The Parkinsonian Digest

MIRAPEX   a nonergot  dopamine  agonist, was the first drug prescribed.Side effects include: extreme drowsiness, falling asleep suddenly, even after feeling alert;hallucinations;fever, stiff muscles, confusion, sweating, fast or uneven heartbeats;nausea, sweating, feeling light-headed. I tolerated this drug for a week before I found my self taking more unplanned naps than a kindergartener on warm milk,nodding out mid sentence and hitting my head on my desk as I drifted off to sleep.This drug is quite effective for many patients and only a few people suffer the side effects that I encountered,  After a month I chose lucidity over muscle control. REQUIP  an orally administered non-ergoline  dopamine  agonist . was my second drug. At this stage of my disease my symptoms were relatively light with a slight tremor in my fingers and  RLS . No side effects occurred and the efficacy of the drug was excellent for my symptoms. I continued Requip for tw...

Sometime in 2002 my thumb started to twitch. It  was annoying but tolerable, It only twitched when my hands were completely at rest so I ignored it. Six months later my little finger started to twitch too. Within weeks my left hand seemed to have a mind of it’s own,I started dropping things. One of my co workers waking behind me in the hall told me that they noticed that my left arm no longer swung when I walked. Little alarm bells went off in my head but denial stayed firmly entrenched. A few months later my left leg felt like it needed to run even when I was in bed and the rest of my body was trying to sleep. I finally went to the Doctor and was told I had an Essential Tremor. He put me on Requip and sent me home. A year later, after I started freezing in place,the diagnosis was changed to Parkinson’s Disease.How could they get it wrong? Surprise! There was no test for Parkinson’s. Diagnosis can only be made through progression of the disease and drug efficacy o...