flunarizine

[cazlooks]

my daughter (15) was diagnosed with a permanent migraine by GOSH. She is also hypothyroid. She was recommended flunarizine but I understand that it is a selective calcium entry blocker with calmodulin binding properties and histamine H1 blocking activity; could this lead to issues such as osteoporosis? Can anyone direct me to scholarly research to assist my requests from GP for regular dexa scans to ensure she's fine? Plus, are there any more short or long term effects I should be worrying about?

[cat3]

Hi Caz. Sorry to hear of your daughter's troublesome health issues. The NICE article below is comprehensive & detailed but nowhere can I see mention of Osteoporosis. The main problems associated with Flunarizine appear to be fatigue, depression, sinus and gynecological issues.

Migraine prophylaxis: flunarizine | Guidance and guidelines | NICE

nice.org.uk/advice/esuom33

Hope this helps. Best wishes, Cat............

[cazlooks in reply to cat3]

thank you

[steve55 in reply to cazlooks]

cazlooks look it up and if you look on the great ormond st hospital site, theres something there that you may find very interesting.

[cazlooks in reply to steve55]

thanks, it was recommended to us by Great Ormond Street, this sentence scares the life out of me: "There have also been reported cases of flunarizine causing symptoms as seen in Parkinsons’s Disease (extrapyramidal symptoms) which usually disappear when flunarizine is stopped." I don't know what they word 'usually' indicates. lol.

[cazlooks in reply to cat3]

it's a calcium channel blocker, therefore theoretically can lead to osteoporosis

[steve55]

cazlooks there was also another piece that said it was imported under a different name and your gp would explain everyting to you, so i suggest you start banging on your gps desk.

good luck

steve.

[cazlooks]

our GP insisted we go to a meeting to have the side effects explained - he then didn't do any research so knew nothing about flunarizine so knew substantially less than us about the side effects than we (me and dh) did, and hadn't even looked at my daughters medical reports so knew nothing about her. He even made a point of questioning her on her pain issues - even though she is a patient of Great Ormond Street, he didn't know her, and he didn't know what he was talking about, it was obvious he thought he knew best! He even suggested over the counter medications and tried to fob us off with Gabapentin. It was surreal - as if we had landed on planet UK 1960!