Hello All,

I am new here .. have just found this board. When I googled Mirapex and side effects, I found some posts (about this) on this board under the Parkinson's area.

My husband has taken 1 mg Mirapex to help with restless legs for approximately 3 years now. It is only just recently that I believe that I have figured out why things have been going so badly, since (approximately) six months after he began on the Mirapex.

My husband began going to a new psychiatrist three years ago. With the new doc came a whole new medication regimen. He began on Effexor XR (low dose) and quickly moved up to 375mgs. He also was prescribed Ambien for sleep issues and then Mirapex for his RLS.

Once (at the beginning) my husband asked if I would accompany him to one of his new dr. appts. (I'm thinking that his dr. probably requested this.) This was after he had been on his new medication regimen for approximately six months. I remember mentioning to his dr. that in the beginning my husband seemed to so much better. I attributed it to the Effexor. Well, shortly after he was started on the Effexor, husband's dr. added in the Mirapex.

My "theory" is that the Mirapex problems probably took six months (to kick in?) or so and this is why things went down hill so quickly.

All of a sudden, my husband insisted on spending almost every night at the bar. At first, it WAS an issue, since I knew that it was not good in regards to his depression and also with mixing the alcohol with all of his meds.

Well, from worse .. it went to even worse. Sometime during this time frame my husband decided that he could not work any longer. My kids and I knew that something was wrong, because husband was home all of the time. (He is supposed to be a self-employed electrical contractor.) Local economy was (IS) bad, so that is the excuse he always gave us (his family) and anyone else who might ask him about work.

I then discovered that husband's partner has all of a sudden increased his take home .. twice what it used to be. It is quite obvious that he has taken up the slack .. in what my husband is not doing. (How very frustrating for me!)

So, my husband (in my eyes) refuses to work. He continues to drink and spend large amounts of money (monthly) to do this. I believe that his monthly bar bill is just over (average) $1000. This is a lot for us!! $1000 would go a lot towards our monthly mortgage payment!

My husband "says" that he will do better .. "next week". Of course he is not able to do that and continues on as he has been.

We have a beautiful home on quite a few acres. We HAD a lot of equity in our home/property. Since he has been on his new medication regimen we have refinanced twice and now my husband is advocating that we refinance again!! The refinance monies and has paid our mortgage and kept him with drinking money.

We have argued terribly about all of this. My husband .. in MY opinion, cannot see the forest from the trees right now. I don't believe that he is capable of seeing "what" exactly the problem might be.

I have just sent my husband's pdoc a letter telling him what has been going on. I was pretty adamant in telling his doc that I thought it was way too much of a coincidence that my hard working husband (sometime throughout this new medication regimen) decided that he could no longer work. Definitely .. no less of an issue, is the fact that his drinking and spending money, to do this is (in MY eyes) uncontrollable.

I am anxiously awaiting my husband's next appt. with his pdoc. (June 27) I am SO hoping that his dr. will not hesitate in taking him off of the Mirapex.

I am posting this, so that others can read about yet another true (very sad) story about how Mirapex is ruining lives.