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Holy ****, quinine in club soda actually works for RLS

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Bojangles69

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Joined
May 20, 2009
Messages
1,758
Ok so I still have RLS. Its become an every night problem even now that I'm just maintaining on .15mg sub. Every night I avg around 4-5 hours of sleep and am awaken by pretty annoying RLS. I'm not sure why its lasted so long, but today I finally decided to take a risk and try lots of club soda. I honestly didn't have a shred of hope for it which is why I kept putting off ever trying it.

Tonic water has a muscle relaxant in it called quinine, it must say "contains quinine" on the bottle. I haven't drank tonic water (tonic or club soda) in years and it really does have a gross medicinal taste to it. So I researched and found every 8 ozs has about 20mg of quinine. The standard dose use to be 100mg and up. So I drank 34ozs, which has about 80mg of quinine and WOW, not only did it slaughter my RLS completely but I seem to be having muscle relaxant effects from it. I just feel noticeable calmer I can't believe that tonic water, something I've actually hated most my life, has wound up saving me from RLS after these last few weeks of putting up with it.

This is really a wonderful little secret to know. I know a lot of people say bad things about quinine and some of its sideeffects, but just to get some relief from this problem has been such as blessing. My legs just have no temptation to move at all now, and if all I need to do is drink 1 liter of this crap a day, I have absolutely no problems doing it.
 
Bojangles69 said:
Ok so I still have RLS. Its become an every night problem even now that I'm just maintaining on .15mg sub. Every night I avg around 4-5 hours of sleep and am awaken by pretty annoying RLS. I'm not sure why its lasted so long, but today I finally decided to take a risk and try lots of club soda. I honestly didn't have a shred of hope for it which is why I kept putting off ever trying it.

Tonic water has a muscle relaxant in it called quinine, it must say "contains quinine" on the bottle. I haven't drank tonic water (tonic or club soda) in years and it really does have a gross medicinal taste to it. So I researched and found every 8 ozs has about 20mg of quinine. The standard dose use to be 100mg and up. So I drank 34ozs, which has about 80mg of quinine and WOW, not only did it slaughter my RLS completely but I seem to be having muscle relaxant effects from it. I just feel noticeable calmer I can't believe that tonic water, something I've actually hated most my life, has wound up saving me from RLS after these last few weeks of putting up with it.

This is really a wonderful little secret to know. I know a lot of people say bad things about quinine and some of its sideeffects, but just to get some relief from this problem has been such as blessing. My legs just have no temptation to move at all now, and if all I need to do is drink 1 liter of this crap a day, I have absolutely no problems doing it.
Click to expand...

Do you mean "tonic water" because club soda has no quinine. It's only in tonic water isn't is?
 
Well what I bought specifically was seagrams tonic water, but I thought I read online that club soda has it tool. I could be wrong but I did read it, although I only tried with tonic water because thats what 90% of people seemed to recommend. Maybe the club soda thing is just a misconception that got spread as a rumor.


Also I want to note this was like one of those loperamide type things where I read about it and read about it and denied that loperamide could actually do anything for wds. Same thing with the tonic water I've read countless stories of people fixing their RLS with it and told myself "well they must have had a really minor case or something" because I just didn't think it would do anything at all. It is absolutely not worth being stubborn about this type of stuff. I've been putting up with this for so long now and just to think all I had to do was walk 50feet to my local convenience store and buy a bottle of tonic water. Sometimes I wanna smack myself in the face lol.
 
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Bojangles69 said:
Well what I bought specifically was seagrams tonic water, but I thought I read online that club soda has it tool. I could be wrong but I did read it, although I only tried with tonic water because thats what 90% of people seemed to recommend. Maybe the club soda thing is just a misconception that got spread as a rumor.


Also I want to note this was like one of those loperamide type things where I read about it and read about it and denied that loperamide could actually do anything for wds. Same thing with the tonic water I've read countless stories of people fixing their RLS with it and told myself "well they must have had a really minor case or something" because I just didn't think it would do anything at all. It is absolutely not worth being stubborn about this type of stuff. I've been putting up with this for so long now and just to think all I had to do was walk 50feet to my local convenience store and buy a bottle of tonic water. Sometimes I wanna smack myself in the face lol.
Click to expand...

Club soda is simply plain water with carbonation added to it.
About tonic water:
Tonic water has become much less therapeutic over the years. When it was first produced for medicinal use, it contained a prescription dose of quinine too large for casual drinking. Today, by law, tonic water must contain less than one-tenth of a gram of quinine per liter. However, even in small amounts, quinine is thought to be beneficial in stimulating digestion and easing muscle cramps. On the other hand, excessive quinine intake can cause side effectsSide effects

Effects of a proposed project on other parts of the firm.
..... Click the link for more information. collectively known as "cinchonism cinchonism /cin·cho·nism/ (-nizm) toxicity due to cinchona alkaloid overdosage; symptoms are tinnitus and slight deafness, photophobia and other visual disturbances, mental dullness, depression, confusion, headache, and nausea. ." Cinchonism symptoms include headache, nausea, ringing in the ears, and, in more extreme cases, loss of hearing and vision. In very high doses-between two to eight grams--quinine can be fatal.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Tonic+water%3A+sweet,+bitter+medicine-a0184549889

Be careful drinking that stuff. I think is tastes like shit as a reason and is mostly mixed with gin to combat that horid flavor.
 
