On Wed 04 Dec, John Rogers wrote:
> I decided to try and drop Artane (trihexphendryl ?) since I figured it
> was causing some lessening in my mental abilities. I stopped taking it
> and all the lights came back on. The problem is my tremor came back with
> a vengence and I lost about half my speed. It felt like I was walking in
> water. At present I'm taking 300-400mgs of Prolopa (Madopar?) and 15 mgs
> of Parlodel (Bromocriptie) a day. I would appreciate any thoughts or
> suggestions. I was taking 5mgs of Artane.
>
> Thanks
>
Hello, John (or is it Buck?). You have quite a range of options available
to you these days, and I certainly consider drugs like Artane to be redundant,
because of their high ratio of problems to effectieness. I would put Bromo-
criptine in that category also.
A tablet which has been around long enough to justify the term
'established' is Celance (Pergolide , Permax). It is one of the family of
drugs called 'Dopamine Agonists' which really just means that they help the
Dopamine do its job. The newer drugs claim to be better at helping the
Dopamine without causing dyskinesias and with a reduced tendancy to have
psychological side-effects. The thing to bear in mind is that none of these
Dopamine Agonists claim to be good enough to make the basic Levodopa
redundant: they should be regarded as the icing on the cake, and the cake
itself is still levodopa.
So, if you are conducting a review of where you stand now, your first step
should be to decide if your intake of levodopa is right for you. The
amount you quote of 300 to 400 mg (I assume per day ?) is quite a low figure,
and although it is for some people the correct level for them, a figure of
800 to 1000 mg is more typical. I don't think any drug comes to us totally
free of side-effects, but for levodopa, the ratio of side effects to
efectiveness in controlling PD symptoms is much smaller than any of the
alternatives.
Have you considered using my program to evaluate your requirements ?
You can take a look at what it is all about by pointing your browser at
the URL given here (Courtesy of Ron Vetter). I hope you find it interesting.
http://www.ridgecrest.ca.us/~rfvetter/brianspd.html
If you get no response, split the URL in two:
Go to http://www.ridgecrest.ca.us/ - This gets you into the site.
Then go to ~rfvetter/brianspd.html This finds my page.
Regards,
--
Brian Collins <[log in to unmask]>
