I’m watching the Romanian film The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, and I’ve found it to be rather poorly subtitled. There is some seriously broken English, and several words don’t seem to be translated at all. Among them are two medicines that Mr. Lazarescu asks of his neighbors, “Distonocalm,” and “Diclofenac.”
Google is no help (all I get is Romanian sites; obviously I don’t speak the language), and Babelfish doesn’t translate from Romanian.
Diclofenac is the generic name for Voltaren, and I’m looking forward to finding out what Distonocalm is.
Whoops. Distonocalm was the only one that I actually searched for. Now that I’ve Googled Dicolofenac, I see that it’s the same generic name in English as it is in Romanian. I assumed both were Romanian names, so I didn’t search for the second.
The neighbor in the movie had Diclofenac, but not Disotonocalm, and said that she didn’t buy drugs that were that strong. One Romanian Google result mentioned the drug in the same paragraph as diazepam, so I’m thinking that it could be a benzodiazepine.
I apologize for Googling up this answer and not knowing what I’m talking about, but I thought this was interesting.
Apparently, Distonocalm is a brand name for a mixture of drugs that isn’t commonly sold in English-speaking countries, so there’s no English equivalent.
According to this page, Distonocalm consists of atropine, propanolol, amobarbital and ergotamine.
Atropine is a parasympathetic antagonist, propanolol is a sympathetic antagonist (usually used as a blood-pressure medicine), amobarbital is a barbiturate and ergotamine is a vasoconstrictor used for treating migraines.
What does that combination do? My Romanian is a little rusty (I studied Spanish in high school), but I think it’s for calming down your digestive tract. It’s not a benzodiazepine, but amobarbital works on the same GABA-gated chloride channels that benzodiazepines do, so Distonocalm would probably have some kind of tranquilizing effect.
It appears to me to be more like someone’s shotgun approach to treating migraines. I’ve seen all 4 classes of meds used to treat migraines before.
Tho GI problems would be my second guess. Except for the ergotamine and propranolol.
At any rate, it seems like a stupid combination to me. Atropine to raise the heart rate, propranolol to lower it? Ergotamine to act as a stimulant, and amobarbital as a sedative? If it’s in the right doses, all these meds might cancel each other out! 
Indicatii: Distonii neuro-vegetative cu manifestari digestive (dureri abdominale, difuze sau localizate, senzatie de balonare sau greutate epigastrica, arsuri epigastrice, greturi, varsaturi, tulburari ale tranzitului intestinal), cu manifestari cardiovasculare (tahicardie, extrasistole, palpitatii, puls labil, crize de vasoconstrictie sau vasodilatatie cu senzatie de valuri de caldura, transpiratie, ameteli, extremitati reci, parestezii etc.). Tulburari neurovegetative din nevroza astenica, climacteriu, hipertiroidism, hipertensiune arteriala in stadiu incipient.
But of course.
No, it’s definitely for digestive problems. Dr_Paprika’s quote is from the page I linked to, which gives the indications for the drug in Romanian. The quote starts out “Indications: Neuro-vegetative dystonia with digestive manifestations (abdominal pain…)” Like I said, my Romanian is weak, but I can understand that much. (“Neuro-vegetative” apparently refers to the autonomic nervous system in general.) After the list of digestive indications it has a list of cardiovascular indications, so apparently it’s for some combination of the two.
It may or may not be a smart combination for that purpose, but that’s what it’s intended for.
Um, that was my quote, not Doc Pap’s. I would hate to have him credited with my wrong answer.
It still seems like a stupid combination of drugs to me.
I knew romanian was derived from latin, but I didn’t realize how close it was!
Propanolol has for years been (mis?)used for a temporary appearance of calm in people who have bad nerves. It ablates the heart’s response to adrenalin. So your heart can’t race on it, even when you’re scared.
Classical musicians are notorious for using it for auditions, when any nerves can cause the fingers to stumble into mistakes. It makes you calm in panicky situations, so calm.
Psycho Chief (if anyone remembers him from the post chain about the poor guy with the Brut bottle up his ass) took propanolol to calm himself when he went to present his little research project in front of the Society of University Surgeons, a notorious group of sharks in the guise of academics. He said someone came up to him afterwards and said, “It would have been nice if you could have sounded as if you were interested at all in your own presentation.”
Propanolol. For people who don’t even want to sound interested.
Hi all, I know that I’m stumbling upon this thread many years after the question was asked, but I thought someone may need to know this information for medical reasons in the future. Distonocalm is a medication used to treat acute headaches and migraines. It is also a psychotropic drug, and caution should be taken to not mix it with alcohol, as it may cause hallucinations. The Romanian government has placed controls on this drug to prevent addicts from abusing it for this reason.
http://www.gov.ro/press-release__l2a39432.html
It is not a medication for treating GI issues, and should not be taken without a prescription.
I hope this helps answer this question.