google "nicotine patch" dreams, it's a well documented side affect.

I recently asked you all to share your experiences with the NP. I only thought it fair that I tell you that I quit the patch. I started shaking after using 3.5mg patches for 5 days. I continued using the patch anyway. By the 10th day the shaking got so bad that I couldn't function. It was continuous . I hope all of you that try the patch have better success as we know we often have different experiences with medication and mine could be unique to me.

I also had significant shaking that I had never experienced before at about day 15 so have quit to reassess for now.

Hello

so here is my update about Nicotine patch therapy since more than 4 years :

sept 2013-june 2014 :
i was at 21 mg, then 28 mg then 32mg
and very important , from October 2013 until June 2014 , i started juicing very very heavily every day (about 8 glasses a day ) especially green juices , coffee enemas about 2/3 times a day( coffee enemas makes your liver producing A LOT of Glutathione, search for GERSON therapy) , trying to avoid gluten but not so good at it :
this was the most extraordinary year i had ! and i am sure Juicing and Nicotine were a big part in this , as after 2 months of juicing , i did not need my sine met (750 mg/day) once every 10 days ,and after 4 months of juicing , i needed sine met only every other day , so 3/4 days per week , i was unmedicated for 36 hours and feeling great, i could walk, do anything ,did not need meds at night ....i was really experimenting recovery !! (it was hard believing it, when for 9 years , you have been told and retold that PD is uncurable and degenerative )
so for about 5/6 months the days without meds were fab , but the days when Levadopa was mandatory , my dyskinesias were more and more stiff , and very painful....but i was moving better and better , my walking was excellent especially

End of June 2014 : Catastrophic !! i don't know what happened but everything went out of control ,my body could not handle the Sinemet anymore, for 2 weeks , i had extreme dystonias and dyskinesias, the meds would last for 2 hours , or 1 hour or 5 hours...i felt lost , depressed, was in terrible pain ...so i lost courage, discipline...and stopped Juicing , enemas...

Sept 2014: I was told to stop Nicotine for 1 month , and restart from scratch , 1,75mg / day ...and then slowly increase every 3 months

June 2015 : I am now back at 14mg/day of Nicotine, i am taking 600 mg of Sinemet CL ,i very rarely drink juices...when the Sinemet is working, it has never worked that good ever before, no shaking at all/excellent walk/ excellent strength in the hands...my dyskinesias/dystonias are still very painful, (but this is due to Sinemet ,not Nicotine ),i had a Dat Scan last week, and compared to the One i had in 2011 just before starting , some numbers shows a small loss of dopamine neurons on some part of the brain,and the 2 others numbers show a GAIN of dopamine cells in an other brain's part !!....
Also now , when i wake up , i am in excellent shape , i can do whatever i want and only need to take my meds around 11.30 /noon (but i think the 10mg of melatonine do play some parts in those Sleep benefits )
One month ago, i experienced a no-meds day again...
I don't regret at All doing the Nicotine, i wished i had started it earlier...
the Dystonias/Dyskis induced by the meds are the big problem since 1 year

Villiers

How hard was the withdrawal when you had to quit the nicotine, especially at the high dose you were taking?

the withdrawal was a bit scary ...i had a few experiments where i felt my legs will not support me anymore , that i could not walk anymore (never felt like this before )...
but i had been Nicotine patching since 4 years so there was still some of it in my system...
Nicoderm patch trials are done by the Michael J fox Organisation , they should give some of their conclusions next year, i believe

Hi Villiers,

From how I understand your post, to me it sounds like you had a sinemet honeymoon. I have read of people doing this, going off sinemet for a week or two completely, and then when they start taking it again, it is like they never did before and they start back at 2-3 sinemet/day, and they get the honeymoon most experience when first beginning that drug.

BUT because completely stopping sinemet can be fatal, you have to do it with a doctor's permission, usually in a hospital, and I don't know many docs that will go along with this.

Did your doctor mention anything about this?

So glad you are feeling better, hope it continues

Thanks to all, especially Villiers for sharing his experience with nicotine therapy. Curious as to whether others (e.g. MyPata, Badboy, girija, Dan Murphy et al) have continued using NP and what your experiences have been like. Greatly appreciate any insight and guidance.

The credibility of nicotine as a way of slowing the progression of PD is based in part on epidemiological studies. These have shown the there is a lower prevalence of PD amongst smokers, as opposed to non-smokers.

An old paper by Hong et. al. [1] suggests a possible causal mechanism for this result.

"nicotine and hydroquinone inhibit [alpha]-synuclein fibril formation in a concentration-dependent manner, with nicotine being more effective. The SEC-HPLC data show that nicotine and hydroquinone stabilize soluble oligomers."

The reason that this is important is that it is thought that the aggregation of alpha-synuclein plays a key role in the pathogenesis of PD.

A recent paper by Barreto et al. [2] describes a number of mechanisms in which nicotine may work. It concludes with this statement:

"Derivatives of nicotine such as cotinine have great potential to become effective agents to prevent and alleviate neurological symptoms developed in subjects with Parkinsonism. It is surprising the absence of funding for the clinical development of these compounds, as they could be therapeutic solutions which have been lying in front of our eyes for hundreds of years, waiting for development."

References

[1] Biochim Biophys Acta. 2009 Feb; 1794(2): 282–290.
"Smoking and Parkinson’s disease: Does nicotine affect alpha-synuclein fibrillation?"
Dong-Pyo Hong, Anthony L. Fink, and Vladimir N. Uversky
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2647853/

[2] Front. Aging Neurosci., 09 January 2015 |
"Beneficial effects of nicotine, cotinine and its metabolites as potential agents for Parkinson’s disease"
George E. Barreto, Alexander Iarkov2,3 and Valentina Echeverria Moran
http://journal.frontiersin.org/artic...014.00340/full

John

Bingo John, good work!