Restless Legs Syndrome - The Variants

When the restlessness is not in the legs.

Abdomen, back, arms, head, genital area: restless legs syndrome can announce itself anywhere in the body. Those affected wait an average of seven to fifteen years for the right diagnosis, in individual cases half a lifetime - because nobody thinks of this condition while the legs stay quiet.

This volume describes the five best-known variants and shows how the five diagnostic criteria can be applied to any part of the body. It states openly how thin the evidence is: much of it rests on case series rather than large trials, and that is noted wherever it applies.

A separate part is given to the three confusions that matter most here - augmentation, akathisia and nerve damage - and to the medicines that produce such symptoms in the first place.

WHAT IS IN THE BOOK

- The five criteria, applied to any part of the body

- Restless arms: triggers, iron and treatment

- Restless back, and the connection with back pain in both directions

- Restless abdomen, with bowel and bladder in the neighbourhood

- Restless head and restless genitalia, each with causes and treatment

- The further sites: chest, face, mouth, anus, bladder, shoulder

- Augmentation, akathisia, nerve damage: the three great confusions

- What should be investigated, and how the variants are treated

WHO THIS BOOK IS FOR

For patients with symptoms outside the legs, for everyone who has gone from doctor to doctor for years without an explanation, and for health professionals looking for an orderly account of these rarely described forms.

ABOUT THE SERIES

Volume 9 of 52 in the book series on restless legs syndrome, part "Forms of the Condition and Differential Diagnosis". Every volume can be read on its own. The statements in this volume rest on 110 professional sources, each one listed individually in the reference section.