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Have you noticed the drug companies pushing Mirapex and Requip for RLS on TV without informing people they are powerful PD drugs?? Basu: Use more care when prescribing powerful drugs January 5, 2007 In the first eight months of last year, Iowan Karyn Link won and gambled away $6.5 million in slot machines. Until two years earlier, the most she had bet was $2 at the horse races. She attributes her compulsive gambling to a drug she was prescribed for leg tremors. And a growing body of medical literature confirms that to be a side effect of a class of drugs widely prescribed and advertised to help motor functions. Unfortunately, Link had to find out herself. Link is a 49-year-old rehab counselor for the state of Iowa. She has a master's degree. Before 2004, she had $60,000 in bank accounts and an equal amount in investments. She owned her Urbandale home and her 2001 Acura outright, and she was in a committed five-year relationship. Then it all fell apart. Her car was repossessed, her home nearly foreclosed and her relationship destroyed, along with most of her friendships. She's still $300,000 in debt. Link has nothing to gain from sharing her story except the hope of helping someone else avoid what she went through. It begins in February 2004, when a family physician put her on Mirapex, after other treatments didn't help her restless leg syndrome. The condition, which affects about 10 percent of the population, according to Des Moines neurologist Dr. Lynn Struck, is not serious, but it can make sleep difficult. Link describes it as an "electrical wormlike feeling" in her leg that makes it hard to sit, stand or lie down for long. Mirapex is in the so-called "dopamine agonist" class of drugs, dopamine being a neurotransmitter that helps with motor activity. Mirapex is most commonly used, in higher doses, for Parkinson's disease. The FDA approved it only in the past year for restless leg syndrome, because it helps regulate the dopamine receptors in the brain. A related drug called Requip is being widely advertised for the same thing. According to one study in Scotland, 8 percent of Parkinson's patients taking dopamine agonists became pathological gamblers. Drugs in that class have also been linked to other compulsive behaviors such as compulsive sexual activity or compulsive shopping. Struck (who isn't Link's doctor), prescribes these drugs a lot and says such side effects are rare. But she has had patients who experienced them, and she always issues warnings. The drug worked on Link, but she started acting strangely. Recycling cans and bottles had once been a hobby, for example; now it became an obsession. She'd be out at 3 a.m. scouring garbage cans. As she says: "My executive thinking told me it was dangerous, but I was above it all." Then one night she went to dinner at Prairie Meadows with friends and graduated from cans to slot machines. She was soon going there one to three times a week, gambling hundreds to thousands of dollars, sometimes staying all weekend. She started tailoring her vacations to gambling spots. "I had no concept of what was going on with me," she says. Whatever she won went back into the slots. If she hit the $40,000 jackpot, it was gone by the end of the week. Then she'd be scrounging for cans for gas or food money. She took out second loans on her house and car and didn't make payments. The car was repossessed; she was riding her bicycle the 30 miles to and from work. She nearly lost the house, but her mother bailed her out. Then, last July, someone at work mentioned a friend with Parkinson's Disease, who had been on the same drug, and had developed a gambling addiction. Link got on the Web and found a host of literature showing a connection. She went to a neurologist and was taken off Mirapex in August. After about three weeks, she was no longer going to casinos. Effective treatments are badly needed for motor neuron diseases. But this story cries out for more careful oversight and disclosure for drugs that can have such devastating side effects. Doctors prescribing them, and drug companies advertising them, need to be informed, and to warn patients. Link could have lived with a shaky leg. The treatment wrecked her life, and some of that damage can never be undone. REKHA BASU can be reached at [log in to unmask] or (515) 284-8584. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn