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Lisuride


Ricardo
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I was very surprised to find out that there already is a non-halucinogenic drug made from LSD, it's called Lisuride and it's prescribed for parkinson's disease.  They have even done a study on it for clusters, but all the abstract says is "The results obtained with lisuride were quite satisfactory as compared to results with other drugs, and there were no side-effects in this small group of patients." and "Comparatively to migraine, which requires low dosages of lisuride, cluster headache seems to require a higher dosage of the drug for better results."

Pretty vague, but here's the abstract...anybody have a membership with "Headache" so we can see the full article?

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1526-4610.1983.hed2303117.x/abstract

Supposedly it is not available in the US, but is in some of the UK and China.

Anybody ever hear of this stuff?

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From what happened to Google, I doubt it. They allowed the set up and advertising for Canadian and Mexican 'pharmacies'. Real or not, it can't be done or at least not advertised.

Feds set up a sting and Google recently paid out a cool 500 million for knowing and allowing it.

I don't think our docs can do it either. Oh well. :(

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From Canada? Yeah, if you go to Canada Pharmacy. http://www.canadapharmacy.com/

They require a prescription.

I know about this cause my allergist used to have to send us there to get my Ketotifen. :D

Now a compounding pharmacy here has the ability to give it to patients here in Texas so I don't have to worry about it. CP served me well for like...3 years at least though. Maybe more. Saved my life for sure.

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Wow I'm surprised to be hearing of lisuride for the first time here myself.

I know that when I see a message board topic title that simply has the name of a drug I haven't heard of, my eyes can glaze over and I tend to skip to more "interesting" topics, hence my delay at arriving here.

Maybe this topic could attract more attention if it was named something more like "Lisuride. Prescription drug made from LSD. Works for CH?"

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Not available under that name on link provided by Pixie-Elf, I figured i would take a look since my Dr. is very cool about providing me with what I need. He is all for alternatives for clusters and follows my progress with busting (not a neuro, he is my GP). Any chance it is listed by another name in Canada?

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It appears to be closely related to methysergide (Sansert) another non-haalucingenic LSD derivative, and can cause the similar nasty side effect of fibrosis.  Best avoided. 

I'm concerned that there may be potential for BOL to share this side effect.

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It appears to be closely related to methysergide (Sansert) another non-haalucingenic LSD derivative, and can cause the similar nasty side effect of fibrosis.  Best avoided. 

I'm concerned that there may be potential for BOL to share this side effect.

I was thinking this too...But it looks like the real problem with methysergide comes from the boosting of serotonin levels in the blood over the long term, because you are taking it every day.  From what I know of Bol-148, I'm pretty sure you don't take it everyday, you just take huge doses of it every once in a while.  In this way, I doubt it's doing anything different with blood serotonin levels than LSD or psilocybin.

As far as Lisuride, the wikipedia page says that it is also called Dopergen, Proclacam, and Revanil and I have found it available in Canada, as Dopergen.  The one thing that is throwing me off is that according to the Canadian pharmacy page I was looking at (http://static.canadadrugs.com/dopergin/index.html) it says "It is given to patients with dopamine deficiency disease or Parkinson’s disease."  And from what I've heard about cluster headaches and dopamine, it's usually talking about cluster heads having TOO much dopamine....

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16643552

Then again, the one very vague abstract that we have says it was at least SOMEWHAT effective for clusters....

Everything I have read about Lisuride (for migraines or parkinsons disease) imply's that you would take it everyday, and then you're right Flash, you probably would have to start worrying about fibrosis...I have to admit though, what I'm really wondering about with this drug is if you would have better results giving really really huge doses of it together WITH the BOL-148.....

but maybe I just like experimentation too much  :)

-Ricardo

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  • 2 weeks later...

So I got my hands on the full article...The whole thing looks promising,  very promising.  Now we have to convince some researcher to pick it up and start more studies!  Unless any adventurous Docs out there in Canada want to try this out...

