Yes, but it’s still in the animal-testing phase.
I read it as a humorous way to ask what RLS stood for. So, no whoosh. Sorry.
I do validate parking, however.
Does it come with nifty side-effects? If so, I’ll volunteer for Phase I trials…!
Pleasing taste. Some monsterism.
HAL: "Look VCO3/Dave, I can see you’re really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over. " 
Fucking Restless Leg Syndrome. The first time I saw that commercial I was 100% convinced it was going to be a commercial within a commercial, Energizer bunny style. Probably for some car company for clients who can’t keep their foot off the gas pedal. When it ended, my jaw dropped open.
Wow, just wow. A prescription drug for people who have absolutely no reason to take them. This is getting fuckin scary.
Hey drug companies, I have a constant urge to twirl an abnormally-long chest hair. What can you do for me?
I think it’s pretty poorly named. I knew exactly what it was and I couldn’t understand what the joke was until I read wikipedia. The urge to move your leg isn’t the condition, it’s the standard reaction to the condition. It would be like calling chicken pox the Uncontrollable Scratching Syndrome, or calling food poisoning Vomiting Syndrome.
If I had it with any degree of regularity (e.g. daily) I’d want the drugs. It’s kind of like your leg is asleep, but instead of being numb, it hurts. It bugs the hell out of you.
I saw the same ad and told my wife about the side-effects. She thought I was joking.
Didn’t believe it till she saw it herself.
A drug that makes you want to gamble. Something wrong there, I’d say.
I’ve seen patients pulling wheeled suitcases now. Confused the hell out of me the first time one came up to me looking for Dr. So-and-So - I tried to send her to his “business” office.
Listen, VCO3, side effects like those off-the-wall things are typically really fucking rare. If most people who took the drug proceeded to immediately empty their bank accounts, they wouldn’t have approved it. I work in medical research but in the clinic side of things. (We don’t make extra money when drugs are approved, just FYI, so it doesn’t matter to us whether the results come out for or against the drug. We’re more concerned with how our patients are doing.) I’ve seen drugs require further research when it actually works and the side effects are better than the disease, but the problem was that the two doses studied were equally effective and the pharma company was told to go back and figure out what minimum dose was effective. I’ve seen terrible eye problems where a treating drug caused side effects requiring further treatment in most patients, but the original problem was so horrible that the serious majority of test subjects said “We don’t care, the new problems are treatable, this is better than any other treatment from before or not being treated.” The doctors at the test sites and at the FDA agreed.
Drug companies aren’t perfect by a long shot, and neither is the FDA. But fuck, man, in the great majority of cases, research finds out side effects and they warn you. If you get oddball side effects that only crop up in less than 1% of the drug-taking population, sometimes they aren’t seen until after the drug is released. If drug companies had to test every one of their drugs on hundreds of thousands or millions of patients before they ever hit the market, many would never be approved. Some would never find enough (willing) test subjects, others would prove far too expensive to keep researching. And I bet a lot of money that people would scream about how expensive their drugs had become and how drug companies were ripping them off.
I did a quick check - the Chicago magazine article cited previously (as well as a few other sources) mentioned only 100 known cases (at the time) of patients who became compulsive gamblers after taking dopamine agonists, out of the thousands and thousands on that class of drugs. They started out as drugs for Parkinson’s disease, which we don’t have a lot of options for. We didn’t have options for RLS, either, until it was discovered they work on that unsettling problem. It’s a tragedy when previously unknown harmful side effects crop up, but Christ on a pogostick, with stuff this rare I really suspect that either no one in the test group experienced it, or no one reported it.
:rolleyes: :wally: (damn, I miss that smiley)
RLS can be pretty fucking devastating if you’ve got a bad case of it. Like, you go nearly mad because you’re desperate for sleep but your BODY WON’T LET YOU SLEEP. And when you do “sleep” you wake up feeling every bit as tired as you did 8 hours before. And you have no energy for anything beyond the basic motions of getting through life and sometimes not even then. And you get through life on a volatile combination of caffeine and sheer stubbornness. And if anything whatsoever (like a sick kid) disrupts the delicate balance of “sleep” that gets you through a semblance of life, you’re figuratively (and sometimes literally) walking into walls.
I know, I know, DNFTT. :smack:
Re the OP, and a more factual comment: You’re talking about Mirapex, I think, as that’s the one that has gotten more notice re the compulsions. The sleep attacks are (I’ve heard) more common in the doses used to treat Parkinson’s; if you’ve got Parkinson’s, this is definitely something that warrants evaluating the risk vs. benefit of the drug. The compulsion (gambling/sex) is rare enough that I can believe it’s one of those effects that simply doesn’t show up in clinical trials, or rarely enough that the connection isn’t made. Sucks, but they can’t discover everything in trials. Not sure what changes could be made in the evaluation phase to detect things like that; more scientific folks than I may well have some thoughts and I’d love to hear them.
As an aside, it should be specified that the FDA never approved thalidomide at that time (many years later it got a cautious OK for limited applications, with strict warnings against use in pregnant women).
I mention this because it is an article of faith in some alt med circles (where the FDA is akin to the Antichrist) that the FDA was responsible for thalidomide-associated birth defects. In reality, an FDA researcher (Dr. Frances Kelsey) withheld approval of the drug (while under significant industry pressure) until it was clear that a disaster was occurring in Europe (where thalidomide had become a commonly prescribed sedative).
Definitely a band name!
Alert the media! Here we have someone who can easily see through all of the hype brought on by Teh Evul Drug Cumpinies and with no medical training whatsoever can dismiss an entire previously understood disease as a mere tool for drug companies profit!
Johnny Hildo, when I grow up*, I want to be as smart as you!
*If, by “grow up,” I mean “get lobotomized.”
I was actually coming in here to say the same side-effect was found in a Parkinson’s drug, but when I looked it up in wikipedia I found out it was the same thing. Weird. But, like you said, if you have Parkinson’s, compulsive gambling and falling asleep at the wheel is something you’re willing to risk if the drug helps you at all.
Oh, and in the interest of full disclosure, I am in possession of a lot of Mirapex schwag from going to the Parkinson’s Walk in NYC, including a paper bag that my cat loves and some sort of cheap, plastic tool that no one knows what it’s supposed to do.
I wish we could have a real thread on this drug and RLS. I mean, it does exist, even I suffer from it occasionally. I won’t take a drug, only because it’s not frequent enough. But I am fascinated as to how a drug can make you gamble excessively. I have very little interest in gambling. I do like Vegas, I like the pretty colors and the machines that do something, but I have no real interest in throwing money into them. If I take it will I suddenly turn into my aunts and go gambling every weekend?
You know, I’ve heard this expression for years - what, exactly, is validating parking??? I’m serious. I have no idea. Can someone please explain it to me?
Oh yeah - to address the actual topic of the thread, VC03, calm the fuck down before you hurt yourself. Is there anything you DON’T get outraged about? It must be hard to be you.
You get the institution where you’re parking to stamp/sign off on your parking stub so you don’t have to pay when leaving.
Though I’ve sometimes thought it would be nice to have validated parking where someone is delegated to congratulate you after an especially nice parallel parking maneuver.
“Nice job!”.
You could possibly say that for Viagra and the like, or Minoxadil, but for RLS? Dude… Have you ever gone four or five days on maybe an hour’s sleep per night?
Try it, then come back and make your appologies.
“Here’s your prescription for RLS, a hooker, and a ticket to Vegas. Have a good time, Mr. Johnson!”
And this differs from garden variety insomnia how?
Let me guess. You’re one of those dipshits who considers alcoholism a disease, too.