Ropinirole Advice
 

On another forum someone posted "I talked to the PD nurse who explained that we shake more when starting as the drug [ropinirole] helps with the stiffness and the stiffness masks our shaking. Seems logical!"


This seems logical to me too! Since my ropinirole started to kick in I have got much shakier. Before I relax that I am not actually deteriorating at a rapid rate of knots, is there any other evidence that this PD nurse is correct?

This exchange of information shows the power of a forum but I find it frustrating that, if this is true, my neuro/PD nurse didn't tell me. The leaflet that comes with requip says shaking is a side effect but nothing else. It gets my goat that I upped to 9mg per day because of increased shake thinking it was detrioration not knowing it may be of indicative of the drugs working at the level I was on!

The frustration of it all!!

Bryn

requip
 

Mr.Requip here - 24 mg / day for the last two years. Seem to tolerate it unsually well.

First sign of meds in morning is tremor in right arm and strong urge to stretch. Somewhere along the line,I, too, read that as the morning lockup fades the tremor acts up short term.

Unless you have an exceptional Doc, he isn't going to know much more than the drug sales force has told him.

The designer disease with drugs in one-size-fits-all
 

Hi Bryn,

Everyone is different. For me, the Sinemet is best for my stiffness and the Requip is better for my tremors. I take both, 15 mg of ropinirole and five tablets of carbidopa-levodopa, and Comtan and Cymbalta and Amantadine, and a multivitamin and extra folate, but I have always found that the dopamine agonist covers the tremors and the levodopa covers the stiffness. I am young-onset and stiffness-dominant.

My docs, who are among the best in the field, tell me that tremor is the most intractable symptom and the most difficult to treat, as everyone's is different. Does your nurse have PD? She's sure never felt my tremor! It will break through when I'm off sometimes, or during scary scenes in movies, like in the battle scene in Lord of the Rings when Minas Tirith was under siege, but that's, as they say, another story.

With good cheer (I vented earlier today),
Jaye :D

Thanks Reverett and Jaye. I shall persevere at my current dose and see what happens. My doc openly admits she knows very little about PD but she is learning!

Thanks
Bryn