The Conclusions stated:

"(1) it has beneficial effects both on episodic and chronic cases; (2) in the patients in whom we used 0.200-0.400 mg of the drug, the dosage was rapidly increased in 2-4 days, with no side-effects, which may

suggest that cluster headache patients have a high treshold for nausea and hypotension; (3) for cluster headache, lisuride probably has to be administered in dosages higher than the ones we used; (4) in the three cases with associated migraine there was an amelioration instead of a worsening of migraine as may happen with lithium; (5) lisuride may interrupt a cluster; (6) there was a remarkable alleviation in the intensity and frequency of attacks in our cases even with 0.100 mg of lisuride; (7) lisuride may open the possibility of using a "safe" drug as a preventive treatment for well-timed episodic cluster headache; (8) the alleviation of attacks obtained with lisuride was very quick, comparable to prednisone; (9) the side-effects of lisuride, according to the literature, are negligible, and in the cases we studied they were non-existent."

I still don't know the answer to the question--If a drug is available in Canada, but not the US, Can a US doctor prescribe it and get it from a Canadian pharmacy?  Maybe I should call a pharmacy up North and ask...   

-Ricardo

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One thing to note about this, Ricardo, is that while the article was first published online in 2005, it was originally published, in the same journal (Headache), in 1983.  I'm gonna suspect that Flash is right, and that the fibrosis risk was considered too great. (Also, lisuride did poorly against CH in one trial, in 1989, which probably also discouraged further investigation.) On the other hand, here's one positive take on methysergide--for people who are episodic--from a 2011 headache handbook (no mention of lisuride in the book at all, as far as I can tell). I can't copy the passage, so here's the link, which I hope will work (It's from Google books, which is a great research resource.)  http://books.google.com/books?id=kBgBiLdLSTMC&pg=PA348&dq=methysergide&hl=en&sa=X&ei=i3s4T5K6HoXw0gGf0-D0Bw&ved=0CFkQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=methysergide&f=false

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Methergyside /Sansert - here's my personal take on it after having been prescribed it around 22 years ago:

It is one seriously toxic feeling and completely ineffective drug. Wouldn't touch it again with a 10 foot trigeminal.

I think it is Brew on the other hand who found it to be effective for awhile....?

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I agree, everything about Sansert sounds horrible, but we need to remember this is a completely different drug.  LSD and Bol-148 are very similar chemically too.

The only thing the study I have in front of me says about the fibrosis risk is

   "We are always acutely aware that drugs that interfere with the serotonergic mechanisms may be producers of fibrotic complications; so far, even though high dosages of Lisuride have been employed by several authors, no untoward side effects have been reported, which could lead us to think that Lisuride is a "safe" drug."

I also find it hard to believe that this drug would be causing the same type or amount of fibrosis risk if they are giving this as a daily drug to Parkinsons patients in Canada--they wouldn't last too long.

According to this Pub Med article it sounds like the drugs that cause the fibrosis risk all stimulate the 5HT-2B receptor, whereas Lisuride does the exact opposite.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16614540

As far as side effects....Who knows?  We'd probably need to find some parkinson patients for an accurate answer.  All the Lisuride study I have says is

    "The patients were aware they might have side effects such as nausea, hypotension, muscle pains, drowsiness, and cold extremities with Lisuride.  No side effects were reported."   (which I find hard to believe :) )

-Ricardo

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I still don't know the answer to the question--If a drug is available in Canada, but not the US, Can a US doctor prescribe it and get it from a Canadian pharmacy?  Maybe I should call a pharmacy up North and ask...   

-Ricardo

Yes, you can. It's only illegal if you try to get narcotics or I'm guessing something illegal here...

My allegist/immunologist would write me the prescription for my Ketotifen. It's not FDA approved in the US, for a stupid reason, but it's a FANTASTIC antihistamine.

