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“IT’S DIFFICULT TRYING to communicate to people who don’t live with it how devastating it is. It’s a hugely ridiculed condition. It has a silly name for goodness’ sake.”
It’s easy to explain what a broken arm or leg is. Medical staff can help you, and your family and friends understand what’s going on.
This is not the case when it comes to an invisible illness, however.
Daragh Bogan has Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS) – a medical condition characterised by an uncontrollable urge to move one’s legs. It is often worse at night and affects people’s sleep.
The symptoms usually become worse when sitting or lying down for prolonged periods – such as at the cinema or on a plane.
As the name suggests, it’s most common in legs, but can affect other parts of the body such as the arms, torso and head.
“People can go two or three days with no sleep whatsoever. It feel like insects crawling inside your legs or limbs. I get it in my arms as well,” Daragh told us.
The HSE lists RLS as a sleep disorder, alongside conditions such as narcolepsy or sleep apnoea.
Daragh (43) is originally from Galway but moved to the UK in 1997. He said he first experienced symptoms of RLS when he was a child, but didn’t know what the problem was until a few years ago.
He is now the chair of RLS-UK, a charity that helps people with the condition. Through his voluntary work with the organisation he is often contacted by people who suffer from RLS. It can have a hugely debilitating effect.
Some people have turned to suicide they are so demented with it. One guy who has had it for 40 years told me he gets an average of two hours sleep a night. He just cried down the phone to me.
“Most people who have it, and those who have it chronically, put it down to an odd thing that’s wrong with their body. They have to get up and pace for two or three hours every single night – that’s only way to alleviate it, it starts again when they lie down.”
He said sometimes children with the condition are misdiagnosed as having ADHD, or have both, due to the similar symptoms.
‘Worse as you get older’
Daragh is on a milder form of the type of medication given to people with Parkinson’s disease. He resisted taking medication for his condition until last year as he feared that building up a resistance to it could make his symptoms worse.
“It sets in at about 8.30 in the evening – 40 minutes in one leg, then it moves over to the other.”
Daragh is grateful his symptoms are not as bad as many other RLS sufferers he knows.
It gets worse as you get older. My prognosis in 10 or 15 years will be an awful lot worse.
RLS is genetic and more common in women than men. It can be linked to iron deficiency, kidney disease and diabetes, among other conditions. People with RLS often have other issues such as varicose veins.
There are two recognised forms of RLS:
Primary or idiopathic RLS has no known cause and usually begins slowly, before the age of 45. It is often genetic. Primary RLS can come and go and is often progressive, meaning it gets worse with age.
Secondary RLS often has a sudden onset and is usually associated with another medical condition (such as iron deficiency/anaemia) or the use of certain medication. For example, some women get the condition while pregnant. The symptoms will continue after the birth for some women, but not others.
Depression
Daragh told us depression, often brought on by lack of sleep, is common among people with RLS.
Breege Leddy runs an insomnia clinic at Bon Secours Hospital in Dublin.
She agreed that people suffering from the condition sometimes experience anxiety and depression. RLS can be exacerbated by drinking alcohol and caffeine, and smoking.
Daragh said this has been the case for him, noting: “Alcohol, for me, really sets it off.”
“It is also important to keep caffeine levels to a minimum,” Breege noted.
Leddy said between 5-15% of the population are thought to have the condition, and certain people are more vulnerable to it than others.
For example, 11% of pregnant women and 30% of people with rheumatoid arthritis and 15 -20% of uremic (chronic kidney disease) patients [have it, according to international research]. It should be noted that RLS is much more common in females.
Breege said RLS “can lead to severe sleep disruptions and insomnia”. She advised anyone with symptoms such as “sensations of ‘creeping’ inside the legs and an uncontrollable urge to move them” to consult their GP.
She said a blood test can be done to rule out anaemia and medication will be prescribed if necessary.
Daragh said many people from Ireland have been in touch with RLS-UK seeking advice and he’s willing to help them set up their own support network here.
More information on the condition can be read here.
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It’s absolutely devastating for the people of Ukraine & they are welcome here. But would the government not concentrate on housing its own people first. Look at the numbers in homeless accommodation, look at the numbers that are homeless. I’m living out of a suitcase & have 2 little girls. I’m on an 8 year waiting list. It’s a joke
@John Barry: or maybe do both at the same time?
@Derek Moran: Do both? They can’t do one lol
@Derek Moran: If they could have provided housing for Irish people, why have they waited this long to do so?
@Thomas O’ Donnell: the Ukrainians are very very welcome here but our own homeless need to be looked after too.
@Thomas O’ Donnell: Yes. Let’s concentrate on our own homeless first. Then look after the refugees. If I had my own house I’d have a family staying with me. But I can’t cos I’m HOMELESS..
