Restless Legs Syndrome - A Guide for Patients with RLS

When the body comes to rest and the legs do not. No sooner does the evening grow quiet than a dragging begins in the legs, a crawling, an urge that cannot be ignored. Between five and ten people in every hundred know this feeling. Years often pass before the right diagnosis is made, and along the way many are told it is their circulation, their nerves or simply their age. This is the foundation volume of the series. It explains restless legs syndrome from the ground up: what happens in the body, how the diagnosis is reached, which treatments exist and which of them hold up in daily life. Written to be understood, and in line with the current American, European and German guidelines. Two things have changed fundamentally in recent years. Treatment no longer begins as a matter of course with a dopamine drug, and an iron value that the laboratory report calls normal is often not normal enough in restless legs syndrome. Both are explained here in full, with the figures behind them. WHAT IS IN THE BOOK- 28 chapters from the first question to living with the condition- Every chapter opens with a case history from the consulting room- The American, European and German guidelines compared side by side- Why a normal ferritin value can still be too low in RLS- Augmentation: how to recognise that the treatment itself is doing harm- Checklists for the appointment, symptom and sleep diaries, glossary and index WHO THIS BOOK IS FORFor patients who want an orderly account of their condition at last, for partners and relatives who would like to understand why the evenings are so difficult, and for anyone preparing for a medical appointment who wants to know which questions are worth asking. ABOUT THE SERIESVolume 1 of 52 in the book series on restless legs syndrome, part 'Foundations'. Every volume can be read on its own. The statements in this volume rest on 198 professional sources, each one listed individually in the reference section.