Restless Legs and Dietary Cycles: A Drug-Free Solution (Part 2)

This story is a continuation from Part 1 by community member Sharonartist.

Timing my trigger foods

As a practical matter, making sure you have bedtime access to all your trigger foods can be a problem. I won’t open a fresh can of beer before bed just to take a sip, so if I have a beer during the day, I make sure to leave a teaspoon in the can for later. I use mayonnaise (which I always have on hand) to stand in for egg. A dollop of ketchup subs for tomato; a pinch of polenta for corn; a few drops of soy sauce for soy (which is a trigger in large quantities but not small). I keep a stock of tiny morsels of chicken wrapped up in the freezer, and I set aside a morsel from other problem foods I eat during the day. If you eat out, you never know what might be in all those tasty sauces, so best to take home a little doggy bag if you can.

In any case, what I do at bedtime is to think back on what I ate each day, go through my list, and take a tiny serving of each culprit right before bed. And I mean a TINY amount — about 1/4 teaspoon. If I forget something, my twitching legs immediately tell me to think harder about what I ate that day, and then I get up and remedy the omission, after which the twitching stops.

This is so effective that I can almost always stop restless legs immediately. The other night, for example, based on my food intake that day, I had a sip of milk, a peanut, a small dollop of mayonnaise, and a tiny piece of chicken, and got into bed. No RLS, but I woke up several hours later with a slight twitch in my right leg. After some thought, I remembered that I had eaten a miniature candy cane at my place of work that day, and also a small chocolate that might have contained pecans. Both pecans and red dye #40 are triggers for my right leg. No need to worry about which was at fault, I took a little of both, and the twitching stopped.

It's quirky, but it works for me

I readily admit that some things I can’t explain. For example, for me, eggs and chicken are not interchangeable. Likewise, milk and half & half. Go figure. Cooked tomato is an issue; fresh tomato, not. Some complex/packaged foods that I eat frequently cause restless legs, but I don’t bother to figure out which particular ingredient is the problem, because I just want to get to sleep, not spend my life experimenting, although some food chemist could probably find a common chemical denominator to most of my trigger foods.

Also, I can usually get to sleep by about 4 a.m. even if I have restless legs; I don’t know if this is because by that time I am just so tired I sleep in spite of them, or because there is some interaction with my biological clock that makes restless legs diminish around that time. I almost never have restless legs in the morning or during the day, despite being off-cycle. But again, any time I feel them starting, I can immediately stop them with my food cure.

Remaining challenges

Until it was banned, I still had access to quinine sulfate pills, but after 1992 I almost never used them. When they were banned, they were too precious to waste, so I divided them in half (they still worked), but they were only for “emergencies.” What are RLS “emergencies”? Any time you want to get to sleep and can’t implement your food cure.

For example, camping trips can be problematic if it is 30 degrees out and your icebox is kept under your bed. Or while traveling. Once in my 30s I was packed into a huge plane to fly to Hawaii. The plan got stuck on the tarmac for several extra hours, and we could not leave our tiny seats. This was before I understood restless legs, but I got them and was in agony for many hours. As soon as I got access to my checked luggage in Hawaii, I took quinine and also put several tabs of quinine in my purse, where I have carried them ever since. I learned my lesson. (Even though my doctors have diligently refused to give me any quinine since 2000, apparently thinking that a tiny increased chance of death is more important than never sleeping, I still have a few of these precious pills left & hope they are still potent when needed.)

My serious traveling days are behind me, but without quinine, I’m not sure how travel would work. Maybe other countries will still let people buy quinine. Or, so many foods can be had in dehydrated form nowadays, one could make up their own medicinal powder. Or maybe you could carry a tiny vial with you, into which you could put tiny portions of the trigger foods you eat during the day. However, because one tends to eat an irregular and varied diet while traveling, restless legs may occur less frequently to begin with.

We all have different triggers

The foods that trigger my restless legs probably have nothing to do with the foods that trigger yours. And it is also possible that non-edible environmental exposures may be at fault, if experienced on a cyclical basis. But it’s highly likely that some of the foods you eat the most are the ones triggering your problem. For anyone with restless legs, I strongly recommend going for a few days on a limited diet of foods you rarely eat, which will probably eliminate not only restless legs, but perhaps some other symptoms you didn’t associate with food. (I ate white rice, canned tuna, and orange juice.)

Tips for exploring food triggers

At first, you may have more restless legs, because you won’t be feeding your "addiction" and will have to withdraw, but this should disappear in a day or two. In any case, once your RLS has gone, then gradually add back your regular and favorite foods one at a time and see what happens. Give things a little time to work; often a single exposure is not enough to trigger the response (Do people get caffeine headaches if they drink coffee once? No.) If you get restless legs, then see if eating a tiny serving of a particular food before bed helps. Once you have finished the research, there’s no need to eliminate any food from your diet; just eat it when you need it.

Based on my experience with candidiasis, I am convinced that not only restless legs, but numerous other symptoms (like “going postal”) are due to reactions to environmental stimuli. But at least in the case of restless legs, if it is caused by something you are eating, you can stop chasing after dozens of treatments that are time-consuming and don’t work, like massages, hot baths, exercise, and so forth. For me, my food cure has been working more than 99 percent of the time for 30 years.

Editor's Note: Quinine, an anti-malarial drug, was once used to treat RLS symptoms, but the FDA issued a warning in 2006 about its off-label use for RLS. Please speak with your doctor before making changes to your treatment plan.