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Hi again Ervin....you wrote: >>Julie, thank you for your response. I'm curious to know how long he's >>been taking the two drugsand the >>reactions if any. Which one was first >>taken and did the second drug help?how long had he been >>diagnosed.? >>there has been so much controversy about Eldepyrl.As yet I have not start >>any drugs even >>though I was prescribed Mirapex. I guess I'm still >>waiting on reports. Best wishes ERVIN J >>MCCARTHY >><[log in to unmask]> ------- My husband had had a physical in Dec '97 (he didn't tell me, but it was because he was worried about how he was feeling--thought he might have MS or something). His physical came back with everything just great. I had noticed over the past 5-6 years that his personality had changed, but thought it was mid-life crisis. Then over the winter, I started noticing that he was moving slower, started to hold one shoulder higher than the other and gradually stopped swinging his arms when he walked and stooped. A few times I saw a tremor in his hands, but he said it was probably just because he had too much coffee. Finally I talked to our family physician and asked him to see Dan again as Dan had not told him of his symptoms at the time of his physical. We met with him in May when he diagnosed PD. We went to Billings, Montana to a neurosurgon the first of June to confirm it. He did. He started my husband with the handy little packet from Requip (Ropinerole)....I am being a little sarcastic here, because the neuro turned out to not have any experience with someone my husband's age (turned 50 in April). So he just gave us the packet of 3 week supply and told us to come back in 3 weeks. He told us that Dan should feel symptomatic relief in 3-5 days!! After my research in the internet about Requip, I found that the packet is only to titrate a person to make sure they can tolerate the medacine....it is NOT theropudic dosage (but our neuro didn't know that). The packet starts out at .25mg 3xday for one week, .5mg 3xday for the next week and .75mg 3xday the third week. We went back and he was very concerned that Dan had not improved...was going to put him on Sinnemet, but I balked at that. Then I confronted him with the fact that on the studies, patients didn't feel symptomatic relief until about 7-9 weeks into the medication and at an average doseage of 7-8mg a day. He was not pleased with me. I asked him about Elepryl (since I had seen that this was usually the first medication prescribed for early on-set PD by most of the literature I read). He told us to wait a minute....then he disappeared for 10-15 minutes. When he came back, he brought in a sample of Eldepryl and said he had confered with is collegue and wanted him to start taking 5mg at breakfast and noon along with increasing his Requip. At this point, we decided we needed to find a doctor that knew what he was doing...one who had some experience. We continued on the medications and my husband had settled at 9mg a day on the Requip. He was feeling much better and his symptoms had been relieved to a great extent....but he was still very anxious. We went to the Parkinson's Institue in Sunnyvale, CA in August and saw Dr. Petzinger (movement disorder specialist). She told us that the medacines Dan was taking were good ones, although she probably would have put him on Mirapex had he come to her first. Her reasons were that you had to take less of Mirapex (he is taking 1.5 3xday). She also said it has a natural antidepressant feature to the medication. We decided to switch because of the anxiety that Dan was still dealing with. She also told us that at this stage of the disease that almost any medication will bring symptomatic relief....it is just as the disease progresses, it get's harder and harder to figure out the medications. Dan's anxiety has been helped greatly!! He has more patience and is doing more in the last month or so than he has done in the last 3-4 years. He can NOT miss a single dose, tho, or he gets extremely shakey and feels terrible. When on his medications (1.5mg Mirapex 3xday and 5mg Eldepryl 2xday--he also takes Vit E, C, Co-enzymeQ-10 and meltonin when sleep is a problem) he feels very normal without symptoms. His early symptoms are more on the rigidity side than the tremor side at this point. He has not had ANY side effects with Requip, Mirapex or Eldepryl. How long this will last, we don't know, but we are going to make the best of it while we have it this good. There is no way of knowing if the Eldepryl helped as we stared it 3 weeks after starting the Requip, but since things are working, my husband does not want to experiment by dropping one....he prefers to stay with both. I hope that this information is helpful to you. Each person reacts differently, but for our part....Dan has only had positive benefits from taking the dopamine agonist. With warmest regards, Juelie McLean CG/Dan 50 dx98