(glass crashing) – This is Tom Biernacki and
I'm going over restless leg. This is a very big problem. It keeps you up at night. It prevents you from getting sleep. It can cause depression. It's been linked to shorter
lifespans, unhappiness in life. So we're going over my favorite tips. Guys, thank you so much
for watching this video. We appreciate your likes,
your subscribes, your comment. We really love hearing
if this stuff helps, it really makes a big difference for us. So thank you. And number one is, go see your podiatrist. So this is the single
most misdiagnosed disorder that I know of. A lot of people have
issues misdiagnosing it. So, what I mean is, 90% of the
time, when people come talk to me, what they really
have is sore muscles, overworked muscles. They have tight muscles. They have diabetes with
blood sugar through the roof. They have thyroid problems. Like, I mean, 90% of the time, I feel like people who tell me they have restless leg syndrome is rarely.
I'm not saying it doesn't exist, because it clearly does exist. But I mean, I'll tell you
like nine out of 10 times, when people tell me this,
you don't need medications. You don't need stuff like that. In my experience, this
is not for everybody, but this is my experience. Got to get to the root of these, with my patients is what I tell them. But that being said,
I'm not discounting it because it clearly does
exist in some people. So that's not, do conspiracy
theories or anything. But in my opinion, it's one of the most
mis-self-diagnosed things, because a lot of things
can make your legs ache and throb at night. And it doesn't mean you have a
nerve disease is kind of what I'm trying to say. Even though this is a real disease. So what I mean by that is,
what's the cause of this? It's hard to say. There's not a lot of consensus. So go see your podiatrist. Get worked up with labs, get x-rays, get an ultrasound, get your blood flow checked.
That's a big one. A lot of people with restless leg syndrome really have narrowed blood vessels. A couple of changes in
medication or us working with the vascular specialist can
open up those blood vessels. There's a lot of options,
not me specifically, but my vascular surgery
colleagues can do that. And that can make a huge difference. So here's the tips is number one. Think about how you're sleeping. So, I'm a big fan of is
you want a cool room.
So generally, I know studies
show like in the 60s can be very helpful for sleeping. So that's one thing. Another thing is you don't
want light in your room. So things like nightlights
and lights on outside the room have been associated
with poor sleep anyway. That's something to consider. Number three is you want some
type of noise cancellation. There's a lot of evidence for that. So if there is cars outside
your window, or in my case, I have a couple kids, they wake me up.
You don't wanna turn on the noise machine to ignore your kids. That's the disclaimer. But as an example, these things can disrupt your sleep and the less sleep you get, the more your legs are going to ache and the more stressed out you are. There's a link there. So it's almost like does the
sleep cause the legs to hurt or do the legs cause the sleep to hurt. It's hard to say. The studies aren't conclusive on that. But do everything you
can and get comfortable. Another thing I like is avoid blue light. Studies are really show
that this will help you get to sleep well. Is blue light filters for your computer. There are free apps, blue light
filters for your smart TV. Like maybe if you're using an
old TV, it's gonna be hard, but I know there's even stickers.
You can paste over your screen that get rid of the blue light. I don't think you need to go that extreme. Maybe get a newer TV that
can have a blue light filter setting might be an option. But those things will
really help you sleep. Area number two for home remedy options are check out your health. So in my opinion, is, are you a smoker? Do you have blood flow problems? Get that checked out at our
office or with a podiatrist or with a vascular specialist.
Because a lot of times, nighttime pain, when your legs are lifted up, it will make your legs achy and spasm if you're not getting enough blood flow. That's not a nerve condition. That's not restless leg. That's called claudication
from the lack of blood flow, that's a separate issue. Get that evaluated. But one of the more common things I see in my older 60 plus patients. So the next thing is, are
you on your feet all day? Are your feet really sore? So what that means is if you're sore, your legs will swell and stretch
your nerves at nighttime. It's not really restless leg, but it will make your legs restless. So what I like to do here
is massaging and stretching. Those are two of my favorite things.
Do that in the morning when you wake up and do that before you go to bed and get some good support for your feet. This isn't for everyone
but for a lot of people, this could really improve nighttime pain. Take a look right here. My right foot can bend up
more than my left foot. So I've had some injuries. I tore my hamstring. So I don't have equal flexibility. And this is true for everybody. You're not equal. Your muscles work differently. You're a little bit off balance. This causes some muscles to
get more sore, more swollen, the nerves to get more stretched out, and then they can ache when
you're resting at night and when they're swollen. So take a look right here. My feet are not equal. So this is the whole point of
the massaging and exercising. So freeze a frozen water bottle. Just be careful that it doesn't explode and massage all your muscles.
So right here, I'm
massaging my plantar fascia. These balls don't work great
on the bottom of your foot, but they can work great
on your calf muscle, on your hamstring, on your chest, on your butt muscles. For the bottom of the
foot, these rubber balls that you can stand on, they work great on a soft surface, like a carpet. You have your softer ones
and your harder ones. It should never hurt. Let me repeat. Should never hurt. I love the massage roller stick. Simply getting something like this online. It'll massage your
muscles, your hamstrings, your calf muscles. For most people. It's their calf muscles that
get sore for restless leg type symptoms that I see. Your peroneal tendons
right here on the bottom. Don't do it on the bone
because the bones will hurt. So like on the front of your shin. So, see on the bottom of the foot, it's probably easier to use a ball. Then after you massage
for a minute or two, then you do some light stretching. So your hamstring, your calf muscles. If you can't reach your toes, which most people with
nerve pain probably can't, use a towel.