Yeah, thanks for that one Bojangles69. RLS is a motherfucker.
 
Yep, it really does work. Last year when I was having a terrible time with RLS (not withdrawal or drug related oddly enough) my doctor actually told me to get some tonic water. I was skeptical but I started drinking it each night before bed and it really did help. I just took my grandmother to the doctor the other day and she has terrible RLS and leg spasms and her doctor suggested the same thing.

It does taste terrible, but the relief is worth it. I am so glad it is helping you. Do be careful, I wasn't really aware that it had a toxic dose as Hemp mentioned, so don't drink too much, but just enough to ease the RLS and help you get some much needed sleep!
 
I had horrific RLS as a side effect from an anti-depressant, and I was taking so much ativan and sleeping pills just to sleep, and then I tried tonic water. (first used to help british soldiers in africa from catching malaria i think). I mixed it with ribena and it took some of the horrible taste away. And it helped a lot. I still get it from time to time, but not like before, where I actually thought I was going to go crazy. I would rub tiger balm on my legs, I would put icy hot on too. I just smelt like menthol all the time. I would only sleep when the meds would finally just knock me out. So thankful it went away.
 
Not related to RLS, but quinine is a well-known homeopathic remedy for leg cramps. Works a trick every time I pull a muscle in my sleep.

Glad you're feeling better, Bojangles.
 
Wow i can't believe i stumbled on this thread, just last night i got fed up as hell with my seemingly random case of RLS (klonopin only made it worse even though my body was liiiimp).

As i'm bored as shit and kinda feelin feeny and RLS-y i think i'm gonna go try to drive a full 2-liter of that shit into me and see if i don't get anything out of it. That should give me (11) 20mg doses for a total of 220mg. Sweet, now i don't have to do yoga for an hour and a half =)

This inquiry letter to the FDA that i found says the entry level dose in pill form is 324mg so i'm sure i'll be fine.

http://www.aap.org/sections/seniormembers/docs/Quinine.pdf
 
They gave me 300mg of Quinine a couple of nights in rehab, didn't really notice if it worked though tbh. Helped my brother in his rehab, he was given 200mg.
 
I'm glad I was able to at least inform a few people who didn't know.

Tonight is the REAL test however. I drank 1 liter when I was abruptly awoken this morning at 6am, and within an hour the sensations were haulted 100%. Although I never tried going back to sleep, and thats what I'm most curious about tonight.

So I bought one more liter, figuring most of my morning quinine is gone by now, and just finished it off like 10 mins ago. I've been avging 4 hours of sleep before the RLS wakes me up, so if I get anywhere around 6-8, (maybe more who knows) and wake up w/out RLS, than I know not only is it affective but it works for my specific purpose as well.

I'll bump in the morning I'm really hoping I don't wake up kicking my walls again. The quinine just needs to stay active for the next 8 hours or so.. lets see how it goes.
 
Thanks for the tip, Bo. And I'm glad it's working out for you. RLS is a bitch. And if you're in malaria country, you're good too.

I happen to love tonic water, so np for me. I used to drink it when I was a little kid. I think the love of bitter tasting things when I was a child might have been a bad sign.
 
haha! lmao. I can actually handle kratom tea, or poppy tea rather fine, but theres a very specific thing with tonic water where after I drink it the taste just lingers for hours. Almost like tuna fish. When I drink other nasty things it seems within 20mins most the taste is gone, but damn this quinine must be horrid in its pure state.

I was also reading that quinine pills have to often be given with anti-vomiting pills because the taste is so strong it triggers patients to throw them right up. But hey if you like it more power to yah lol.
 
I've tried the tonic-water & loperamide for w/ds, but they didn't really work.
The only thing that did is gabapentin & buproprion in large doses, they kill RLS & shivers/shakes quite well.
 
I used to get leg cramps fairly often and sometimes severe where my whole lower body was cramping. I found something at the drugstore that was specifically for cramps. The active ingrediant is quinine. Also found that if I powedered the pills that they would work faster. This stuff really helped and could see it being quite useful with RLS.
 
Two friends with RLS have told me nutri-sweet/aspartame avoidance improved things for their RLS a lot.I don't claim aspartame is bad for everybody or the issue with RLS. If one is working on overcoming RLS though my purely anecdotal info seems to indicate a trial of aspartame avoidance might prove helpful for some people.
 
I've had RLS really bad for past 3yrs. Possibly contributed to the downfall in my marriage with the lack of sleep and pain leading to depression( also my wifes affair didn't help). I'm on a drug called Mirapex...it was a dream when i found that drug that and T4's. I find stress, working long hours walking, shift work all make it worse.
 
I also have heard of the tonis water idea to help...as I'm in the medical field myself.
 
I have had RLS since I can remember and the first thing my neurologist tried was quinine (before they stopped prescribing it; this was a good ten years ago). It didn't work for me at all but I'm glad to hear that it works for you =) The next thing he tried was Neurontin and that didn't work either. The only thing that did work for me was Tramadol but I can't take that anymore because it would probably lead to me relapsing as I used to abuse the hell out of that evil stuff. I've noticed that my RLS is much better now that I exercise daily. When I was stagnant, my legs killed me. The more active I get, the less they hurt. I still deal with it on long car rides or random nights but it's much better than it was when I was taking all sorts of drugs for it (oddly enough).

Once again, glad you found something that works.
 
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