Alternative delivery methods?
 

Ok, maybe I'm missing something big that everyone else already knows about, but does anyone know why there are no such things as Sinemet inhalers or suppositories?

Hmmmm.....
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5750512.html

the only one that is proven to work.....
 

is the pump made by a scandinavian company. It appears to work well.

Charlie

Hey Charlie - what kinda pump? Stomach, nose.....
thanks, doll.
Fiona

hardly an..
 

alternative delivery method, but i'm using Parcopa. It banishes an off within 15 minutes on an empty stomach, and it's tasty!

dearest cs - hello!
 

dear cs,
you know that the tasty part is aspartame, a neurotoxin?
I called the company - asking them to remove it - but there is no way - I can take it - horrid headaches, - too...
hope, and peace to you,
:hug:

it is a pump buried in the stomach area and it feeds into the duodnum (sp) the small intestine near the stomach.

Charlie

SO it would be helpful to know from people if you have NEVER heard of Sinemet being administered rectally, through nasal passages, vaginally, intravenously or whatever. If people have never heard of this phenomenon, then it makes me wonder how much those possibilities have even been considered. Unless there's some big obvious reason why not that I haven't thought of but everybody else knows...

I ask this because an ER doctor recently suggested to me that a Benadryl suppository would act much faster in an instance of dystonia. It made me think about all the other possibilities...

levadopa patch
 

Hi all,

We have been watching for more news of this since we first read of it, here's the latest info. we have...this is NOT the Neupro patch that was recently recalled but, rather, an actual patch that delivers levadopa....

Israel’s NeuroDerm raises $2.5M for patch-based Parkinson’s drug
David P. Hamilton | July 24th, 2007 |
Israel’s NeuroDerm (the page is currently a placeholder), a biotech developing drug patches for neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, raised $2.5 million in a first round of funding. The investment was provided by private individuals, including Robert Taub, founder and CEO of Omrix Pharmaceuticals.

NeuroDerm, based in Ofakim, Israel, is at work on a skin patch that will allow continuous delivery of levadopa, a drug now used to treat Parkinson’s. Continuous delivery of the drug may help many patients avoid motor complications, the company says.

There is a clinical trial coming to the U.S. by Solvay that uses an intestinal pump for continuous l-dopa infusion. It's been used in Europe for quite a while. There have been difficulties working it out with the FDA. It will be a Phase III trial and the treatment is called Duodopa. FDA is insisting on a sham surgery trial.

http://www.solvaypharmaceuticals.com...641-2-0,00.htm

I have heard "things" about inhalants, but not sure it's l-dopa and can't share it because i don't know any more than that. Competition is very stiff, and the researcher was not at liberty to discuss. I think it's pretty safe to say they are researching those possibilities. Researcher said he may have something to talk about later this year.

paula

dear fiona -
 

poisons administered into the bowel could kill you very quickly, so I believe
you should not go that way at all -the gut is where we get our nutrtion from,when our food is broken down - if anything sub-lingual may be better?


link -
http://www.indiana.edu/~engs/rbook/drug.html
Route of Administration

A very important factor influencing the reaction of drugs in the body is the method by which it is administered.

Oral. Perhaps the most common way of taking drugs is orally (by mouth). This is the most convenient method for most people to take drugs and permits digestion to modify drugs that might be too powerful or too fast acting if administered directly into the bloodstream. Once in the stomach, some drugs, such as alcohol, can go directly into the bloodstream without further digestion. However, most drugs are absorbed into the circulatory system along with glucose, amino acids, minerals, and vitamins, after being passed into the large or small intestine. Drugs that are soluble in lipids (fats), such as barbiturates, vitamins D and E, and THC, the active principle in marijuana, tend to remain longer in the body. Water-soluble drugs , such as vitamin C, alcohol, and antibiotics used for urinary tract infections, tends to be excreted rapidly by the kidneys. The major detoxification organ of the body is the liver, which removes chemicals and toxins from the blood and renders them harmless and easier to excrete. The elimination of most substances takes place in the urinary tract and the Annal :) canal. However, excretion of some drugs can also take place through the respiratory system and skin.

