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Dear list,
My name is Herb. I'm a PWP, 38 years old, about 1 year out from diagnosis.
I've been reading the list for a few weeks now, and I've gotten quite a bit
out of the discussion (although I've found it a challenge to keep up with
the volume).
I've been interested in the discussion on depression. Until diagnosed with
PD, I had never felt depressed. Perhaps the closest I had felt was a
reaction that I had to a drug I took once, prednisone. An hour or two after
I took the pill, I had a very strong feeling that everything was wrong.
This slowly developed into extreme nausea. Eventually I vomited and felt
much better within minutes.
Naturally, when I got my diagnosis, I had some things to deal with
emotionally, like sadness, grief, etc. etc. At the same time, I began
taking a dopamine agonist (Permax). Once I was up to a reasonable dose, the
Permax did help a bit with mobility, however I began to have these feelings
that things were not right. There was no real nausea, but it was
reminiscent of the prednisone reaction. This was not the same as the
sadness related to getting the diagnosis. I noticed that the feelings would
come in waves, and that there would typically start one to two hours after
the Permax dose. The bad feelings would also tend to get better a few hours
after they came on.  A friend of mine who is a pharmacologist told me about
the "peak effect." Apparently , it is a known that when a drug is peaking
in the bloodstream, there can often be a psychological effect like this.
Anyway, in an attempt to stop the bad feelings, I decided to switch to
Requip. My neurologist said that I could make the switch in one day. As
soon as I stopped taking the Permax, the feelings pretty much went away.
For a week or two I felt pretty good . But soon the feelings started to
come back, and again they were timed in such a way that I could only
suspect the drug.
My understanding is that a dopamine agonist if anything should relieve
depression, not cause it. Then again, I don't know that what I'm
experiencing it is depression. At this point, I am only taking Requip. I
have cut back slightly on the Requip, to five of the 2 mg tablets each day.
I space them out so that I don't take two at one time, and that helps a
little bit.
Has anyone had a similar experience? Any thoughts?
- Herb

--
Herb Heinz
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For info on Herb's CD, "Failure":
http://www.isproductions.com/herb/failure.shtml -
For mp3 songs: http://www.mp3.com/herb

For info on the new CD from Amy X Neuburg & Men, "Sports! Chips! Booty!":
http://www.isproductions.com/amy/band.shtml