Posted by yxibow on January 17, 2007, at 23:01:53
In reply to Re: Akineton discontinued US 1yr ago, remaining st, posted by Honore on January 17, 2007, at 11:43:07
> Why did they discontinue it?
>
> HonoreI don't know. I called Abbott who referred me to their subsidiary Par Pharmaceuticals.
It was a superior drug -- sure I can take Artane, but each anticholinergic has a different nuance, Artane helps if I need anti-salivary solutions, Cogentin does about nothing for me except maybe if I had severe akathisia, its basically a shotgun.
I've never tried procyclidine, which is another dusty one on the shelves here but seems to be used more in England.
Akineton had less side effects in the atropine direction than the others, at least for me. But your miles may vary as they say.
So as of now, two main Anti-Parkinsonian anticholinergics remain, with perhaps procyclidine being another, although my doctor has never heard of much use with it for EPS here.
It is unclear to me whether it was discontinued one year ago, or whether the distributor did. I was told the drug was discontinued Jan 4 by the pharmacy. I have stock remaining I use sparingly but it was pretty good for orofacial EPS.
I'm not in love with any anticholinergic, they all have atropine effects which kind of go against my treatment of too much awareness of visual things, but sometimes its necessary.
If anyone else wants to waste part of a day finding out information on Akineton, more the welcome. I was thoroughly flabbergasted by pharmacies, especially the disorganization of a certain national chain.
My guess is basically it wasn't being used -- it always had to be ordered from a distributor typically. Pharmacies stocked Artane and Cogentin regularly but not Akineton and there were no generics for Akineton, they were all from Abbott, who got the license from BASF in the 70s. So it was probably the most expensive to keep on the shelves. It had already been discontinued in England.
-- tidings.
poster:yxibow
thread:723025
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070113/msgs/723468.html