You May Not Want to Gamble on Requip, Because You Just Might…

Rochester, MNIt boggles the mind that a drug could foster the start of a compulsive Requip gambling habit. But that appears to be the case with Requip, a medication often prescribed to Parkinson's patients and those suffering from restless leg syndrome. As a result Requip compulsive gambling has proven an embarrassing, and costly adverse reaction. The often-heartbreaking result of Requip side effects gambling can leave one's finances in ruins.

Before Sandi was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 2001 at the age of 54, she had visited a casino with a friend and loathed the experience. "Hated it," she says. "Hated the noise, the whole environment thing, and knew this wasn't something I'd like to do again."

Then came the diagnosis for Parkinson's, and her doctor started Sandi on Requip—a dopamine agonist known as ropinirole—at the time she was diagnosed.

It wasn't long before Sandi would find herself craving the very environments she loathed before Requip. "After starting the Requip, I developed some expensive compulsive behavioral problems—gambling, casinos, gaming machines…" Oddly enough, even though she also developed a compulsion about being on-line day and night, she was able to resist "the online gambling thing…I knew that could dig a hole for me I couldn't get out of."

Still, the compulsive behavior continued, and now Sandi's marriage was in trouble. In concert with her doctor, Sandi switched away from Requip to another medication about 4 years later.

The gambling urges stopped.

"The day my Neuro switched me to (another medication), she asked how much I thought I might have lost to gambling. She said she had another patient on Requip with the same problem, and it was estimated she'd lost around $10,000 (on Requip gambling). She also mentioned a couple other patients had the same problem."

Sandi doesn't mention how much she lost. The fact remains, however that Requip has been shown to foster the onset of compulsive behavior, including compulsive gambling. While the trait is rare, it can and does happen—according to findings by doctors at the renowned Mayo Clinic in 2005.

As described in the publication Archives of Neurology, Mayo Clinic doctors observed pathological gambling in 11 Parkinson's patients who were taking medications for the treatment of Parkinson's. It was reported that two, of the 11 patients were taking Requip. The other 9 were prescribed another dopamine agonist.

According to a report in WebMD, dopamine is manufactured by the brain to help direct movement—but also plays a role in the brain's reward and reinforcement structure. According to M. Leann Dodd, MD and colleagues, dopamine "has been implicated in mediating the reward of gambling behavior."

Medications such as Requip for the treatment of Parkinson's act like dopamine, and are directed at helping to minimize Parkinson's symptoms. However, compulsive behavior such as Requip gambling presents as a nasty adverse reaction.

"All of the commonly prescribed dopamine agonists have been associated with pathological gambling," write the doctors.

GlaxoSmithKline, the manufacturer of Requip, responded in 2005 that "we don't think there's a causal connection between [Requip] and compulsive gambling that was established by this study," Holly Russell, Glaxo's product communications director, told WebMD at the time. "It's a small, uncontrolled study of 11 patients, some of whom were on concomitant medications…"

Still, even though the gambling link to Requip or another of the dopamine antagonists remains clinically unproven, the suspcion remains—along with people like Sandi, who hated gambling before Requip, started Requip compulsive gambling while on Requip, then no longer hungered for gambling when she stopped Requip.

"In summary, dopamine agonist drugs appear to be uniquely implicated as a cause of pathological gambling," write the Mayo Clinic doctors.

When doctors from the famed Mayo Clinic raise a red flad, most people take heed. And Requip gambling is something that provides a source of worry for any Parkinson's patient concerned with the possibility of Requip compulsive gambling. In today's economy, with jobs disappearing and investment portfolios shrinking, the last thing you want to have happen is to suffer a substantial financial loss resulting from a compulsive behavior allegedly brought on by Requip side effects gambling. Drugs are expensive enough. If you feel that a drug, to which you were prescribed, was responsible for compulsive behavior that may have cost you even more—and you were not warned—you should seek the advice of a qualified attorney.

The possibility of pathological gambling for ropinirole patients, especially at higher dosages, is mentioned in a listing of adverse reactions under the 'Psychiatric' heading in the Requip information on the GlaxoSmithKline website and, presumably, in the product labelling provided to patients. Your doctor should make you aware. If that proved not to be the case, and you incurred substantial financial losses as the result of pathological gambling in a fashion foreign to your typical personality, see a lawyer.