Hi,

I have a white lab report (a small one) that is perhaps significant or not. I'm hoping some of our biochemical experts here might shed some light on this.

The other night was awful for me. The one thing I find worse than being "off" is being suspended in limbo or in that stage where meds are so close to working but are not quite getting there; this was the case for me this past Tuesday. I have been under an enormous amount of stress lately and find this happening with my last dose. In most cases, I can take a bit of DXM maybe a teaspoonful and my anxiety melts away and meds kick in. I can then relax, knit, read, whatever, before bed.

Since meds seemed a no go for the night, I opted to turn in but was too anxious to get to sleep. I remembered that half a 25 mg of benadryl seemed to do the trick for relaxation and a nudge to sleepy land. I took just that and felt the anxiety slip away but better, my meds kicked on! I knit for a spell and decided not to tempt fate and nodded off. I tried this again the next night with the same result! So, I wonder if there is something to this?

In Wikipedia (hardly the most authoritative source, but I needed easy to digest info) and other more reliable sites, I found that diphenhydramine is...

-an inhibitor of CYP2D6, the enzyme which controls how fast or slow we metabolize DXM, so does this mean it acts as a reuptake inhibitor with our NMDA receptors or what exactly?

- considered an anticholinergic, that it may play a role in controlling excitotoxicity and is like DXM, an NMDA antagonist.

- acts as a Sodium Channel blocker thus helping control excess Glutamate which is a factor in our particular type of neurotoxic cascade.

This is not much to go on and I'm not sure there is anything of substance that they might work in concert together to protect against any further excitotoxicity, but they do definitely seem to complement one another in treating my symptoms.

Any thoughts or further research we can add?

Thanks,

Laura

All I can add is a couple of things you may already be aware of:
NMDA is the abbreviation for a synthetic, non-natural compound, N-methyl-D-aspartate. That compound was found to be a strong antagonist of glutamate, the natural amino acid ligand which activates a certain type of Ca2+ channel, the NMDA receptor.

Are you finding the beneficial effects, meds kicking in AND induction of drowsiness, only when you take both DXM and benadryl?

Robert

Yes, I have both things happen; well, three things really. I'd say first and foremost taking both alleviates my anxiety over meds not working so there is a relaxation factor, the meds turn on and then I feel sleepy. The relaxation happens very quickly and the meds follow; the drowsiness kicks in maybe 30 minutes.

Well, I'm not sure it will help anyone as we are pretty idiosyncratic with our symptoms and reactions. I think mainly for me it helped the anxiety...this may in turn have helped meds switch on.

I wonder if maybe there was some sort of reuptake inhibitory effect going on somewhere, well, I'll look into it more- I'm really interested in our 'forgotten' transmitters. So much emphasis is placed on dopamine that I wonder that we don't miss things that may be helpful in a more indirect way.

Thanks for the added info!

Laura

Hi Laura-
I've been takng Benadryl for years as a maybe better than nothing antidote to the dreadful dystonia I've had for seven years. It's the only thing the docs have had to suggest really. I have had to take up to 5 of those 25 mgs things for it to work sometimes.

It does seem to promote calm sleep, but it can also depress my CNS to the point where the Sinemet can't quite get over the threshhold.

When I had severe dystonia in hospital after waking up from total hip replacement surgery - they neglected to address dopamine needs during the three-hour plus surgery - I had to talk the recovery room staff through duct-taping my arm to the bed so I wouldn't jack-knife off the table with my brand new hip, and then giving me a 12.5 mg Benadryl IV.

So yeah, it works for some things, but be careful about what you combine it with - certain MAO inhibitors could be a no-no.

Fiona,

Because you say that benadryl helps dystonia, it makes me suspect that you are lowering your acetylcholine with it. Ron once described acetylcholine and dopamine as one pulls and the other pushes. Doesn't that sound like dystonia? Acetycholine is responsible for much muscle movement. And i don't know if I'm in the right thread for this but you said in one of them that you don't think pwp are all headed for dementia and i certainly agree with you.

Dementia can result from lack of acetylcholine and happens with aging. But i wonder if too much acetylcholine is one of the problems in the first place. It's excitatory and slows the production of or even stops the production of dopamine.

now this is crazy, and probably not true. but i wonder if acetylcholine levels are related to one's intelligence quotient. IF it works the other way around???? probably just a wild thought but i'm on it in google.

http://www.longevity-and-antiaging-s...ylcholine.html

i will start a new thread so as not to get this one off topic
p

Paula,

I am going to reply quickly here because I am interested on the muscle tone angle right now. I too have also began to note that my stiffness actually gets worse at night right after dinner at night when I most want to veg out and knit or watch Larry David act like an ***. At first I thought it was a PD thing and being too sedentary at night, yet I've been known to sit on my rear in the day too and I don't get that same achiness. I almost feel like it was a toxic level of levodopa in my system, but I noted that the only thing that relaxes all the tension is a half a benadry, an anticholinergic, I began to wonder after a week if we don't experience fluctuating levels of all our neurotransmitters at various times in the day or it isn't some sort of signaling gone amok based on meds? Anyone else experience this?

I will be following the IQ trail...very interesting thought!

Laura