Anyways, we'd fax the prescription in to them, and mail the hard copy...They'd have one of their doctors look at it, re-write it, and send it.

We did this for a LONG time, until they got a compounding pharmacy here in Texas who could make it.

Ricardo, check it out. Seriously.

From what wiki said, the reason Dopergin/Lisuride, is not used in the US not because of side effects, but because there were other drugs that worked better for Parkinsons.

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I still don't know the answer to the question--If a drug is available in Canada, but not the US, Can a US doctor prescribe it and get it from a Canadian pharmacy?  Maybe I should call a pharmacy up North and ask...   

-Ricardo

Yes, you can. It's only illegal if you try to get narcotics or I'm guessing something illegal here...

My allegist/immunologist would write me the prescription for my Ketotifen. It's not FDA approved in the US, for a stupid reason, but it's a FANTASTIC antihistamine.

Anyways, we'd fax the prescription in to them, and mail the hard copy...They'd have one of their doctors look at it, re-write it, and send it.

We did this for a LONG time, until they got a compounding pharmacy here in Texas who could make it.

Ricardo, check it out. Seriously.

From what wiki said, the reason Dopergin/Lisuride, is not used in the US not because of side effects, but because there were other drugs that worked better for Parkinsons.

eta: http://www.pharmacychecker.com/compare-drug-prices-online-pharmacies/Dopergin-0.2+mg/34854/136643/

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  • 2 years later...

Actually fibrosis shouldn't be an issue. The tryptamines in general have the fibrosis problem because of 5-HT2B activation, or as Wiki puts it "5-HT2B receptor stimulation can also lead to pathological proliferation of cardiac valves fibroblasts", but Lisuride is an antagonist at this receptor.

In fact dear old Wiki says that:

"5-HT2B antagonists have previously been proposed as treatment for migraine headaches... but development was not continued. More recent research has focused on possible application of 5-HT2B antagonists as treatments for chronic heart disease. [but] Serotonin 5-HT2B receptors inhibit liver regeneration and may have effects on immune system function."

So Lisuride probably is nasty in chronic use, but not for the heart.

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You can find it in Italy as Dopergin, with various distinct indications: Parkinson treatment, lactation suppression, female infertility, amenorrhea and acromegaly treatment.

It's also quite easy to prescribe, I don't know your laws about drugs, but here is not a restricted drug, provided you've got one of the above indications. Also, I suppose it could be used for other off-label prescriptions without much of a fuss.

For example, I take verapamil since I was 17, but there's no indication for CH, but I can get it nonethelss as is a non-restricted drug here.

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You can find it in Italy as Dopergin

This, I did not know.  I was trying to find a source for Lisuride a while back.  Boston Headache Doc said he would prescribe it for me but I could find no way of getting it.  At one point it was sold in all sorts of countries (as Dopergin) but now the only place I could find it was New Zealand and they have a law saying they will not export prescription meds.

Any idea if Italy has any sort of law like that? 

Thanks for this info!

-Ricardo

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I know how to IMPORT prescriptions in Italy, I do not know if there are restriction on export, but I suppose there are none, as the drug export from Italy to other states (expecially USA) is quite a profitable business.

So well, if you got the prescription, you should find it without much of a fuss I suppose.

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  • 1 month later...

Anyways, we'd fax the prescription in to them, and mail the hard copy...They'd have one of their doctors look at it, re-write it, and send it.

Hate to see this end here. Again local laws? Anyone know if Italian docs can accept and rewrite the script of a US doc? or better... the name of a pharmacy that does this?

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A few years ago I was in India and needed a script from the US.  My doc in the US wrote it and someone picked it up and fedex'd it over to me in India. 

I'd guess someone in Italy could get a script for themselves, and send it to 'themselves' in the US?  ;)  If someone was able to do that.  Maybe a person in the US could hold it for them in preparation of a future trip to the US.  ;)  It's a stretch, I know.

J

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