Inhalation. Some drugs, such as anesthetics, nicotine in cigarettes, solvents, marijuana, and drugs for treating lung disorders, are inhaled through the mouth. Cocaine and some forms of amphetamine are usually inhaled through the nose, where it is absorbed through the mucous membrane in the nostrils. Because the lungs have large beds of capillaries, inhaled chemicals are capable of crossing the membranes to enter the blood fairly rapidly. A problem with inhaling drugs such as tobacco, marijuana, and cocaine, is that they irritate the mucous membrane lining found in the respiratory tract.

Injection. Injection is a common way of administering drugs, particularly in a hospital or medical setting. Injection is also used on the street with opiates and sometimes with cocaine and heroin. Drugs taken by injection can be intravenously, intramuscularly, or subcutaneously administered. In intravenous injections, the drug can go directly into the circulatory system and act immediately. Drugs such as heparin (reduces clotting of blood), some antibiotics, glucose and salt solutions, and drugs given to cancer and heart attack patients and in emergency situations are often given intravenously. Intravenous injections can be dangerous because of impurities found in many street drugs, errors in dosage, bubbles in the syringe, and infection from puncturing the skin and vein. Intramuscular injections are given in the large muscles of the buttocks, upper leg, or arm and are used for drugs that need to be fairly rapidly absorbed into the circulatory system, such as antibiotics and narcotic-analgesics. Subcutaneous injections are given right beneath the skin and are used for drugs that are rendered inactive by the digestive system, such as heparin, and insulin and for drugs that need to be absorbed more slowly into the circulatory system.

Rectally or Vaginally. The rectum will absorb many drugs. Suppositories containing sleeping aids, such as chloral hydrate, tranquilizers, such as Thyroxin(R), and antinausea medication, such as Compazine(R), are commonly given to elderly or extremely sick people who are unable to swallow medications. Vaginal medication is usually used to cure local infections caused by various organisms. Cutaneously. Some drugs and substances can be absorbed directly through the skin. Various "sore ligament" preparations would be an example of these, along with cortisone in the treatment of poison ivy. The absorption, of course, is usually very slow.

PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF DRUGS

The psychological setting or frame of mind is important in the effect of many drugs, particularly with psychotropics. Psychological effects are also important for other medications and treatments and often result in cures or symptomatic relief when no drugs has actually been given.

Solvay's Duodopa is ...
 

the single most exciting thing for the treatment of advanced PD that my Neuro quotes, great efficacy results apparently.

Neil.

(The UK's Royal Society of Medicine were also high on gene therapy interestingly enough).

Not to be a downer, but I think that a friend of mine's Dad in Germany has that stomach pump - would that be possible? Anyway, from reports from them, it doesn't seem that great, and actually quite cumbersome and inconveniencing....

My doc is all about "let's keep you guys as good as we can until the gene therapy comes, and that will be restorative..." He's a sweetie, he cried when he told me about the GDNF being halted, and said "that was no placebo, I'm sure..." But when I first started taking the meds, they said oh, go ahead, there will be a cure within five years anyway, so you won't be harming yourself much... that was 16+ years ago.

Ultimately I feel my own answer is not going to be in chemical manipulation of the various minute substances in my body, but in the gradual restoral of its equilibrium and a new-found sense of health where I can feel my own ability to create dopamine and build on that. I still feel if I can have really good "on" times occasionally still, that means that there's something to work with up there. And I want to gain the confidence that I can be in charge of my own essential energy. I know my doctor would say, "but don't you realize you're sick, and what you've lost can't be restored without exterior means?" But no one gets to say that except me. I don't think they know nearly enough to be so sure about all their pronouncements about the brain, which are frequently getting changed all the time anyway. So I feel the dire prognosises are all a little presumptuous, at least the ones coming at me!!!

