Page 1 of 1

Take Horizant?

Posted: Sun Nov 05, 2017 9:23 pm
by suttmes69xx
I am relatively new to the site. I have PD and RLS. I take Sinemt for my PD. But when I take my evening dose it seems to aggravate my RLS. I am taking Klonopin for RLS, but it doesn't seem to help anymore. My doctor suggested I try Horizant, taking a pill at 5:00 with food. Does it really take 6 hours to work? What if I don't want to eat at 5:00? I would appreciate any information on the timing, effectiveness and side effects of this drug.

Re: Take Horizant?

Posted: Sun Nov 05, 2017 10:13 pm
by Rustsmith
I take gabapentin, which is the older form of Horizant. I take gabapentin to help me fall asleep. I did not find that either gabapentin or Horizant helped with my movement issues.

As for timing, I find that the gabapentin takes about 30 minutes to make me feel drowsy. This is a normal feeling of drowsiness, not one where you feel drugged. If I fight through that initial drowsiness, then I don't see much in the way of benefit at a later time.

Like you, I was initially told to take Horizant with my evening meal. When I did that, I was probably so busy cleaning up after dinner that I didn't notice the drowsiness. So, I moved the time for the Horizant back to the 30 minutes before bedtime when I had been taking gabapentin. When I did that, the Horizant worked the same as the gabapentin. My doctor at that time was one of the researchers for the clinical trials for Horizant. He was noticeably surprised that it didn't work any better, but agreed that if the two worked the same, then it didn't make any sense to pay so much more for Horizant.

I have been taking gabapentin now for probably five years. It helps control my migraine headaches better than anything that I was given for that, which is a beneficial side effect. The only other issue is that I sometimes find achieving climax during sex to be more difficult. When that happens, I simply cut the dose back a little for a few days.

Re: Take Horizant?

Posted: Tue Nov 07, 2017 6:26 am
by badnights
I took gabapentin for a while, and in high doses it helped my WED/RLS a bit. It tended to leave me with the urge to move but removed the nasty sensations that went along with it. Ultimately it didn't help me sleep because I still had to move. A few people on here take nothing but gabapentin for their RLS/WED, so if your symptoms are not crazy, it should work.

It's unfortunate that Sinemet has such a strong tendency to augment any existing RLS/WED, but it's probably better to deal with the WED/RLS than to move to a dopamine agonist - which is also likely to eventually cause augmentation of WED/RLS and also exposes you to the risk of developing impulse control disorder (I know someone whose marriage and family was destroyed by impulse control disorder from pramipexole - to suffer those ravages while suffering also from PD is a cruel fate.)

If Horizant doesn't control the WED/RLS, other anti-convulsants are unlikley to be any more effective, although you could try them; but probably you would have to move to an opioid to find effective relief. Check out the publications on the Foundation's site - https://www.rls.org/member-portal/publications - you might need a membership to get at some, like the one in the section For Healthcare Providers called the RLS Medical Bulletin, which is a really good one to give your doctor...