You can use some elastic bands. This stuff is extremely helpful. It's very beneficial. I love doing this one to
two minutes for a massage, one to two minutes for a stretch. A great option for nighttime pain is using something like Biofreeze. And we linked that below, but Biofreeze or menthol
creams can be very effective. What these basically do
is when you lather some on or roll it on, it makes it very sensitive. Then after about a couple minutes, there is no sensitivity at all. And a lot of that nighttime
restless leg syndrome type pain, it goes away. That works great. The next thing is, look
at, without orthotics, look at how much your foot flattens out. As your foot flattens out,
it stretches the nerves. It stretches your calf muscle. Like this guy right here. Look at, this guy stretches quite a bit when your foot moves. What you want is a good supportive shoe. So you want a good supportive shoe and you want a good supportive orthotic.
So specifically, look at it. It doesn't compress. Whereas without the orthotic, look at how much it compresses. Shoes, orthotics. We got 'em down in the show notes. I won't spend too much time on that 'cause there's a lot of
stuff to cover in this guide. One thing as well is good
home slippers, good sandals. You want good supportive ones. Check out down in the show notes. This stuff really works well. It does a great job. Foot and ankle massage devices. Hey, if you're watching TV, if you're by the computer
for more than half an hour at a time, you should get some
type of compression device. There's calf compression devices and there's full leg compression devices. The older you are, the more unhealthy you are,
the more you need these things. So specifically any patient
that's in a hospital bed has to have these because
studies overwhelmingly prove if the flow's not circling because your muscles are not moving, then you're gonna get
bad electrolytes built up in your legs and they're gonna stretch.
That's not healthy for your nerves. That can cause blood clots, narrowing the blood vessels
and it could cause compression and nerve problems. So, you want compression devices if you're having restless leg syndrome, I personally use these at the computer. It makes a huge difference. My legs feel better. I'm less tired. Same thing with the TV. You know, it's gonna make
some noise as it's pumping, but if you're using headphones
anyway in front of the computer, you might as
well use these things. They make a big difference.
I linked some of my favorites
down in the show notes. They make a big, big difference, especially if you're not moving. For anybody who's sitting on a computer, I personally recommend to my
friends to use these things and with patients as well. And almost everybody says
these are the best thing ever. And it helps a lot of
that calf and leg pain when you're resting or when you're in bed. Warmth. So before you go to bed
heating pads or warm soaks, you can fill up a tub of water and soak your feet for
like 10, 15 minutes.
You can get a heating pad
that works extremely well, gets the restless leg
syndrome feeling a lot better. Vitamins. So vitamins that help are iron. You can get those in the
diet eating your meats and your greens. Vitamin B, you can get this
in a daily multivitamin, but vitamin B has been
shown to help with these. Vitamin C as well has been
shown to be very helpful. So you can get this in a supplement. So just taking a daily
supplement, don't get too crazy. You don't need to buy like $100 anti-restless
leg syndrome pills. Lastly, go see your doctor. There's medications. So there's anti nerve convulsants. There's anti-depression
pills, which work really well. They're not just for depression, but to stop your nerves from
spasming and causing pain. There's pain medication. There's anti-inflammatories. Personally, I leave this
as a last line of defense. I'll tell you from a personal standpoint, I've never once in the
last couple of years, at the beginning, I used to, but I've never had to do this.
Like worst case, if it does feel like a more serious nerve disorder, that's not something I, as a podiatrist will be taking care of. I have great friends who are neurologists, but I'll tell you, I can't
remember of a single person, probably in at least a couple
of years that I have had to do that with. Whereas at the beginning I kind
of felt like I went straight to these things, but with
a lot of these things done, patients come back and they say, "Hey, "this really did get better." But again, not everybody's 100%.
I know these things really do exist because I have seen 'em. I talk to my neurology friends. It's a real disorder. It's not a fake disorder. I'm making that very
clear, but I just mean it. There's a lot of easy options
ahead of time before you go to the more risky medications and stuff. So personally, I speak
for me and my patients. I have a lot of success with this stuff. This is gonna be a quicker routine here, but when you get up in the
morning and you're tight, or at night, just rotate
your ankles a little bit. So I like to warm up, you
know, rotating your ankles, get the blood flowing, loosen
everything up a little bit. You know, ideally you would
have done the massage earlier and I show why you want to do this, but now you can use the towel and just stretch your foot back, stretch your hamstring.
So right here, I'm just
gonna hold it for, you know, 15 to 30 seconds just to loosen you up. And consistency is the key. It's not going crazy and
doing half an hour every day. It's just doing a couple
of minutes every day and keeping up with it. This is probably my favorite
stretching exercise. Put a towel under your feet. So it's cushioned and the ball
of your foot doesn't hurt. And what you do in this case is you just use your body weight. It stretches out your
hamstrings, your calf muscles, but again, it should not hurt. You don't have to go crazy. You don't have to do
anything that hurts you.
I love the massage board right here. This is my favorite one out of
all the stretching supplies. I'm showing it here barefoot, you know, but it could hurt your foot, especially the people having nerve pain, restless leg syndrome. But the idea is you want
to measure your progress. So see how this moves from
about 15 degrees all the way to about 45 degrees on the last level. So see right there, that's supposed to be
about 45 degrees or so. So I love the ankle stretch board. That's probably my favorite one. I like using that. Hey, if that helped you
out, do us a huge favor, give us a like, give us a subscribe. It really makes a big difference
in the YouTube algorithm. And here's some more
videos that you may like. Thank you..