@Derek Moran: Amazing how the government have now discovered over 300 derelict sites that can be upgraded, the Churches and monasteries that have offered accommodation to Ukrainian refugees, didn’t see the church offering to open their doors to the homeless, evicted , Syrian refugees. Hypocrisy at it’s best.
@Sean Henehan: I was wondering when the anti-Irish homeless brigade would arrive to this discussion. FG have had 10 years to come up with a solution for our own homeless humanitarian crisis and ignored it. There are a group of people like you who always appear on these articles making derogatory comments accompanied by sheer lies about the Irish homeless. Please provide a link with stats that prove that despicable claim you just made or indeed share with us the real reason you don’t want the Irish housing problem fixed. Like many others I warmly welcome as many Ukrainian refugees as we can take.
@Frank Cauldhame: Frank, I also welcome the Ukraine people, or any refugees for that matter. In my comment I mentioned people who were housed, not the homeless. Also I don’t take any heed of politics of any kind or party. I learned of the actions I mentioned through my work. One particular incident 4 firefighters nearly lost their lives.
@Sean Henehan: So you make a sweeping generalised statement to back up your previous dubious comment regarding an isolated incident about some peopled who lived in an actual house?? Who are you trying to fool?
@Fifty Shades of Sé: Because the housing crisis has been wilfully maintained to keep house values and rents inflated, much to the delight of developers, politicians that are landlords, vulture funds etc, affordable social housing would end the constructive housing crisis.
Perhaps the Ukrainian humanitarian crisis might just be the catalyst to end that cozy arrangement once and for all, in which case everyone except those vested interests will benefit.
@John Barry: they are talking about an aditional annual build number to compensate I think. So 30odd K +5 or 6k per annum. I know this doesnt help you and they should start with second rental homes and tax relief foreign homes for our homeless. The insane amount 9f pandlords who are selling up is mainly because they arent allowed to raise the rents arbitrarily anymore so cant cover the mortgage they got to fund their own home. We had a pandlord years ago that was pushy to get us in asap rather than in a month, she revealed she had 4 kids living in a cottage with no heating oil since since November [this was February]. Needless to say all we got was attempeted price hikes and ended up spending thousamds fix8ng thinhs ourselves becauae we had no other option. This is the type of landlord that is predominant these days. Habent got a pot to. Piss in so remortgage a bequeathed house and hope to have some other mug pay both the mortgages.
@Dave Wave: It a total disgrace out there. I’m split with my ex. She got the house & I’m still paying the mortgage. I was renting too but couldn’t afford rent, mortgage & child maintenance so had to give up the apartment as the landlord wanted to raise the rent. Moved into my sister’s house. My girls sleeping in the bed as I sleep on the floor when I have them at the weekends. Corporation said they couldn’t help because i was still on the mortgage. Can’t get off the mortgage till she buys me out & I’m divorced. A little help from this government would be nice, but absolutely nothing.
@Thomas O’ Donnell: You should be ashamed of your comment.
@John Barry: if you’re contributing to the mortgage, she should get our when you have custody and then your kids aren’t been messed around – I don’t think the separated dads of this country stand up for themselves enough.
@John Barry: would you swap your situation for tented accommodation in gormanstown military base??
It’s purely a cosmetic exercise by FF & FG to look good on the international stage. We all feel for the Ukrainians and I hope we take in as many refugees as we can. What this shows is that if there’s a will there’s a way and it proves that there has been no will or way for our own humanitarian homeless crisis by FF & FG for the past decade because they are trying to turn this country into a land of renters to accommodate their own interests.
@John Barry: well said . There is a great need to house our own first !!
So they can do the thing they say they’ve been unable to do for the last 11 years because of a lack of funds/labour? Why didn’t they repurpose those houses years ago?
Surely it wasn’t because they were afraid that this would lead to house prices and rents decreasing?
@Fifty Shades of Sé: I think we all know by now the housing policy goal of FG & FF is to grow and protect asset value for their target demographic of over 50′s property owners.
It’s working as well. The older age groups are showing they don’t give a damn about the Irish youth so long as they’re profiting, they’ll gobble up whatever lies FF/FG want to give them about building difficulties to help them sleep at night in the process.
@Fifty Shades of Sé: If we wanted houses built we could bring in a targeted visa policy. Surely there must be some country with a surplus of builders, carpenters etc. Okay, so we say if you are qualified in something like that you can come here, work for 5 years, maybe apply to stay or maybe go home. Would that not be smart?
@Fifty Shades of Sé: read the article carefully. He said that there are 35000 houses needed. He did not say that they will ever build them. They always do this to confuse people who can read, but don’t grasp what is written.
Someone needs to shout stop. Our politicians are completely and utterly and totally out of control at this stage. We need to help the people from Ukraine but our lot are ALL OVER THE PLACE with plans and announcements. It’s a free for all at this stage.
