Kratom for Parkinsons symptoms?

[Darklight]

I just read a report on the kratom list that someone with Parkinson's took a tea of the herb to soothe pain and experienced a greatly enhanced sense of wellbeing which extended a couple of days beyond dosing( and is in contrast to the anhedonia experienced by many Parkinson's patients )

It's early days yet, and its the first report I've heard on kratom being used by a Parkinson's sufferer. Someone close to me has Parkinson's and I'm wondering whether kratom doesn't have some potential for treatment of some of they symptoms.

If anyone here has any medical or chemical knowledge that could shed some light on the mechanisms that kratom could assist with I'd absolutely love to hear about it.

One of the pages I google'd mentions kratom as a possible anticholinergic ( I looked that up too, it means inhibiting the transmission of reducing spasms of smooth muscle , that's a cut and paste job ). Can anyone explain how this would work if using kratom

There's an abstract via biopsychiatry,com that discusses how delta-Opioid receptor agonists may prove to be useful for the symptomatic treatment of Parkinson's disease. But it doesn't mention kratom specifically, nor its constituent alkaloids

If kratom was at all useful in alleviating any Parkinson's symptoms I'd completely forget to worry about its S9 classification.

[Darklight]

OK the above is a bit of a dog's breakfast, sorry for the incoherence and ramblings. I lost those crucial 15 IQ points amidst the excitement, but I hope the intent of my question remains clear

[apothecary]

I don't know if this sheds more light on the issue, but chemicals like atropine, scopolamine and muscimol are all anti-cholinergics...

[mr toodly]

But A. muscaria itself seems to agonize choline, yes?

[foolsbreath]

Atropine and scopolamine are very effective at helping parkinsons. Someone close to me too has parkinsons and she is on tropane based medicines.

She says she hasn't felt this good in years! But it comes with a warning that one may suffer severe hallucinations at any time

I have seen references to some other plants that are of interest to parkinsons sufferers, but at the moment they seem to have slipped my mind, I'll see if I can't find them for you.

I would be interested to see if pituri is any help

[foolsbreath]

Oh thats right, Mucuna Pruriens is apparently very helpful, containing L-dopa and various tryptamines. I had this growing a plenty until the frosts hit this year, unfortunately lost it all, but have some dried leaves still around.

But I believe it is the seeds that are of interest, containing the L-dopa, not the leaves.

[ 07. August 2005, 10:23: Message edited by: foolsbreath ]

[Owtovit]

Dunno about kratom, but I remember seeing on tv a couple years ago that a guy in England with parkinsons got relief from his muscle spasms by taking ecstacy.

It showed him beforehand, shaking quite badly then he took a pill and he was able to sit still and use his muscles normally... well at least until the pill started to fully kick in :D

So maybe just a low dose would be good for sufferers?

[Tryptameanie]

 

quote:

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But A. muscaria itself seems to agonize choline, yes?

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Sorta...

First, "cholinergic" agonists activate

ACETYL-choline receptors, choline is the inactivated form.

It used to be thought that the effects of muscaria were due to the muscarine content (muscarine is a selective ACh agonist which gave it's name to the "muscarinic" subtype of acetylcholine receptors. Nicotine is selective for the "nicotinic" subtype).

Current opinion is that while muscarine is responsible for some side-effects, (such as sweating and hypersalivation- the opposite to the muscarinic-cholinergic antagonists scopolamine etc), the positive aspects are due to the GABAergic effects of muscimol and ibotenic acid.