For those that don't know what Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS) is, don't worry, no-one in the world can put their finger on it... yet.
As a sufferer, it’s basically described as the most uncomfortable tingling that starts in your lower back area and within a few seconds, shoots through to your legs causing you to feel like you need to stretch, kick or jump your legs in order to get rid of the sensation. Quite often the impulse is so strong that your legs jump suddenly on their own and almost violently in response to the sensation. Don’t confuse this with the sudden uncontrolled jumps that your arms and legs make as you fall asleep, which is quite norml. No, this sensation is totally different because you can feel it coming on.
Restless Leg Syndrome seems to be something relatively new in the world, and nobody really knows how to cure it. If you go to a Doctor (which I did) you will be prescribed medication as quick as you can blink, and the medication will be a “ball park” hit, cause all the doctor hears is that you are getting tingling and uncontrollable spasms from your spine through to your legs, and they will prescribe something to stop the spasm symptom, but if you ask them if it will cure the cause of the problem, you get a very blaa blaa response.
I was prescribed Pexola. This is medication given to people who suffer from Parkinson’s disease, and I thought, well… although this medication sounds hard core, this RLS problem is really serious for me and it’s destroying my everyday life because I’m getting hardly any sleep, so I must take it. After taking the pexola, I immediately noticed how odd it was making me feel, almost like I was a bottle of champagne ready to pop but someone was holding in the cork. I eventually stopped using it as I became worried about what it was doing to me.
5 years later, having suffered the condition all the way, I finally broke, I couldn’t handle it anymore. One night at about 3am, I got up and just started hitting my head against the wall out of pure anger and frustration, but this of course wasn’t helping the situation.
Off to the doctor again, but this time to a Specialist Physician. This Doc was a champ, when I told him “Restless Leg Syndrome” he immediately said to me that doctors are aware of the problem, but really aren’t sure what to do for people because they don’t really know what causes it, or what it is, and that there are only two medications you can take for the symptoms.
1.) Pexola: (Which was prescribed by the first doctor) But he at least warned me that the long term side effect of using it is Heart Failure, unlike the first doctor who told me nothing of the sort. Thanks, jerk.
2.) Quinine: Basically your Malaria type medication, but he also warned me that a long term side effect of this medication, is deafness. Great.
So I decided to tell him that I had recently started using Cannabis in a desperate attempt to get some sleep, and that it was getting rid of the symptoms and was also helping me fall sleep easily. And his response came as a bit if a shock because I was expecting a fat lecture on drugs.
He said that if it was indeed getting rid of the symptoms and was also helping me sleep, I should continue using it especially since the side effects and long term use of the cannabis, is hugely minimal compared to those of the hard core medications. He was almost sad to say that in South Africa, he can’t prescribe it for me and he can’t endorse it either as a Doctor due to it’s illegal rating here, but he was fully for it. And the best part, is that he said he was going to put another 60 year old patient of his in touch with me that suffers from the same condition, this poor old man nearly committed suicide on many occasions as a result, and the doctor was hoping I could help him get his hands on some good quality cannabis to help him. Wow!
Can you beleive it? And they call this stuff illegal. I can fall asleep without taking anything around 4 days out of 7 now and the restless leg syndrome is not as active as before. So it’s even improved my condition.
Cannabis as medicine? You bet!
Bud
Originally published in Weed World Magazine Issue 110