Can’t build enough for our own
@John O Mahony: I hate this attitude because how can people sit here and watch people’s literal world get annihilated in every way and still act as if an Irish person is more valuable or worthy of a house because they had the potluck fortune of being born here!
@John O Mahony: Original stuff. Good man
@UserMcUserFace: ever hear the saying charity begins at home. So it’s OK by you for 10,000 irish people to be homeless once we look after all the refugees first
@Philip Dwyer: we can not be come a dumping ground for refugees world wide.
@Philip Dwyer: how many palestinians or iraqi refugees did we take in and house
@UserMcUserFace: that’s exactually why they are irish contributing to the economy
@John O Mahony: I never said that, I’m asking how you can value one human more important than another simply based off the fact they were born on X piece of land, not let’s tend to the Ukrainians first, talk about grasping at straws. As as for your second point I’m not sure if that’s just as bad or worse, essentially your saying a persons value as a human is based on how much economic value they have to a system you benefit from? We can help everyone, society just doesn’t want to as it means less for them.
@UserMcUserFace: no one said they where less but you say Ukrainians are entitled to houses yes they are and peaceful lives, but so are many Irish people who have been on the housing list for years are these people no entitled to the same. How many refugees do you want housed before the Irish, thousands have been already. We neither have the house or infrastructure to keep dealing with a constant flow. Health service is already at breaking point. Get things in place then we can deal with it. No put them in tests in gormanstown camp.
@UserMcUserFace: what I’m saying is look after our own. All lives are equal, but we did not start this war. In fact it has nothing to do with us. Why should irish people waiting for homes suffer for someone else’s problem
This gives them the perfect excuse to keep the gravy train flowing and house prices inflated
@The Guru: Might be a bridge too far for the scam. Let’s say they do build 35k homes rapidly and cheaply for refugees. I think people would rightly say “hold on a minute! why didn’t you build me a house for cheap! why is the 2 bed down the road 400k….”
Where are the opposition parties now, why are they not trying to stop this madness.
Building houses means our Government is accepting that they are here forever.
200,000 for us is the same as 2.6 million for a country the size of the UK.
Where is the pressure on our leaders coming from to do this .
@Roger Bond: 200k won’t happen Roger, you can keep repeating yourself every time there is an article on Ukraine but if won’t happen. It will be more like 50k, many of whom won’t want to stay here longer than they have to, so stop being an alarmist and spreading your hysteria for no reason.
@Alan Biddulph: Wrong.. 200K has been said numerous times by our leaders. They have said that there is no upper limit.
Yes it alarmist that 200k could be allowed to happen without any regard the effects on our own people.
50k here is 650k in the UK which is a huge influx of people who need all the services of State.
Yes we must help the people of Ukraine that have arrived and will come but the government can’t just keep announcing all this stuff without a plan for achieving it. We have needed extra houses for years for our own and now not only have they suddenly found a way to help our friends from Ukraine they have found a way to help our own people. Why could they not have done this before now? I suspect that we will see some awful building in places with little or no thought to traffic or services and some of it rammed through in places that should never be considered let alone used. Local objections due to congestion or lack of services will be ignored and those that make such objections will find they are being accused of being against the Ukrainian people that need help when they are not.
@Peter: another thing about this is how have they suddenly got the money to do this and also how will they be built. We don’t have the builders available to build what was already planned and they now think they can stick a pile more onto the list to get built each year. How? Don’t get me wrong, as I said before we should do it but I want it thought through and planned correctly, we don’t want another ballymun, loads of housing and flats built and nothing else delivered for the area like shops, schools, play grounds and the like. Yes they arrived eventually but by that time other issues had arisen in the area with some of the people. If they are going to do this then they need to do it correctly and not half ar*d as usual.
@Peter: It’s like they want to bankrupt the country or at the very least limit the amount of money available for the next government. They are completely out of control with their announcements.
@David Corrigan: so helping the victims of Putin is just a plan to limit SF if they are in government in 3 years time.
Hopefully the people of the North don’t vote for the parties of conflict and put a stop to the gallop of the DUP and SF.
@Chris Mc: Who mentioned SF?
@Chris Mc: obsessed with SF….. pity you have got something to say about FFFG housing scandal? Nothing?
John Barry you are right
Shhh your not supposed to say things like that
It could upset our government
This is admirable, but the obvious question now is, why was this not already done for homeless people already resident in Ireland? I frankly hope that this question leads to serious political problems here soon.
@Dick Barrett: 100s of millions are spent every year on homeless services, they are already being helped.
Repopulate Ireland it should be called, nevermind the fake helping of refugees…
@Peter Willekens: well we are one of the lowest populated area in Europe so yes let’s repopulate!
@Derek Moran:
Why do we need to repopulate?
