Article:
Prevalence of restless legs syndrome and periodic limb movement disorder in the general population
Factors specific to PLMD were: being a shift or night worker, snoring, daily coffee intake, use of hypnotics and stress
So PLMD correlates with things that decrease sleep quality.
Majority of people can hallucinate, experience some level of psychosis with enough sleep deprivation and right drugs, but prevalence of the disorder most popularly associated with psychosis, schizophrenia is only 0.3–0.7%.
It could be that there is a disorder, for which PLMD is core symptom, but in some cases PLMD symptoms could be just a symptom of sleep problems, not the cause behind them. Does getting the diagnosis give access to some medication or therapy otherwise not available? I think "non-rigged" results would have been more interesting to see, just like for schizophrenia "non-rigged" evaluation would be more informative than doing the evaluation after staying 60+ hours awake with help of Dexedrine or Adderall.
Actually, the reason I had to rig the test is because I forgot to get rid of my Gabapentin in time, so, if I hadn't disrupted it, the Gaba-P would have been at a significant level in my blood, hence rigging the results in the positive direction instead... : [
BUT! I still agree with you.
I therefore tried to get two separate recordings via a neurologist (not a sleep-expert...) here in my local town instead, which where all non-rigged, HOWever...! Both were during more or less a waking state, and this behaviour seems to come about once I've been sleeping for an hour or two (the second one was in a sleep-deprived state, but I still found it tremendously hard to fall asleep - I became buzzed, sort of, uncomfortably, confused and excited - manic in a way, I suppose) - both studies were also, I found later, ONLY LOOKING FOR EPILEPSY!! >_<
I told the neurologist specifically that I don't believe this is the issue... that he should be looking for symptoms of PLMD - he only muttered something about RLS - I honestly get the feeling that he's completely uninformed about PLMD and the fact that it can be morbid.
I've been trying to make arrangements for another trip to the sleep-lab for a follow-up test though - I figure we'll need TWO more tests - one, un-rigged and unmedicated, and then, one with Gabapentin flowing through my veins.
The fact that I must do so many f***ing tests and that they are so complicated and costly to get done is rather nerve-wracking though...
I can't put too much energy into it at the moment though, since I don't HAVE the energy - I've been quitting all of my drugs in order to get a better measure of the next drug(s) I try for my SCT-symptoms - Guanfacine is however very difficult to discontinue (even after more than three weeks of a continous lowering of dosage...!) - I finally got tired of the low-level adrenergic head-ache, heart-palpitations, increased heart-rate, sweating, confusion and ever so slightly increased blood-pressure, that I went on Memantine.
...Yes, I'm currently feeling stupified, after my second dosage - 2,5 mg, day two - now I'm starting to feel it, the dumbness. Fantastic half-life on this stuff! 80 hours. Since the discontinuation-symptoms from Guanfacine is in essence a result of down-regulation of the Alpha-2-receptors, I hypothesize that Memantine could quicken homeostasis - it does work for other types of tolerance, from other mono-amine-systems, after all.
We'll see, I guess - completely out of it at the moment though. Very odd, curious feeling.
Edited by Stinkorninjor, 07 March 2018 - 09:20 PM.