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Once a prescription has been given to a patient, they can get started right away, even on the day of the same office visit. Some people are lucky enough to get away with the smallest dose and the first medication, and they will find relief. It’s interesting. Those dopamine agonists that I mentioned earlier are commonly prescribed they’re generic, but they are given in a very unique way. What I say is take the pill one hour before the symptoms occur. So if the patient knows that they have symptoms every night at nine o’clock, we can ask them to take the pill at eight, it takes about an hour for the drug to take effect. And if that is the right dose and the right drug, which often it is sensations will greatly diminish or even go away. If that’s not the right dose, I asked the patient to take that every night for two or three, four nights, and then take another. We gradually titrate the dose for the symptoms. So sometimes I get lucky on the very first night, the first dose, the first drug symptoms go away. Sometimes we need to escalate that dose a bit and sometimes we have to change medications. But the beauty of this disease is it’s very responsive and it’s very interactive. As in the patient tells me and I tell them and we work back and forth together until symptoms are resolved. We can find relief very quickly. And for some people, this just gives them back their lives.