The world has about 3 billion people more that it should have
@The Grand Nagus: Talking about rehousing, not repopulating…
@Derek Moran:… And why did they leave?
@Derek Moran: so is Ukraine
@Peter Willekens: Peter you never fail with the whinging and negativity, hopefully things improve in your life.
@Anne Busher Collins:
I’m replying to Derek above
@Derek Moran: m oron
Irish people can be on waiting list for 10 years or more but he mentions 5 years to hous Ukrainians in world class bla bla bla
Priority should be homes for Irish nationals.
@Don Hogan: as opposed to someone who’s home has just been blown to peices?
@Don Hogan: in tented accommodation in gormanstown military base or shared accommodation at Citywest? In a convention centre or church in some town thousands of miles from your husband risking his life so you have a home to return too when the war is over?
Sure we’re a great little country
Feel very sorry for the Ukraine people but government needs to look after their own think they just want to look good in the eyes of the EU
How many houses will be needed for Irish People?
People pleasing, yet again. My heart goes out to the people of Ukraine but this is beyond ridiculous
Over 35,000 houses for Refugees, — NO houses for people on housing lists for years,– now talking about a New Pension Scheme for OUR OWN WORKERS who will never own their own houses . They will be paying BIG rent all their lives and the Refugees will be paying little or nothing . This is a real disgrace, a real disaster . This Minister is doing nothing but Bluffing for past two years .
I’m all for helping our Ukrainian pals, they are literally destitute and traumatised arriving here, no friends of family to help them out. If we increase our housing stock now to accommodate them it will mean that when/ if they return to their country we will be in a better position here to offer permanent homes to Irish citizens. I do feel for any person without a home stuck in hotels it must be miserable, but it’s not comparable to their circumstance.
Let’s help the Ukrainian refugees but we have a homeless crisis here too, each time it is reported it goes up, surely we can help our own if there is a will.
Jaysus, the whinge brigade are out in full force here today FFS!!!
It’s not whether they can house them side by side, but why a miniscule number of Irish in comparison were deemed to be beyond the scope of our most inept government for not only a European emergency but a national crisis. When they can get their fingers out to explain maybe people can accept this. I can understand the apathy towards this influx. We’ve been told it was something that couldn’t be solved for over a decade but now we know it all..
And where will we get all these tradesmen?
oh people stop whinging and get a mortgage like the rest of us. .
@Bala mc blaha: can’t get a mortgage big enough. 33 living at home with parents saving 60 % of my salary for over 5 years.
@Bala mc blaha: think your the whinger
How about the 4 bed houses given to one or two person families by councils? Could the unused rooms go to helping out?
@Susan Keane:
Look, this is a gift from God. New workers to do the stuff we are short of. A nice race of people dipossed, hardworking, bright. The Government are going skills shortage sortef
The push if NATO east caused this war… NATO and its master US imperialism must pay for the damage caused and the plight of the refuges fleeing the
Destruction
@Fergus Quinlan: I agree. Would it be too much to say Ukraine should never have sidled up to NATO, nor tbe EU?
TBF the Ukrainiens are proud people and will mostly return home, so as usual the housing minister is way off the mark. Focus on incentives to help Irish people support these refugees and not on ridiculous statements
@Koukliahills: Depends on how long this lasts. We hope and “experts” think it won’t last long, but it could turn into an occupation for years.
@Koukliahills: might not be much of a home left to return to …
But with this news, doesn’t it make sense that as well as our Ukranian friends being housed, so will our own…. Those that have suffered long enough in hotels and the like.
It will seem very odd if with the rising tide in house/apartment construction if very few of our own benefit with all others.
When’s Father’s Day
@John Morgan: nobody knows…..
Saw a video on youtune of some sickening guy sticking microphones into peoples faces questionimg them in his little skanger accent. These people are not economic migrants they are our fellow Europeans who we as memners of the EU are tacitly responsible for the entire mess so ues tale as many women, children and elderly as we can. Treat them well and hopefully we enrich oir european bonds when some decide to settle. The omes who don’t we need to ensure that they are not telling horror stories aboit their time here.
@Dave Wave: How did the EU cause this war?
@Dave Wave: Jeeesusss. Another phuckwit blaming Europe for Vlad the ccock going on a rampage. Give your head a wobble ffs
@v39e84kK: Certain EU nations and their UK and US partners have had a lot to do with romancing Ukraine 9n the promise of protections . UN gave Putin the casus belli to invade.
I really hope I am wrong , but there is trouble ahead.
Heard the soundbite on Newstalk (so it must be true!), I presume some are staying with friends and some have means and don’t have a freeloading mentality.
Heard 25% of them coming to Ireland are self sufficient so they’re not all chancers.
@Pat Barry: 1/4 of them can pay Irish rent? I doubt that seriously.
have your say