Milk and Restless Legs?

Mrs. Dee is about  78 years old and I had just met her at a wellness weekend at her church ten days earlier.  Apparently our ten minute "try it out" session surprised her at all of the issues I had brought up.  But the new idea she brought to me was a surprise:  she had found a cure for her restless legs.

"I suffer terribly from restless legs," she began, as I started working on her feet.  "And last Wednesday it was terrible.  So I got on the internet and searched the term 'restless legs' and up came an ad that said 'Cure Restless Legs Forever.'  Well, I had my credit card so I ordered it.

"Turns out the author says that anyone suffering from restless legs should eliminate dairy from their diets.  And do you know that in three days my restless legs problems was gone!"

Restless legs is an interesting condition. Some clients report that at night, their legs uncontrollably kick all over their beds.  Couples often have to take up different beds for the spouse to get any sleep at all.  Clients report often that their legs ache horribly, and often the sufferer has to walk the floor in the middle of the night to relieve the pain.  Naturally, their sleep is compromised, which leads to that person often falling asleep during the day time.  Who knows how many car accidents could be prevented if people didn't suffer from restless legs. Women seem to be afflicted more often than men, however Mrs. Dee's father and brother both have to deal with their restless leg issues, too.

So why should milk be the culprit for restless legs? Milk is an interesting food that has been quite integrated into our society. Once scientists understood how much calcium was in milk and how calcium was needed for healthy bones, promoting milk for school lunches made sense.  I was surprised to learn from a documentary on The History Channel that only the peoples from a certain chunk of Europe had  developed the ability to drink milk.  The rest of the world uses milk in other ways such as cheese or yogurt.  In general, the old wisdom that cow's milk is great for baby calves is probably right.

There's only one problem, though:  it's a great source of calcium and most American's are used to using milk on their morning cereal.  What do you do then?

If you chose to take milk out of your diet to fight something like restless leg syndrome, consider taking in more leafy green vegetables, salmon, cantaloupe or other calcium rich foods.  Some people chose to add a calcium pill, too.  Organic vegetables have been proven to contain more vitamins and iron than comparable foods that have not been grown with an organic emphasis. 

"What did you do then to eat cereal in the morning?" I asked.

"Oh, I use Almond milk," she said.  "I just get it at the health food store."  Problem solved.

So if you suffer from restless legs or know someone who does, you might want to try using no dairy and seeing how you are feeling.  Most of all, compensate for any lost nutrition.