Requip - Anything positive to say?

[JimmyLegsJen]

Good luck to you too! Anyone ever been on that gabapentin?

[musiclover]

Jan, you asked why I was going off Klonopin (Clonozepam) and trying Requip if Clonozepam was working. Actually, it wasn't working - and in re-reading my original post I see I didn't explain that. I was on 1 mg for a long time but over the past 6 months have increasingly had to take another .5 or 1mg and didn't like the direction I was going. Since Clonozepam doesn't address the RLS problem and is essentially an anti-anxiety medication, I wanted to get off of it.

I'm slowly, very slowly, weaning off Clonozepam - 1 mg with 1 mg Requip for 1 month, now .75 mg with 1 mg Requip for two months then we'll go from there. My Neurologist wants to try to wean me off it over about a 6 month period.

Charlene - I also had trouble sleeping with just Requip which is why my Neurologist is having me combine the two drugs and slowing come off the one while my body adjusts.

So far, so good. Keeping my fingers crossed.

[ctravel12]

Hi Musiclover. I am off Requip completely now. I do take clonazepam .5mg plus a sleeping pill (Rozerem). My dr prescribed this sleeping pill as it has very little side effects and it is not habit forming. So far I am doing good. I do not have any rls during the daytime at all. Yesterday my DH and I went away for the day. The ride was about about 1-1/2 hrs each way and my legs did not bother me at all. When I took Requip in the beginning it was fine and then all of a sudden I had rls anytime of the day. My DH and Iwent on a trip this past July to Colorado and the ride was a nightmare there and back. We had to cancel a trip the next month because of the constant rls. I feel now that I can take a trip;so we will see. My sleeping habit is somewhat better and hope that in time it improves. I hope that all works well for you and keep us posted on how you are doing.

[rls]

I have RLS every night. It used to start around 8:00 p.m. Now I have it about 3-4 times a week early in the morning to the point where I am up at 3:00 - for the rest of the day. I am also finding that I get bouts of it late in the afternoon. I am taking Requip and have for well over a year. It helps to a point, but I have found the if I take 1/2 of a l mg tablet around 3:00 p.m. it gets me through until 7:00 p.m. and another Requip which takes me to 10:00 or 12:00 p.m. I can usually doze off again until about 3:00, but would love to find something else I can take in addition to the Requip, so I could get more than 3-4 hours of sleep a night. In reading all of the comments, I must be the only one who gets such a bad headache from taking more than 1 mg of Requip at a time, that I feel like my eyes are going to fall out. I have heard of Mirapex. If I could get a perscription of that from my very uninformed doctor, and take it in addition to the Requip, would that help me make it through the night? I walk a mile in the morning and that helps. I work on jigsaw puzzles and crossword puzzles at all times during the day, and often am dusting, and rearranging furniture at 3:00 in the morning. Any suggestions? Also, is there anything I can take while riding in a car/plane that will settle me down in 20 minutes? Requip takes about 1 - 1 1/2 hours to kick in. I hate to mix meds, but I am willing to try almost anything. Tired

[ViewsAskew]

Hi Tired,

Boy, I do know about that!

I'm thinking that you might have augmentation - when the drug causes teh RLS to get worse. REquip is a DA - dopamine agonist - and this class of drugs causes this phenomenon for at least 30% of the people who take them. There is some good info about augmentation in the "sticky" post on this section. - just look for the first post in the list.

Taking Mirapex is one option and most docs would have you try it first. After you read about augmentation, let us know if you have more questions.

Sorry you're going through this.

[tlalwell]

First of all, hi everyone, I'm new to the online community. I'm 30 and I can remember suffering from RLS for AT LEAST 15 years. I have been told by many doctors that I suffer from the worst case that they have ever encountered and to get it as severely as I have it at my age is unheard of. I'm sure there are many people in the same situation as I but sometimes I feel like I'm in this all alone.

My RLS started out very sporadically- - once a month and then a couple times a month and then once a week and then several times a week to every night to today when I suffer from it day and night. I started out on Mirapex .125mg and my body quickly grew immune to it. Then my dosage was upped to .25mg and again my body caught on way too soon and in a short period of time my dosage was upped to .50mg. But fromt he first day I took it I thought it was a miracle drug because for the first time in my life I was treating this horrible inconvenience in my life. The only problem with the Mirapex was the side effects. I fainted several times on it, once even hitting my head and bricks in the middle of the night. Also when I took my pill at night my symptoms got MUCH worse before they got better. Another annoying thing about the Mirapex was that if I woke up I could not go back to sleep. I woke up well rested whether I got 2 hours of sleep or 12 hours of sleep. Not that I ever get 12 hours of sleep anymore. Those days, sadly, are long gone.

So my doctor put me on Requip about 4 months ago - - first 1mg and that had almost no effect on me so I tried 2mg and it works much better. I don't think it's strong enough for me but it's a HUGE improvement over the mirapex. I think I'll be moving on to the 3mg soon. I have noticed some nights it takes longer to work than others and even my legs getting a tab bit worse than before I took the medicine but only for a short while. Again, like the mirapex, if I wake up during the night I can't go back to sleep.

Back in the olden days one of my favorite hobbies was napping. I'm unable to nap anymore. I really miss it.

I've been on medication for 2 1/2 years now and there have been a couple days here an there I had to go without because I don't have health insurance and even though I haven't found the perfect solution it beats the alternative, which is no treatment at all.