Soap for Restless Legs Syndrome?

[SCRN1]

I have recently heard several people say they have RLS and have tried sleeping with soap between the sheets, near their legs and that it works. Has anyone else heard this or know why it works? I don't have RLS myself but find this interesting.

[kalley]

I had my grandmother try it with Dove about a year ago. She was having a hard time sleeping since my grandfather passed and had leg cramps. She says she hasn't had a leg cramp since. Not sure why it works, but it does.

Basically you just put a unwrapped bar of soap underneath your fitted sheet on the bottom of your bed. There is one brand that supposedly doesn't work, I think it is Dial, but I am not 100% sure. My mother-in-law gave me a newspaper article about it when I was pregnant because I had horrible RLS. If you have any type of leg cramps or RLS I say try it, it certainly can't hurt.

[Scrubby]

Mum has been doing this for years, but she uses a cork not a bar of soap.

[PsychNurseWannaBe, BSN, RN]

It has to be Ivory soap. I don't know why and I am quite serious. Apparently other soaps don't do the trick...but what a fantastic remedy for me. Sufferend many years and now...not so much. I don't know if it is the power of suggestion, or if it is because it gives your legs something to do once you fall asleep. I really don't know. But when my wife first told me about this from her friends. I laughed in their face. Well... I had to take it back because it works.

[paulie23]

i hate sounding dumb, though you'd think i'd be used to it, but what exactly do you do with the soap? just lay it under the sheets?

[Valerie Salva, BSN, RN]

RLS

Try 100mgs of potassium if severe take 200mgs at bedtime or early evening.

Unless contraindicated (renal/dialysis pt, or already on RX K+)

[madwife2002, BSN, RN]

I dont have leg cramps but I do have pain in my leg which is like leg cramp I am going to give it a go and I will let you all know.

[Pudnluv, ASN, RN]

I had a patient tell me about this remedy a while ago. She swore by it and told me any bar soap would work. Of course I laughed at it, but what the heck, if it made her feel better. Later that the night, the resp therapist told me that they had been using the bar of soap trick in the sleep lab for years!

[PsychNurseWannaBe, BSN, RN]

i hate sounding dumb, though you'd think i'd be used to it, but what exactly do you do with the soap? just lay it under the sheets?

You open up the soap and place it in a ziplock baggie. I poked a few holes in the bag so air could get in and out.

Try it... and let us know. I was very surprised.

[sharlynn]

I tried it for leg cramps after reading about it in Dr. Gott's column. I just put the soap under the fitted sheet ( no baggy). The soap moves around in the bed. I can't swear that it helps leg cramps, but the only times I've had them since I started, the soap has manage to slip down the end of the bed into the blanket or on the floor:rolleyes:!

I never heard of it for RLS, but now that I think about it, I haven't had that problem lately either.

[Flare, ASN, BSN]

I dunno about RLS... but a bar of soap held between the knees can be used for birth control :lghmky::grn: