AminoTheory.com

Disclaimer regarding health-related information

I intend the material here to be interesting and valuable for medical professionals and for thoughtful people who lack medical training.

While I quote from peer-reviewed journal articles, what I write, and my attempts to interpret and analyze the material from those articles, has not been peer-reviewed. No matter how credible or persuasive you find one or more items of information here, other items may be highly speculative or inadequately-informed.

Please base your healthcare decisions on a much broader understanding than you can gain from this site.

What you read at this site is not medical advice. Medical advice is what you receive from your doctor or nurse, after they have examined you. I am not a doctor. Even if I were, I have not examined you!

After reading information at this site, you may choose to alter the way you care for your health, regarding nutrition, drug use, and medical interventions. It is beyond the capability of this website to alert you to all the safety issues surrounding such decisions, in general, or for you in particular. You will need to decide on the wisdom of changing your nutrition, health care, etc. - ideally after discussing your choices with your health care professional.

Some of the ideas you find here are likely to be safe for most people, such as percussive massage of the lower back to help get rid of or reduce Restless Legs Syndrome / Periodic Limb Movements. However, I can't specify exactly how firmly to do it. For some people - especially children, the elderly or anyone with a weak or injured back - percussive massage could lead to spinal injuries. No website can tell you how to determine who has a weak back, or exactly how to assess dangers of any treatment or non-treatment. While motorized percussive massagers have been sold widely for many years, I know of no research on the long-term effects of such massage.

I raise concerns about the side effects and effectiveness of some prescription medications, such as the use of dopamine receptor agonists for Restless Legs Syndrome. However, before you allow these arguments to dissuade you from taking these medications, please consider all the risks and, ideally, discuss your options with your doctor. RLS may seem like a non-life-threatening condition, but RLS disrupts sleep and so has a profound effect on quality of life, including the possibility that tiredness may lead to deadly mistakes when driving.

Projects

rlsd/ I propose that the term Restless Limbs Sensorimotor Disorder (RLSD) be used to encompass the health disorders currently covered by Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS) and Periodic Limb Movement Syndrome / Disorder.

In mid-October 2011 added extensive information to this page to outline my new observations and etiological hypotheses. In mid-November 2011 I extended this material and added an extensive section concerning non-drug approaches to combating this common neurological disorder.

Please see the next project for information on how we found even a few cups of decaf coffee a week was causing a lot of RLS/PLMS problems.

coffee/ (Established 2011-09-01) It is not widely known that coffee of all kinds - "decaf" and not, instant, brewed or espresso, contains significant quantities of compounds which are opioid receptor antagonists. These compounds, such as 4-Caffeoyl-1, 5-quinide are unrelated to caffeine.

This has important implications for pain management, including especially disorders such as fibromyalgia. Yet this research, which began in the late 1980s, seems to have flown under the radar of the clinicians and researchers who are concerned with pain and with addiction.

There are a number of likely negative outcomes from ingesting opioid receptor antagonists, including feeling less happy and secure, sleep disturbances, worsening RLS/PLMS and greater impetus to engage in potentially addictive and harmful activities which raise opioid levels, including drinking alcohol, excessive and damaging exercise, using morphine, heroin, prescription opioid painkillers etc. This page also contains my attempt to estimate the caffeine content of decaf coffee.

vids/ (Not ready yet - this project is on the backburner, though it is fascinating.) Vibration-induced drowsiness and sleep is well known in babies. Almost everyone knows about vibrating bassinets and cots, taking babies for a drive to get them to sleep, rocking etc. What is less well recognized is that the same thing works for some, many or (I suspect) probably all adults.

I foresee therapeutic benefits, particularly concerning getting to sleep and maintaining sleep. However there's no research yet on the quality of such sleep, or of any other effects.

This proclivity of people to become drowsy and fall asleep with vibration has profound health and safety implications.

Generally, this aspect of adult physiology has not been recognized by sleep researchers or clinicians. I think it is recognized to a certain extent by occupational health and safety researchers - for instance truck and bus drivers often have very expensive vibration-isolating seats.