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At 12:38 AM 1/24/99 -0500, Bruce Anderson wrote: >1. Has anyone had a bad reaction to Requip? Bruce, Your problems sound very similar to my father's. He, also, shows very little response to any of the standard meds. Sinemet just makes him sick to his stomach. He also tried Mirapex, Permax, Amantadine, Selegeline and Requip. Most of them seemed to produce a reaction opposite to the one intended. He said they "robbed him of muscle control." He was tolerating Requip okay, though only at the lowest dose of .25mg 3x a day. His first attempt to double that caused diarrhea and that same loss of muscle control. He quit taking them completely for a couple of weeks, then started again because he thought it might be helping "a bit." His neuro wanted him to try increasing the dosage again, but he was reluctant. Just this past week, he thought the low dosage was bothering his muscle control again, so he gradually eliminated them. That doesn't help much, does it? Except that you are not alone in having problems with this med. The only med he's taking right now is something called Cylert. It doesn't seem to help with the balance and muscle problems, but it keeps him from falling asleep all the time. This allows him to read his paper all the way through and eat breakfast without falling asleep face down in the cereal! There do not appear to be any adverse side effects. >2. I am having an MRI on Tuesday. Like a dummy I didn't even ask my doctor >what this is supposed to tell him. The MRI readers can tell if "real" Parkinson's is operating or not. My father has had 3 of them in less than 2 years. The first 2 showed no evidence of Parkinson's and the neuro's said he had something else, altho they couldn't really say just WHAT. A technician's write-up of the most recent MRI said, "The patient does show changes of mild white and grey matter atrophy." We are still waiting to meet with his neuro again to get a translation of this, but the doctor at the rehab center, where Dad was for a couple weeks after a bad fall, suggested it showed evidence of Parkinson's. I still need to learn a whole lot more about this. Good luck with your MRI. Don't jump up too quickly afterwards. It really shakes you up! Jane Koenig daughter of Fred, 80/2 Marietta, GA