Tremors, insomnia and Pd

[LynnBabb]

My husband was diagnosed 2 years ago with PD. He is on azilect. His neuro gave him ropinirole and he could barely stay awake during the day. He has been weened off it and now has terrible insomnia. It also seems his tremors have increased since going off the med. Is there any meds for tremors and what works for others dealing with insomnia? Any advice would be much appreciated.

[honeycombe3]

Hi there,

I am a 66yrs old woman dxd for 10yrs. At one time tremors were badly affecting me & my consultant suggested I might try an old fashioned drug called Orphenadrine (Disipal). For me it worked really well for 3 yrs controlling balance & tremors but my cognitive state began to deteriorate like the early stages of dementia, so I had to come off it gently. Ropinirole (Requip) has been the mainstay of my meds regime

since a time when I tried alternative treatments. It would be helpful to know your husband's age & how much Ropinirole he was given at the start. Our bodies change over time often altering the way we react to different drugs. For instance I was given Sinemet as my first med & I reacted really badly: people thought I was dying!!! 18 months ago Sinemet was reintoduced & now it is the right treatment. One of the buggeration factors of PD is that there are no absolutes: what works for one person might not for another & even the same treatments can have different effects at different times.

[froggatt55]

Hi LynBabb - I was on ropinirole which made me sick (I also take Azilect) and the best thing I did was switch to the slow release Requip XL. It has all the benefits (?) of Ropinirole. I cannot sleep without it (even then I don't always - like now, it is 06.35) but it stops me getting RLS

Ask your Specialist or Parkinson's nurse if in UK about trying it

Mind you I am not a medical man - only a veteran of 11 years of Parkinson's!

Good luck

[Kadie57]

MY suggestion is to tell your Nuero the problems if they don't help get a second look see, ask if Vitamin B complex would help and stop eating red meat. To much iron in meat and watch the proteins being consumed at med time it does stop medicine from working.

[Susie01]

I started on Azilect initially with great results, then needed an additional medication to control the tremors. We tried lots on different meds over the years, last year finally added Sinemet and I have done much better after an initial rocky road with it (nausea). Sleep is an issue for so many people with PD...The best thing I did was seeing a sleep specialist who was also a neurologist and was knowledgeable about PD.

[JohnPepper]

Hi LynnBabb. I too have suffered with insomnia since 1974. I have accepted that as a fact in my life and have learned to live around it. In 1974, probably due to a heavy work load, I found that I could only sleep for three hours before I awoke. I could not get back to sleep again and it was driving me crazy. Someone suggested that i turn the light on and read for a while, which I did. The I found that I could go back to sleep again, even though it was only for another couple of hours. This caused my late wife problems, which I solved by installing a light above my head, on the wall behind me, a soft light, pointing away from my wife, who slept next to me. I also installed a similar light above her head, pointing away from me. Neither of us could see the other's light, so we could only see reflected light and not direct light. With that arrangement She was able to sleep and I was able to read and turn the light off, when I was ready to sleep. I hope this helps you.

John