Irritable leg syndrome

Do you suffer from irritable leg syndrome? Why does it only happen at night? What can be done to stop it? It can be the most frustrating experience if you do not understand what is causing it. 

One of the things that occurs at rest or when you are sleeping is the rate of blood flow slows to resting levels so your muscles can rest and your brain can go to sleep. But what happens if the nervous system controlling your circulation under-functions? If this occurs your resting rate of blood flow will be slower than it should be which means we receive less oxygen to those areas that the nervous system controls.

The Sympathetic nervous system is the specialised nervous system controlling blood flow rate and it is situated in the back, parrallel to the spiine under the rib cage and runs from the shoulder level to the waist. This controls things like goose bumps, hair standing on end, heart rate and breathing but also controls teh tone of all our blood vessels. Once this tone is lost due to malfunction of the nervous system, the blood flow slows. 

Now if the segment of the nervous system controlling blood flow to the legs is not operating fully your resting rate of blood flow will slow below norm at night starving your legs of good oxygen. This is what brings on the sensation of irritable legs. This is the body's way of telling us there is not enough blood in the legs and it is telling us to do something about it. So our initial instinct is to move, whether it be locally in the bed or going for a walk. Movement demands blood flow and increasing the blood flow reduces the symptoms.

Unfortunately this does not change the cause of the problem. So how do we fix the nervous system and improve control of the blood flow. Well this is where Nerang Physiotherapy is unique. We have a technique specifically designed to restore the function of the nervous system and improve control of the circulation to the legs. It does so by first increasing the blood flow to the nervous system as it cannot do this for itself when it is under-functioning. Once the nervous system function increases it's control of the blood flow will improve, thus eventually restoring normal resting blood flow leves and eliminating the symptoms of irritable leg syndrome.

This technique is called Myo-flow and is exclusive to Nerang Physiotherapy.