Juelie, thank you for your detailed response. Glad you found a good Dr. If I
could be sure the Mirapex helped your husband I may start on it
being we were diagnosed about the same time. Stay in touch. best wishes to
you and your husband.

[log in to unmask]


-----Original Message-----
From: McLean <[log in to unmask]>
To: Multiple recipients of list PARKINSN <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wednesday, November 18, 1998 5:27 PM
Subject: Mirapex


>Hi again Ervin....you wrote:
>
>>>Julie, thank you for your response.  I'm curious to know how long he's
>>>been taking the two drugsand the >>reactions if any.  Which one was first
>>>taken and did the second drug help?how long had he been >>diagnosed.?
>>>there has been so much controversy about Eldepyrl.As yet I have not start
>>>any drugs even >>though I was prescribed Mirapex. I guess I'm still
>>>waiting on reports.  Best wishes    ERVIN J >>MCCARTHY
>>><[log in to unmask]>
>
>-------
>
>My husband had had a physical in Dec '97 (he didn't tell me, but it was
>because he was worried about how he was feeling--thought he might have MS
>or something).  His physical came back with everything just great.  I had
>noticed over the past 5-6 years that his personality had changed, but
>thought it was mid-life crisis.  Then over the winter, I started noticing
>that he was moving slower, started to hold one shoulder higher than the
>other and gradually stopped swinging his arms when he walked and stooped.
>A few times I saw a tremor in his hands, but he said it was probably just
>because he had too much coffee.  Finally I talked to our family physician
>and asked him to see Dan again as Dan had not told him of his symptoms at
>the time of his physical.  We met with him in May when he diagnosed PD.  We
>went to Billings, Montana to a neurosurgon the first of June to confirm it.
>He did.  He started my husband with the handy little packet from Requip
>(Ropinerole)....I am being a little sarcastic here, because the neuro
>turned out to not have any experience with someone my husband's age (turned
>50 in April).  So he just gave us the packet of 3 week supply and told us
>to come back in 3 weeks.  He told us that Dan should feel symptomatic
>relief in 3-5 days!!  After my research in the internet about Requip, I
>found that the packet is only to titrate a person to make sure they can
>tolerate the medacine....it is NOT theropudic dosage (but our neuro didn't
>know that).  The packet starts out at .25mg 3xday for one week, .5mg 3xday
>for the next week and .75mg 3xday the third week.  We went back and he was
>very concerned that Dan had not improved...was going to put him on
>Sinnemet, but I balked at that.  Then I confronted him with the fact that
>on the studies, patients didn't feel symptomatic relief until about 7-9
>weeks into the medication and at an average doseage of 7-8mg a day.  He was
>not pleased with me.  I asked him about Elepryl (since I had seen that this
>was usually the first medication prescribed for early on-set PD by most of
>the literature I read).  He told us to wait a minute....then he disappeared
>for 10-15 minutes.  When he came back, he brought in a sample of Eldepryl
>and said he had confered with is collegue and wanted him to start taking
>5mg at breakfast and noon along with increasing his Requip.  At this point,
>we decided we needed to find a doctor that knew what he was doing...one who
>had some experience.  We continued on the medications and my husband had
>settled at 9mg a day on the Requip.  He was feeling much better and his
>symptoms had been relieved to a great extent....but he was still very
>anxious.  We went to the Parkinson's Institue in Sunnyvale, CA in August
>and saw Dr. Petzinger (movement disorder specialist).  She told us that the
>medacines Dan was taking were good ones, although she probably would have
>put him on Mirapex had he come to her first.  Her reasons were that you had
>to take less of Mirapex (he is taking 1.5 3xday). She also said it has a
>natural antidepressant feature to the medication.  We decided to switch
>because of the anxiety that Dan was still dealing with.  She also told us
>that at this stage of the disease that almost any medication will bring
>symptomatic relief....it is just as the disease progresses, it get's harder
>and harder to figure out the medications.  Dan's anxiety has been helped
>greatly!!  He has more patience and is doing more in the last month or so
>than he has done in the last 3-4 years.  He can NOT miss a single dose,
>tho, or he gets extremely shakey and feels terrible.  When on his
>medications (1.5mg Mirapex 3xday and 5mg Eldepryl 2xday--he also takes Vit
>E, C, Co-enzymeQ-10 and meltonin when sleep is a problem) he feels very
>normal without symptoms.  His early symptoms are more on the rigidity side
>than the tremor side at this point. He has not had ANY side effects with
>Requip, Mirapex or Eldepryl.  How long this will last, we don't know, but
>we are going to make the best of it while we have it this good.  There is
>no way of knowing if the Eldepryl helped as we stared it 3 weeks after
>starting the Requip, but since things are working, my husband does not want
>to experiment by dropping one....he prefers to stay with both.
>
>I hope that this information is helpful to you.  Each person reacts
>differently, but for our part....Dan has only had positive benefits from
>taking the dopamine agonist.
>
>With warmest regards,
>
>Juelie McLean CG/Dan 50 dx98