I’m so excited! A friend of mine, Jennifer, called me and told me about a notice that was up in Noah’s on Yonge Street, looking for people suffering from Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS) to volunteer for an episode of A Disagreeable Ailment. Well, I called the phone number she gave me and out of all the people who volunteered from Halifax, Toronto and Vancouver, I’m one of the two chosen for the show and treatment.
I had a choice of alternative and complementary medical practitioners. Ayurved, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Homeopathy, Naturopathy or Osteopathy.
I’ve met with my producer, Claudette, and we’ve worked out the shooting schedule, and my next step is meeting with the Homeopath.
I can’t wait! I can’t remember not having “the twitchies” as my kids call it. When I was a kid, I had chronic, brutally painful “growing pains”, as my mum called them, which woke me up screaming. Mum would have to rub my legs for hours before the pain would subside. It still has had some major impacts on my life…I can’t get on an airplane without an episode. I can’t go to the movies without an episode. When my husband and I first started dating, his friends liked to go to bars and listen to bands. And they wanted to sit down. Can’t do it! I’m sure a number of his friends still think I’m either anti-social or a snob or something like that. (At the time, I didn’t have a diagnosis, so couldn’t explain it. I mean, if you heard “Joe’s new girlfriend won’t sit with us because she twitches”, would you worry about Joe’s sanity?) But most importantly it destroys my sleep.
In any event, on Monday, I finally get to see the Homeopath and I’m really looking forward to it. In 2004 I was under the care of a nutritionist and I went from unable to walk to the corner store because of my arthritis, to running the Toronto marathon because of a change in diet she gave me. So, I already have great expectation that the homeopath will be able to help me.
My biggest hope is that my ability to sleep will be improved. As someone who is self-employed, it is imperative that I be able to remember many, varied details, but I’ve been somewhat sleep deprived for many years, and the first thing that goes is memory. In fact, that’s how I found out I had RLS. I told my doctor that my short term memory was completely non-existent. She sent me to a neurologist. He didn’t like it much, after testing me 6 ways from Sunday, without a diagnosis, when I came to an appointment with a Time Magazine article about RLS and told, “this is me. I have RLS!” He wasn’t impressed with my amateur diagnosis and sent me to a sleep lab. Well, suprise, surprise, I was diagnosed with RLS!
I’m really hoping that this therapy will help me get a much better quality of sleep.
Currently I take Mirapex in order to control the twitchies and I was recently turned down for a long term care insurance policy because of the Mirapex (which is a Parkinson’s disease medication). I’m not happy about that. So anything alternative that can help will be good.
So, that’s it for now. More after I see the Homeopath on Monday.
Fingers crossed!