Has anyone taken Azilect with antidepressants? - Parkinson's Disease Message Board

james59 · 11-24-2008, 09:15 PM

My neurologist says the warnings of Azilect interacting with antidepressants is theoretical but he has never seen it. Anyway I've been on Azilect and Wellbutrin for most of 1 1/2+ years with no interaction. I went off of Wellbutrin for about 4 months over concern of the interaction warnings. Azilect (combined with Sinemet and Requip) seemed to have a moderate amount of an antidepressant effect, but not enough for me so I went back on the Wellbutrin recently. Has anyone had any drug interaction problems with Azilect?

glama9 · 11-25-2008, 05:59 AM

Thank you for your posting re Azilect. Have you found it to be beneficial and have you been able to cut down on Sinemet or Requip? I take Stalevo and Requip.

james59 · 11-25-2008, 09:55 PM

My main problem was a hand tremor and slowed down writing. First I went on Sinemet and over about 3 months built up to a dose of 3 50-200 Sinemet CR tablets. I felt stimulated and couldn't tell it helped much. Then my doctor added Requip. It took about 2 month to build up to a dose of 3 3mg tablets per day (recently I switched to 8 mg Requip XL). After 1 or 2 months on my maximum doses of Sinemet and Requip I had adjusted to the stimulation, but my tremor and writing hadn't improved much. I was then prescribed 1 mg Azilect. The pharmacy wouldn't fill the prescription at first because I was taking Wellbutrin from another doctor for which they had an interaction warning. So it was another month before I started taking Azilect. After about a year on these three meds my tremor and writing have improved quite a bit.
I don't think just one of the medicines caused the improvement. But there is evidence that Azilect slows down the progression of PD. And it may help more than that.
Another thing about 5 or 6 months ago I was reduced from 3 to 2 50-200 Sinemet CRs to try to help with a postural hypotension problem I have had on and off.