Pramipexole for depression: I saw an... - Restless Legs Syn...

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Pramipexole for depression

ChrisColumbus profile image
8 Replies

I saw an interesting poster on the bus today: Oxford University psychology dept advertising for adults with treatment resistant depression to trial adding pramipexole to their regime to see whether this works better than a placebo...

(They did rule out applicants with a history of impulse control disorders)

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ChrisColumbus profile image
ChrisColumbus
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8 Replies
Joolsg profile image
Joolsg

OMG. Not sure what to think. It may be given to people who also have mild RLS & make it much worse. And it may well cause ICD in those who have never had it before.Let's just hope they have rigorous monitoring for at least 2 years.

ChrisColumbus profile image
ChrisColumbus in reply toJoolsg

A little more info here, including the lines "The trial will look at effectiveness in the short-term (after 12 weeks treatment) and in the longer-term (48 weeks). The trial will also assess the side effects of pramipexole and explore patients’ experience of taking it":

paxd.web.ox.ac.uk/

Eryl profile image
Eryl

I wonder what they mean by "treatment resistant"? Do they mean 'medication resistant'? because it's possible that you could treat it with dietary changes as Dr Georgia Ede has suggested and Dr Chris Palmer describes in his book 'Brain Energy'

ChrisColumbus profile image
ChrisColumbus in reply toEryl

Yes, they mean medication resistant, (having tried at least two antidepressants)

Sylviet profile image
Sylviet

That’s the last thing I would try for depression. Wonder why they are even considering this knowing the pitfalls of Pramipexole.

ChrisColumbus profile image
ChrisColumbus in reply toSylviet

They do say that they rule out applicants with a history of impulse control disorders: ICDs are warned about in the British National Formulary in connection with the treatment of Parkinsons, and this will be the only major potential downside that they are aware of.

Augmentation seems only to be recognised in RLS, and since most of the UK medical establishment remains profoundly ignorant of RLS this is not on their radar.

tagaxel profile image
tagaxel

Given that everyone knows that pramipexole is a dangerous neurotoxin it is somewhat surprising that anyone would actually be testing it for some other uses unless big Pharma is behind the whole thing.

SueJohnson profile image
SueJohnson in reply totagaxel

The problem is that everyone doesn't know it.

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