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On 20050312 (Sat) at 1140:07 -0600, Paul Edstrom wrote: > Well, I've finally taken the big step.......started taking > Mirapex.....last Tue. Standard ramp up, 1/8mg, 1/4mg, 1/2mg....... I started two weeks ago and am now on 0.25mg tid, shortly to go to 0.5. > I've had symptoms about 5 years. Age 63. Firm diagnosis over two years > ago (my neurologist said I'd be on meds in 6-18 months) ;-). 2yr/58/diagnosed "for sure" last December. Tremor was excessive so we tried an anticholinergic but they made me sleep too much. > So far the only side effect is drowsiness. No reduction of tremor though. I had mild nausea on the second day but not since, then sleeplessness (followed by drowsiness for a few hours) the day after the first dosage increase but not since. Dizziness upon standing was also experienced for a day or two at the start of both doses; again, this wasn't severe. Tremor is a bit better from about 45 min to 3 h after dose, not abolished but reduced to a more tolerable level. I have hopes the 50 mg tid regime will be more effective; if I understood right, this will be the real "introductory dosage," the lower two being primarily to minimize side effects. > What can I expect to experience? Especially, how long should it take to > be effective? (I'm not a medical doctor): Well, Mirapex alone should lessen the tremor significantly once we get it up to an effective dose (which may take different amounts of titration for different people). One study of 599 patients went as high as the patients could tolerate, maximally 1.5 mg tid. The investigators evaluated this group at 6 months. In another study, the dosage was increased over six weeks and then maintained for four weeks, after with improvement comparable with that seen in the first study was observed. The evaluation made use of an instrument called the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale that addresses "mentation," daily life activities, motor performance and side effects -- lots more than just tremor. But it would seem we can hope for effectiveness by weeks 6-10 or so. I presume you were warned about sleep attacks; if not, you might want to visit www.mirapex.com and check out the safety information. Also, http://www.bidocs.com/renetnt:/Prescribing%20Information/PIs/Mirapex/Mirapex.pdf?DMW_FORMAT=pdf is a good general reference; that's where the above information about the studies came from. > On the SC issue: I suspect God has a sense of humor seeing how seriously > we take issues that are to some extent picky. The TC (Ten Commandments) > are still pretty good to live by. Agreed. As for SC, delight in trying to impose, on others, morals invented for that purpose is neither a religious merit nor a divine joy. Well-intentioned reasoned replies to such attempts, OTOH, often accomplish nothing more than feeding the trolls. Hope things go well for you................... -- Greg Louis ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn