dopamine agonists and low wbc counts

[moss]

I was taking mirapex for about 4 years but was not happy with the 'side effects' (or is that effects besides the ones desired?) so I went to a new neurologist and she pulled out of her bag of many tricks parlodel. Which did deal with the rls (yeah, I started sleeping, and stopped kicking), but it had a whole slew of other effects like hair loss, dizziness, chronic sleepiness, weight loss (you know, the same undesired effects that are there for most of the dopamine agonists).
Then, one day I went to my gp for my annual physical and he freaked because my wbc had dropped into the critical zone (also I had unexplained weight loss). He looked back into my records and saw that my wbc count had been slowly dropping for about 5 years. Immediately he had me going to his favorite cancer doctor, where I got poked and jabbed and they drained gallons of blood and gobs of bone marrow.

During this time the undesired effects of parlodel were really getting to me, dizziness, going bald, etc and one morning I stopped the parlodel (against the neurologists advice) cold. (Want to talk about withdrawal symptoms), and had her start prescribing oxycodone (which has always works well for my rls but which the doctors have been scared away from prescribing -- I think they are afraid, with good cause, that the DEA is going to go after their license to practice).

And guess what? Turns out the cancer doctor finds no sign of cancer and three weeks after I stopped the dopamine agonists my wbc count started rising back into the normal category and I started gaining weight (and stopped feeling dizzy, the hair loss stopped, no more uncontrollable fits of drowsiness, etc).

It turns out, after an extensive search of the literature that there are studies that show dopamine agonists have been shown to reduce wbc's. In other words, the dopamine agonists were slowly killing me (but at the same time relieving the rls symptoms).

Not a very good trade off, I'd say.

[ViewsAskew]

Moss, thank you so much for posting that! I am so glad that you followed your gut instinct and figured out what was wrong. Bully for you.

I'm sort of a researcher nut here, so if you have any links for me, I'd love to read about what is happening with this stuff.

Glad to have you here.

Ann

[becat]

That is great stuff.
I am not happy to hear that you suffered that much......but glad to hear that my thoughts were right about the Mirapex.
I did have hair loss to a great degree. Worse was the explosion in my body last summer. I must have been toxic, I bloated to the point that I looked like I had gained 25-30 pounds and hubby had to cut off my wedding ring. It took me 3 days to decide to let him and only after I noticed that the finger was blue. DUH! It took me the better part of two days to get the engagement ring off.
Medicine, need it and yet it scares me. Thankfully, I do have my bloodwork done at least twice a year. I'd love to go back and figure out the wbc now.
Thank you.

[Hos]

I was searching for "Parlodel" and came up with this post. Anyone else heard about any research linking DA's to low white blood cell counts?

[tazzer]

see, thats why i limit my sinimet. i am so glad you posted. now i don't feel like such a nut.

dee