, arms, legs, back,

wherever. My back is particularly bad and I keep long handled scratchers on

hand at work, and at home by my bed and couch and computer so I can get to

those pin-pricks quickly.

Oddly enough, my dad, who also suffers from RLS, has also been victim of

the " itchy back " thing as long as I can remember. He and I used to trade

off back scratches all the time, and he would often back up against the

door jam and scrape his back side to side and up and down to relieve that

itch. He looked like those bears you see in the nature movies and I used to

tease him about that lots ))))

Do others of you get this itchy complication also??

Judith, 57 scratching and bouncing away in Florida