Inbrija – first experiences

On July 8, 2022, we published an interview with 2 American women who have been using Inbrija for 3 years. In the meantime, the drug has also been approved in Germany and we have the first field reports.

If you haven't read the article or seen the interview, you can catch up here: https://parkinson-journal.de/inbrija

What is special about Inbrija?

First of all, Inbrija is nothing more than high-dose levodopa in powder form. It aims to bridge suddenly occurring fluctuations in effectiveness, so-called OFF phases. It differs from levodopa LT, which has been approved for the same purpose in Germany for some time, in two essential ways:

1. It does not contain the additives benserazide or carbidopa.
   
   Since dopamine does not cross the blood-brain barrier, it cannot be given directly as a drug. The precursor substance levodopa on the other hand, gets into the brain and can be converted there into active dopamine. Benserazide/Carbidops prevents the conversion of levodopa into dopamine before it reaches the central nervous system. In this way, L-Dopa reaches the brain unchanged, where it can reduce the cause of the movement disorders – the lack of dopamine. 
2. It is inhaled and not swallowed. This is easy on the stomach and accelerates the effect, since it does not have to go through the digestive tract first like levodopa. Therefore, the interactions between protein and levodopa do not play a role,

Both May Evers, the moderator of the interview mentioned at the beginning, and I myself have now tested Inbrija and have come to similarly different results as our interview partners.

May reports that the drug has an immediate effect on her and that one pill is often sufficient instead of the recommended 2 inhalation pills. She does not know any side effects such as coughing.

Not so with me. the onset of action lasted about 10 minutes, only slightly shorter than with Levodopa LT, but the inhalation made me cough, which annoyed me considerably for about 2 hours.

The manufacturer's website, while certainly subjective, offers a wealth of information about the drug.

Those are very revealing comments on youtube to our interview, which we don't want to withhold from you. Although most are in English, they are so clear that they do not require a separate translation.

Jurgen Zender, in September 2022