Marty, et al...

I too was prescribed Imipramine (plus oxybutin) to
control PD-caused frequency and it not only did
THAT (and well!) but I ended up with dry mouth
(I sure drink a LOT more water than before)
<rueful grin>, dry eyes, (I now single handedly
support the eye-drops industry,) and oddly, the
mild daily hay fever-like allergy I'd had since I was
twelve years old COMPLETELY disappeared
with the advent of these drugs.

Strange to end up with an unexpected benefit
out of a negative situation.

Barb Mallut
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-----Original Message-----

From: Marty Polonsky <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sunday, August 08, 1999 7:32 PM
Subject: Re: Droooling


>Hi y'all,
>I know that this subject has been dealt with a some length in the
past but I
>don't think that what I have to share was specifically covered,
and a nonPD
>friend of mine has been bugging me to share this and decided that
he was
>right.  I had a MAJOR problem with drooling after my second,
bilateral
>pallidotomy.  I went through a couple of handkerchiefs per day
and despite
>this, I also ended up with ugly, ineradicable saliva stains just
below the
>collar on all my shirts By the way, this is one of the typical
reactions to
>bilateral pal's that accounts for neurosurgeons' reluctance to do
them.
>First, my neurosurgeon rx'd robinol, a mild tranquilizer with
some tendency
>to dry you out. This was of minimal help.  I had better luck,
although still
>far from a solution to the problem by chewing gum--the bigger the
wad the
>better.   Then, many months later, quite serendipitously, my
urologist rx'd
>imipramine (tofranil) for excessive urination.   Imipramine is
used primarily
>as an anti--depressant but also as my urologist used it--to dry
out my
>system.  Well, since around the time I started using the
imipramine, my
>drooling stopped and is no longer a major problem although I
continue to
>drool a little sometimes.  This was accomplished with a minimal
dose--40 mg
>per day.  I hesitate to pronounce this as a cure for 2 reasons:
l.  Trained
>to do research in my training as a psychologist, it was drummed
into my head
>that correlation does not necessarily mean causation.  2.
>I recognize that this might have been an idiosyncratic reaction
by me that
>will not necessarily occur in others.  With these qualifiers in
mind,  I
>offer this info to you and I hope that it helps somebody.
>Marty Polonsky