[moroeder]

Thought you would find it interesting how the first round of (.5mg 1X at bedtime) clonazepam went for my RBD treatment. Within a couple of weeks of using the clonazepam I had a reaction of a very rapid lateral eye "twitch" in one eye, yes the eye not the eye lid. The twitching episodes would last for a few minutes then subside but In the medical info leaflet provided with the meds one of the "serious" side effects was "unusual eye movement." I called the prescribing MD and he didn't feel it was caused by the clonazepam! He suggested I have my eyes checked so I went to my ophthalmologist MD and he found nothing but did call my neurologist and suggested a change in meds.

Because of my concern of RBD and its relationship with Parkinson's I had seen a neurologist, he immediately changed the meds to valium at 5mg 1x at bedtime. There has been no noticeable side effect with the valium but the dosage was raised to 10mg 1X at bedtime. I believe in my case the valium was the best medicine I have used and it has controlled my RBD with only one minor incident in the last five months. I still have lucid dreams but have not had any where I needed to physically act on any of their content. Also the amount of dreams appear to have subsided.

However, I also wanted you to know that being a male at 60 with chronic major lower back issues I had to start using gabapentin (Neurontin) at 600mg 4X daily for nerve pain caused by stenosis of the spine. The addition of the gabapentin with the valium has had an improved effect on my dream intensities. Some of you have mentioned that the drug Lyrica had helped with your RBD. Lyrica and gabapentin are somewhat related as is neurontin. I have been able to skip the valium for now and the RBD appears to be controlled by the gabapentin. If I see the need to resume the valium naturally I will but as of now, with my back pain I will just use the gabapentin. The benefit naturally is if you have any type of nerve pain like sciatica, fibromyalgia, etc. you may want to look into the gabapentin family of meds.