restless legs nightmare in 2nd trimester

[candywarhol]

I am being driven completely mad by restless legs at night- I've suffered from this before, but assumed that it was made worse by my high dose of anti-depressants (I'm now reducing from 200mg of sertraline, now at 100mg) but over the last week to ten days, my flare ups at night are totally disruptive, the worst they've been in a long time. my husband is sleeping in the spare room already lol and I'm groaning in pain, unable to drift off!

anyone have any tips/treatments they can recommend? I might go mad if I do this for another 6 months!

So on the last thread I was on about us almost all of us, if not everyone, had to take iron and it resolved it!

I think magnesium and potassium are also meant to help with this

I was like this up to recently, been put on iron tablets twice a day and taking an iron liquid drink daily and it's gone!

I had it so bad in the second trimester. I went and had my bloods done and i was shown to have a B12 deficiency and Anaemia. I have started on iron and B12 tablets and it’s pretty much gone and I’m now 33 weeks. Definitely speak to your midwife x

I’m really sorry, this has driven me nuts as well.

Things that I’ve found help:
Iron and magnesium tablets, taken early in the day (at least by lunchtime);
Ensuring that I’ve had plenty of water in the day; and
A bath just before bedtime.

There’s a magnesium body cream with lavender which is also quite nice.

I really sympathise, OP and I hope it gets better soon.

Oh and a banana at bedtime! Which is weird, but seems to help.

Agree with everyone saying iron is probably the culprit, it certainly helped solve mine.
I also had moderate success with a stretching and massage routine (just search on YouTube for restless legs massage or something).

Two paracetamol is the only cure I've found

It drove me mad too!! To the point of tears! I found a hot bath/shower and a massage gun on lower legs helped it to tone down enough to get to bed. Also getting DH to pin my legs down with the weight of his own

I was in absolute torment with this for a few weeks too, eventually could hardly sleep at all. Turned out I was v anaemic. Big daily dose of "gentle" iron has made my (everlasting) sickness worse but worth it for having nearly completely got rid of the restless legs. Def try taking iron.

Oh I had terrible restless legs in the 2nd & 3rd trimester. The only thing that worked for me was showering my legs with freezing cold water until they were numb, and then falling asleep before the feeling came back.

It was by far the worst side effect!!

Not pregnant but suffer from restless legs a lot. I have a Better You magnesium oil spray that I rub on my legs if they get bad and it works within 5 minutes or so!

I first got restless legs when pregnant. It followed a large haemorrhage after a miscarriage so was probably due to low iron levels. However recently I’ve found that a glass of coconut water or a potassium citrate tablet a day keeps if at bay. I would take iron and potassium. Magnesium doesn’t seem to do much but I also take that. I also find stretching my quads, hamstrings and calf muscles before bed helps.

Magnesium spray helped me as well. Good idea to get your bloods checked for low iron etc.

I found a hot water bottle gave me instant relief! It’s awful isn’t it!

Tonic water! It’s the quinine. I read about it on here and drank it in both pregnancies.