Posted by bleauberry on March 9, 2012, at 14:47:12
In reply to Had such high hopes for Amantadine, posted by alchemy on March 4, 2012, at 18:38:54
Amantadine has multiple mechanisms, dopamine agonist being just one of them. Another mechanism is antiviral. Sometimes used with the flu, HIV, or co-infections of other chronic conditions. If you have a stealth hidden occult virus giving you problems, then the introduction of amantadine definitely has the potential to sort of stir up a hornet's nest.
Ok so we don't know if the drug is making you feel worse or whether you feel worse because another hope is lost? They probably go hand in hand. The first caused the second.
In any case, if you are worse now than before you started, then yeah, it's not a good drug for you. Simple as that. Maybe you got worse as natural wave of your condition. If so, amantadine did nothing to arrest that. Maybe there was no wave, amantadine alone is to blame. Either way, doesn't matter, it aint doing you any favors.
If you are researching yourself in the dopamine direction and you've had a lot of poor experiences with serotonin directions, then that makes sense. I just wanted to put in my 2 cents that when most of us are thinking 'dopamine = pleasure = motivation", well, I don't think it is that simple, and in fact I believe norepinephrine plays a bigger role in that than dopamine. But it isn't one or the other....it's a concert of all of them. It just so happens I think that the NE and DA players are the major ones, so why all the focus on serotonin I have no clue.
Something else to keep in mind is that too much is just as bad as too little. Too much can make one feel much worse. While I seem to do best with a NE component, it's easy to overdo it....if a dose is too high I will definitely feel a lot worse than with no dose at all. Hey, some lyme doctors like to use pramipexole to help mood in patients...but...here's the key....the doses they use are 1/4 or less of the smallest dose you can buy.
The actual mechanism is more important than the neurotransmitter in question. My experience anyway. For example let's say I feel best on something that increase NE. Well, that does not mean I can take either wellbutrin, nortriptyline, ritalin, DLPA, or whatever, and get good results. No. It means something in the NE spectrum my body likes it a lot, but it has to also be the right mechanism to do it. In my case, that is either Amisulpride or Savella. Dr Stahl wrote that norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors increase dopamine....that's because in certain parts of the brain dopamine is taken up into NE pumps....block those pumps and dopamine increases right along with NE.
Anyway, if it were me, I would have already said goodbye to amantadine. What to do next though, yeah, that is a tough one, and by itself doesn't help one's mood. Hang in there! Be thinking of your next strategy, look ahead, try not to get bogged down in the here and now.
> Amantadine is for Parkinsons and increases dopamine. When I asked my dr if he would prescribe a Parkinson drug, he looked away as he thought about it & said that is something he would be willing to try. (I get the feeling that I am his most difficult patient to treat)
>
> These drugs don't take as long to kick in. I've been on 100mg for a week now. I didn't really cry much before, but now I am. And I don't know if it might be making me worse or if it is because I am feeling pretty hopeless.
poster:bleauberry
thread:1012391
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20120302/msgs/1012666.html