Primary headaches in restless legs syndrome patients

Abstract

Earlier studies conducted among migraineurs have shown an association between migraine and restless legs syndrome (RLS). We chose RLS patients and looked for migraine to exclude sample bias.Materials and Methods:99 consecutive subjects of idiopathic RLS were recruited from the sleep clinic during four months period. Physician diagnosis of headache and depressive disorder was made with the help of ICHD-2 and DSM-IV-TR criteria, respectively. Sleep history was gathered. Severity of RLS and insomnia was measured using IRLS (Hindi version) and insomnia severity index Hindi version, respectively. Chi-square test, one way ANOVA and t-test were applied to find out the significance.Results:Primary headache was seen in 51.5% cases of RLS. Migraine was reported by 44.4% subjects and other types of ‘primary headaches’ were reported by 7.1% subjects. Subjects were divided into- RLS; RLS with migraine and RLS with other headache. Females outnumbered in migraine subgroup (χ2=16.46, P<0.001). Prevalence of depression (χ2=3.12, P=0.21) and family history of RLS (χ2=2.65, P=0.26) were not different among groups. Severity of RLS (P=0.22) or insomnia (P=0.43) were also similar.Conclusion:Migraine is frequently found in RLS patients in clinic based samples. Females with RLS are prone to develop migraine. Depression and severity of RLS or insomnia do not affect development of headache.

Serum iron may not be linked with migraine

“…[1] We agree with the fact that exclusion of subjects with iron deficiency would have improved the quality of our study. To support it, they have cited a study that shows that iron deficiency might be related to menstrual migraine.…”

The Prevalence of Migraine in Restless Legs Syndrome

“…The prevalence of migraine‐type headache was reported to vary between 7% and 14% in many studies, although higher rates of migraine were also reported in women in a recent study from Turkey . Only 1 recent study, by Gupta et al investigating 99 patients with RLS, showed that 22.8% of this particular group had migraine‐type headache. Our results did not support higher rates of migraine‐type headache in RLS patients when compared with population‐based prevalence studies from Turkey.…”

Clinical presentation of restless legs syndrome: Does the gender matter?

“…Second, possibly females frequently have medical co‐morbidities, for example, hypothyroidism, which may enhance their chances to seek a medical opinion and thus increasing the chances of RLS to come to clinical attention . Third, few of the conditions that may negatively affect sleep often accompany RLS, for example, insomnia, headache and depression . Even in the absence of RLS, these conditions are more prevalent among women and hence, they could act as a link for higher prevalence of females in a clinic's samples .…”