[Unstoppable leg syndrome]

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Partekatu

It's eight o'clock in the afternoon. The sun has already been set. After a hard day of work, the villagers began to return home. When they walk through the door, their favorite friends are the sofa and the bed of the house. For the majority of the population it is the calmest moment of the day, but for María Jesús Catalán it is the most active moment. His legs need to move. He feels like ants are walking inside both legs, and he needs to get up and walk. She jumps small and starts dancing, even though no one has invited her to do so.

MARÍA JESÚS CATALÁN (person with restless leg syndrome): I feel like I can't resist moving my legs.

She has Restless Legs Syndrome. It is difficult to determine what people with this syndrome have. Mary Jesus says that she has nerves in her legs. Other patients say that they have bubbles, and there are also those who feel pain. Eleven names for the syndrome that appears in the same way.

JUAN JOSÉ POZA; Neurologist: It is not known exactly what causes it, probably the presence of a disorder in the sensory perception of the legs. We perceive the legs differently when we are standing or when we are moving. When we are standing still, there may be a disturbance in the perception of the legs, and we move them to perceive them differently.

When the sun sets, the nerves of Mary Jesus wake up. Every night, and for six long years, the night break became a battle that lasted until dawn. I was afraid of the night.

MARÍA JESÚS CATALÁN (person with restless leg syndrome): When the night came, I would go to sleep. I was there for five or ten minutes, and from then on I couldn’t sit still. Then I would shake my legs, rub them, kick them repeatedly... To avoid getting out of bed, I would pull my legs under the sheets. Finally, I got out of bed and walked down the hallway of the house. It was the only way. I was very tired, it seemed like I was going to hit the walls. I was going back to bed and again. It didn’t take me five minutes and I had to get up again. Like this all the time. I've been sleepless all night. At 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning, exhausted, I managed to fall asleep; but I had to get out of bed.

But ants who live on their legs don’t run only when the night comes. Taking a book and enjoying literature can become an activity that can be complicated.

JUAN JOSÉ POZA; Neurologist: Why during the break? It has to do with static and dynamic sensitivity. That's when we feel it, because our legs are paralyzed. Because we have circadian rhythms. Some substances produced by enzymatic systems are more active in the morning and others in the evening. The syndrome is related to dopamine. It is more abundant in the morning, and since it is less abundant at night, then the symptoms are stronger.

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that connects neurons together. Each neuron produces one or more chemicals to connect with neighboring neurons that are within a short distance. Dopamine is one of these substances. It is used by many systems, including those related to sensitivity. These are located in a specific part of the brain.

In the case of Restless Legs Syndrome, it is a neuronal system that uses dopamine and is located in an area called the bulge, the area where the brain and spinal cord are connected.

The first testimonies of patients with this syndrome take us back to the 17th century, but today it is not yet known what factors produce the Restless Legs Syndrome.

JUAN JOSÉ POZA; Neurologist: It's probably a disease with a genetic basis. Often, many people with the syndrome have family members with the condition. It appears to be related to a disturbance of iron metabolism, possibly in the transport of iron from the blood to the central nervous system; and because certain parts of the central nervous system are in the absence of iron, dopamine is poorly synthesized, resulting in the appearance of symptoms.

MARÍA JESÚS CATALÁN (person with restless leg syndrome): It is very difficult to say when the first symptoms begin. This doesn't come all of a sudden. Once in a while, you've had something similar, but you've ignored it. However, I think my first symptoms started during pregnancy, but in a sporadic way.

The Restless Legs Syndrome is suffered by 3% of society. The symptoms are more frequent in women. According to Mary Jesus, the syndrome usually begins during pregnancy. During this period, women suffer from iron deficiency because a large amount of the iron they receive is taken directly by the child. For this reason, if you are a patient with an iron transport problem, you will get less iron into the central nervous system. After having a baby, the symptoms disappear and, if they are explained again, they do not appear until many years have passed. In addition, women lose a small amount of iron every month.

MARÍA JESÚS CATALÁN (person with restless leg syndrome): I spent a while without sleeping at all. How was I the next day? Bad, I was sleepy all day.

A simple exercise like getting into bed, closing your eyes and sleeping becomes a real bad dream for some people. Every day, the body needs to sleep. It is at this moment that the batteries, physical and psychic batteries that set the body in motion are charged, and the reorganization and hormonal restoration of memory take place.

CARLOS EGEA; Pulmonologist: This time we need, 6-8 hours (not well established), seems typical. How much does a camera need to charge? two hours? We need 6-8 hours. If we do not meet this number of hours, the next day the sleep bench starts and tells us: "you owe me two." So, if you start in a routine job, you get sleepy; if you are in the cinema and in the theater, you get sleepy; if you are talking to the couple, you start to fall asleep... think about how important it is, because the body knows that you need to charge this battery, and maybe it asks you when you don’t expect it.

CARLOS EGEA; Pulmonologist: A person with Restless Legs Syndrome wakes up constantly. He stays in bed for eight hours, but only sleeps two and owes six, and the next day the bank charges him. This, day after day, can have consequences at work... it’s not okay, it can have depression, it has anxiety.

For many years he has tried to cope with the symptoms with endless remedies, and nothing has managed to improve his discomfort. One morning, he heard a radio interview with a member of the Spanish Association of Restless Legs Syndrome. He identified himself with the syndrome that was being described at the time and went to the family doctor. The doctor referred her to a neurologist who, after eleven studies, was diagnosed with Restless Legs Syndrome.

MARÍA JESÚS CATALÁN (person with restless leg syndrome): When I went to the doctor’s office, he prescribed me a dopaminergic medicine, specifically, Mirapexin. Actually, it's been good for me. Now I can sleep at least 5-6 hours.

Mary Jesus manages to resist the nerves of her legs. In general, patients with Restless Legs Syndrome respond well to dopaminergic drugs.

Thanks to the treatment, Mary Jesus has managed to maintain the rhythm of her previous life and does not want people to suffer this syndrome in silence.

MARÍA JESÚS CATALÁN (person with restless leg syndrome): The first thing to do when you have the syndrome is to accept it and then put the remedy.