The reason I asked about alternate delivery systems was partially to see if there were other means available than the ones we ordinarily think of - for instance the pediatric liquid Amantadine, which I hear would allow me to take less and which has never been mentioned to me...so I suddenly thought, hey, what other kinds of obvious things have never even been considered, but that might make life along the road to recovery a little more bearable. My recent forays into Mucuna use have been so positive and successful, I am stunned that it has never been suggested. And instead I've been pushed to take Apomorphin, for which you also need another drug for anti-nausea?

Ok, rant, rant. Ol' cs, I'm glad you like Parcopa. I have never found it to work any better or faster than a regular Sinemet dissolved in water. Plus it degrades more easily...And that aspartame component - THE most complained about substance to the FDA - and one that I've heard those on the outside say must have caused MJFox's condition since he was poster boy for Diet Pepsi - a horrible and unfair conclusion by the way, but isn't it a little paradoxical that they put it in Parcopa whether you want it or not?

Tena, thanks for all your info. Still not sure what that means about PD drugs, and so far not sure any of this stuff has actually been researched...

I officially quit Parkinson's the other day. I don't want to play anymore. I'm taking my ball and going home. It might take me some years yet, but it's going to happen. The character of the former slave, Equiano, in that incredible film 'Amazing Grace,' when asked how he bore the unimaginable abuse he suffered, said, "Your life is like a thread. Either it breaks or it doesn't." I've realized that mine will not break, at least not for this thing.

But thanks everyone, for culling the information. Every day I find myself questioning more of the status quo about this disease, and trying to open my eyes wider and wider to see everything that I can, and you all have helped with that process tremendously.
God bless....

some more words on the pile
 

Anne Frobert is using the apomorphine pump. I don't recommend it. One problem is that you are dependent on another person to refill/service it on a regular basis. One Friday the visiting nurse forgot to refill the darned thing. It was a very long weekend.

Some of you may remember juanhch and his experiment snorting a crushed sinemet tablet. It increased its effectiveness. :D To put it mildly. I would think one could make a nasal spray of some sort.

There is also the possibility of using the solvent DMSO as a carrier through the skin. That is for the advanced Rat, however.

In addition to the above, here are some related experiments that need to be performed.

1- Precursors. There are a dozen or so vitamins, minerals, etc that are needed to make neurotransmitters. If even one is in short supply then things get out of whack. Maybe we don't get enough of one or the other or, more likely, maybe we don't absorb enough. I would like to know what effect a couple of weeks of very diligent attention to these key nutrients at doses as high as might be safe would do for us. The last time I checked Pubmed, no such study had ever been made. Is it just me, or is that incredibly idiotic?

2- A multi-rat, patient generated trial of the top half-dozen "high promise but little study" botanicals such as some of the Chinese mushrooms. If a fungus has held a name like "makes the old man dance" or "good to last another century" for thousands of years, then there is a reason for it.

3- Stress. I'd like to know what would happen if I just went out in the woods and sat for a week. No electronics. No interaction with anything. Bore my endocrine system into a coma. What would be the effect?

4- A mass testing of likely things that are not patentable. A thousand rats testing the most likely botanicals one by one.

-Rick

Nasal spray
 

A while ago, I became very interested in the nasal route, as a delivery route to the brain. There is a channel in the nose, which by-passes the Blood brain barrier, and leads directly into the brain. It is called something like the veremonasal channel.
It is the reason why many addicts take thier drugs by snorting them, they get an instant high. Why does a smoker get an instant hit from his nicotine? He doesn't have to wait an hour for it to go via the bloodstream. It goes immediaterly to the brain through the nasal channel.
A couple of pharma companies investigated a nasal spray of levodopa,among them, a UK company called Brittania. I corresponded with them, but they eventually stopped the research. I don't know of any work going on now on this route.
Ron