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My wife, in her 31st year since diagnosis with PD, took amantadine (Symmetrel) for several years with no untoward ill effects as I recall. However, although she has taken a number of drugs, including Mirapex and Requip, Sinemet has been her gold standard, and without it her tremors are violent and a source of great discomfort. As you may know, it is apparently the case that amantadine was initially developed as an anti-influenza drug. The story I heard is that its usefulness for PD was discovered by accident when used with a threatened flu epidemic on board a cruise ship. When the PD folks on board took amantadine to head off influenza, their PD symptoms improved. Or so the story goes. -Ken On Fri, May 1, 2009 at 12:40 AM, rayilynlee <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > John > > I am sending your question to the List because I think there are quite a > few folks who have used Amantadine. I never have, so I don't know much > about it. I'm thinking you just won't know until you try it - at least that > has been my experience with Sinemet - it helped on the first dose but > never again even though I tried it again twice after taking it for a year > several years ago. Mirapex and Requip, Comtan and Stalevo didn't help > either, but DBS stopped my tremors. I read somewhere that DBS was > the only thing that would help tremor. > > Good luck, Ray > > Rayilyn Brown > Director AZNPF > Arizona Chapter National Parkinson Foundation > [log in to unmask] > > > From: JOHN YOCHIM > Sent: Thursday, April 30, 2009 7:38 PM > To: rayilynlee > Subject: Question re Amantadine use > > > Ray, I am wondering if you or the folks on the listserve have > experience using Amantadine 100mg medicine. My VA provider is recommending > that in addition to Sinemet, that I take two > Amamtadine tablets per day. This is supposed to assist the Sinemet in > controlling my PD symptoms including tremor. There are side effects of > course, which I am aware of. > So, I would like to find out how well it is tolerated and if it has > helped others. > I was diagnosed in 05 with PD but the sinemet has not worked well or > me in helping with the symptoms. I continue to take sinemet as it seems to > help with anxiety. Thanks for your help in the past and hopefully you can > shed some light on my question. > Regards, > John Y. > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto: > [log in to unmask] > In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn > -- Ken ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn