Anybody knows Cerebrolysin or heard about a trial with this? here in Chile, the Alzheimer Corporation is offering a new and very expensive treatment with Cerebrolysin a new drug to Improvement of cognitive and behavioral functions and in activities of daily living. If it works I think it is worthwhile to try. They say that this treatment has been used for more than 10 years in Austria, Germany and Asia:

"Cerebrolysin is a protein-based agent that exhibits unique neurotrophic (assisting growth) and neuroprotective activity. It has been studied in thousands of patients in double-blind studies with consistently excellent results. Some of the effects include:

Protects nerve cells from damage
Decreases damage from excitotoxic effects
Blocks over activity of calcium dependent proteases (this reduces spasm)
It scavenges free Oxygen radicals
It increases nerve viability and survival during and after ischemic events (lack of oxygen)
Slows progressive global and cognitive decline (helps prevent mental decline)
As these effects are widespread, Cerebrolysin can be used for a large number of conditions. These include:

Any organic, neurologic, and degenerative disorders of the brain
Alzheimer’s and dementia
Neurological trauma of any type
Any conditions with low oxygen as a component
Cerebrolysin can be used either for acute stroke or later for rehabilitation. When used for dementia/Alzheimer’s, it is able to stop the progression of the disease and also improve the current symptoms. Cerebrolysin is given via intravenous infusion, unless a very small dose is used. It is administered one time per day, five times per week, for a total of 20 treatments. The treatment is then stopped for 4 weeks, after which the cycle can repeat as often as needed.

No safety concerns were noted during clinical trials. Side effects were rare, and at the same frequency in groups getting the active agent or the placebo. The most common events were vertigo, agitation, and feeling hot, all of which were mild and short-lived.

In summary, Cerebrolysin is a safe, effective therapy that can be used for nearly any problem involving the brain

Please I need to know if anybody heard about this. Thanks and sorry for my english

Ana Maria-I haven't heard anything. Can you do an internet search for info, or check out some on-line medical sites (mayo clinic, healthnet).

quote:

Originally posted by Calypso:
Anybody knows Cerebrolysin or heard about a trial with this? here in Chile, the Alzheimer Corporation is offering a new and very expensive treatment with Cerebrolysin a new drug to Improvement of cognitive and behavioral functions and in activities of daily living. If it works I think it is worthwhile to try. They say that this treatment has been used for more than 10 years in Austria, Germany and Asia:

"Cerebrolysin is a protein-based agent that exhibits unique neurotrophic (assisting growth) and neuroprotective activity. It has been studied in thousands of patients in double-blind studies with consistently excellent results. Some of the effects include:

Protects nerve cells from damage
Decreases damage from excitotoxic effects
Blocks over activity of calcium dependent proteases (this reduces spasm)
It scavenges free Oxygen radicals
It increases nerve viability and survival during and after ischemic events (lack of oxygen)
Slows progressive global and cognitive decline (helps prevent mental decline)
As these effects are widespread, Cerebrolysin can be used for a large number of conditions. These include:

Any organic, neurologic, and degenerative disorders of the brain
Alzheimer’s and dementia
Neurological trauma of any type
Any conditions with low oxygen as a component
Cerebrolysin can be used either for acute stroke or later for rehabilitation. When used for dementia/Alzheimer’s, it is able to stop the progression of the disease and also improve the current symptoms. Cerebrolysin is given via intravenous infusion, unless a very small dose is used. It is administered one time per day, five times per week, for a total of 20 treatments. The treatment is then stopped for 4 weeks, after which the cycle can repeat as often as needed.

No safety concerns were noted during clinical trials. Side effects were rare, and at the same frequency in groups getting the active agent or the placebo. The most common events were vertigo, agitation, and feeling hot, all of which were mild and short-lived.

In summary, Cerebrolysin is a safe, effective therapy that can be used for nearly any problem involving the brain

Please I need to know if anybody heard about this. Thanks and sorry for my english

cerebrolysin does any body know if it can be used in down's syndrom individuals? i know must down's get alzheimer when they grow older

Really doesn't look very good to me.
Alzforum page

Me and my Alternative Medical Doctor have researched this drug. It has been approved in 44 countries for the treatment of Alzheimer's. Three european countries are in Phase 3 trials for treating Alzheimer's. It is also used for Ischemic (lack of oxygen) stroke, ALS, and possibly Parkinson's. It appears that all treated patients had improvement and the Alzheimer's was stopped in its tracks. This is NOT A CURE, you will have to take it until a cure is found. It is administerd in a saline solution and the dosage is 30ml (cc) five days a week for four weeks then four weeks off then the cycle is repeated. I wish you well.

To ani67 - this drug was originally for Ischemic Stroke but it has expanded to treat neurological damage from diseases. Since this is a safe drug you may want to ask a Natural Medicine practioner to give it a try. Keep in mind that I know nothing about Down's Syndrome so it is imperative that you seek dependable medical advise.

Doesn't look so bad to me . . .

Efficacy of FPF 1070 (Cerebrolysin) in Patients With Alzheimer's Disease
(Full Article --- http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/406156)

Conclusion
In conclusion, this study indicated that FPF 1070 at a dosage of 30ml once daily for 4 weeks provided significant clinical improvement in cognitive function, non-cognitive psychiatric symptoms and ADL in patients with AD. Its administration was not associated with or complicated by severe adverse events.

The stuff looks pretty good to me. I went to:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez/

and did a search on the terms “Cerebrolysin Alzheimer's” and a list of 39 articles appeared. Did not take the time to read each one but noticed that in some mice were studies and in others humans (in double blind placebo controlled situations) were studied. Without exception...All indicated that Cerebrolysin was well tolerated and appeared to perform in a positive manner.

I can’t help but be curious as to why it is not approved for use in the United States.

Skericheri,

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Ebewe Pharmaceuticals is privately owned and in Unterach, Austria? I also read somewhere that its primary focus is the manufacture of generics.

There is so much beyond my comprehension on these matters. I had to mail order Memantine from Germany (which was to become Namenda in the U.S.) for Mom before it was FDA approved in the U.S. It, too, was being given all over Europe long before allowed here.

This treatment sounds promising - thanks for posting about it! There are many options which are not presented because of the pharmaceutical stranglehold on healthcare in the US... I hope that folks will check out some of these "alternative" treatments which can be just as effective, if not more so, than the current "approved" pharmaceutical meds - and often at a fraction of the cost.

"I can’t help but be curious as to why it is not approved for use in the United States."

skericheri,
"Natural" meds etc. cannot be patented. In the US, unfortunately, it's all about money. It's a shame and an embarrassment, isn't it?

Cerebrolysin as a stroke recovery drug.

This drug is used in many countries as a treatment for brain degenerative diseases like Alzheimers and as a treatment in patients recovering from stroke. The drug is used openly in Asia and Russia, but not in the United States. In my experience, the drug was used on a young patient suffering from coma due to stroke at the age of 22. The patient began to receive regular IV injections and within several weeks began showing significant increases in brain activity by displaying an improved ability to communicate. The treatment started some six or more months after the patient suffered from stroke. Despite the initial 5% chance of recovery given by several MDs, who would not advise any such medication, experimental or otherwise, the patient was able to recover from the use of respiratory devices and regained the ability to consciously swallow and digest soft foods.

With Cerebrolysin, the patient began a therapy program to regain her motor skills, was able to consistently communicate answers to questions by nodding or shaking her head, and attempted to verbally speak individual words with her mother. She exhibited a full recovery of her pre-stroke personality, often laughing, crying, and displaying other emotions such as shyness. Without Cerebrolysin, the patient probably would have remained in a prolonged "vegetative" state.

There is little or no information for this drug available to North American citizens. Why, I do not know. The treatments are protein-based and are tested and safe as far as I understood.

It is advisable to start Cerebrolysin treatment as soon as possible. Since the patient began Cerebrolysin treatment some six months or longer after her initial stroke, she experienced a stronger loss of motor skills and brain function than she would have with sooner treatment.

Hi, Fields, and welcome to the forum. Tell us more about yourself -- are you a caregiver for a dementia patient? Is there something we can do to help?

I believe that Cerebrolysin cannot be sold or prescribed in the U.S. because it apparently has never undergone any clinical trials for any sort of application here.

This is an interesting drug, but I suspect it won't pass muster in the U.S., due to the danger of transmitting prion-type dementias from brain-derived products. Cerebrolysin is a mixture of peptides and amino acids produced by enzymatic digestion of porcine brain proteins.

There have been a number of clinical trials on Alzheimer's patients done overseas (Spain and Russia). While there may be some benefit, the results so far have apparently not been spectacular: Cerebrolysin has been described as being "at least as good as" aricept.

http://www.alzheimersanddement...26009003732/fulltext

http://www.alzheimersanddement...26009003756/fulltext

Meta-analysis of 6 double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials confirmed that there was a statistically significant improvement in the "clinical global impression" test, but that "more convincing evidences are needed for the efficacy of Cerebrolysin on the cognitive performance and activities of daily living."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17318304

Also, Cerebrolysin caused more nervous system disorders than aricept as adverse side effects, and the combination of Cerebrolysin and aricept caused more psychiatric disorders as side effects.

The trials have not lasted long enough to determine whether prion disorders constitute a serious danger.

Apparently, the treatment regime comprised intravenous infusions 5 days a week for 4 weeks, at weeks 1-4 and again at weeks 13-16. Daily infusions are not particularly desirable (although I'm sure all of us would leap at the chance if it would actually cure AD!!!) and I imagine the treatment would end up being pretty pricey. Without a clear benefit over and above the currently-approved cholinesterase inhibitors, it is unlikely that Cerebrolysin would get FDA approval, even without the concerns about brain-derived products.


However, there do appear to be benefits for patients with vascular dementia:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18607744

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18048059

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17684971

http://www.alzheimersanddement...2600900377X/fulltext


The company that makes Cerebrolysin is evaluating the possibility of administering the drug intranasally. They are also trying to identify exact peptides/fragments that are beneficial:

http://www.alzheimersanddement...26009010747/fulltext

http://www.alzheimersanddement...26009018238/fulltext

If one or two proteins could be identified as producing the beneficial peptide(s) or fragment(s), then it might be possible to produce a recombinant drug in vitro, and thereby eliminate the possibility of transmitting a prion disease.

Fields_without_fences, about a week after you and I exchanged posts, a new member joined the boards, whose wife developed vascular dementia at the age of 30! She is now 34, and declining. I remembered thinking that cerebrolysin had looked interesting for that -- and of course, the poor man must be beside himself, wanting to find a way to help his very young wife. So I did a lot of in-depth digging, and it does look quite interesting for treating vascular dementia.

When I posted the results of my search on the Caregiver forum (that's where Joe was posting) another member said her husband, who was originally diagnosed with VaD, now apparently also has some AD, and asked whether it might help him. So I did a lot more digging into cerebrolysin for treating AD, and turned up a lot of interesting studies.

All the clinical trials etc that I found are at:

http://alzheimers.infopop.cc/e...14102241/m/316109502

Hi,

I have been using Cerebrolysin since 1990. I had a severe brain infection that was diagnosed either as arachnoiditis or Encephalitis. There was a forward thinking young neurologist in Russia, where I lived at the time, who advised to try Cerebrolysin. Nothing else helped and I was basically bed-bound for a year and a half with horrible dizziness. I had to drop out of college due to the inability to concentrate or exert any mental effort for just a few seconds. As soon as I had to focus on any subject matter, I would get horrible dizziness. I also could not walk for longer than a minute or two without getting really dizzy.

The Cerebrolysin was prescribed to me as intramuscular injections of 1 ml once a day for 30 days. The neurologist advised to repeat this course twice a year. I had done so for 4 years or so and then went to once-a-year 30-day course. At this point, I am on a once-every-two-year course of Cerebrolysin.

The result of the treatment was that I was able to go back to college and finish it. I immigrated to the US from Russia 13 years ago. I am a Senior Network Engineer making a six-figure salary. I run 10k (7 miles) several times a week, swim 2 miles, and generally feel almost completely normal. I do have some residual effects of my illness once or twice a year, and when they become more severe, I repeat a 30-day course of Cerebrolysin, which always results in a significant improvement within 10-15 days of he beginning of the course. I have been living a normal life now for almost twenty years since I was struck by that debilitating disease. I have not seen a neurologist in the US for this problem because I know how to fix it when I start getting symptoms. Cerebrolysin was not approved by the FDA when I first came to this country, so I had to have it brought to me from Russia by visiting friends. Thirteen years later, Cerebrolysin is still not approved in the US, and I have to continue to ask my friends to bring it when they come to visit. I always keep a two-three-course supply (60 - 80 doses) just in case.

I have never had any side effects from this medicine. To me, this is a miracle drug. It has been used in many countries in Europe for several decades. I know that because I have been using it for almost two decades myself. I baffles me why FDA is not approving it. Cerebrolysin is manufactures in Austria by EBEWE Pharma Ges.m.b.H.Nfg.KG. Their web address is www.ebewe.com

If your relative has a serious neurological illness that is not curable by FDA-approved medicine, I do not see any harm in trying Cerebrolysin. I don't think that it is prohibitively expensive. I have just googled it and found pharmacies (probably Canadian ones) selling it for $30 per 10 1-ml doses. For more serious neurological diseases like Alzheimer's, a higher dose (more than 1 ml per day) is required, and the treatment may cost a few hundred dollars a month. Still, this is worth trying in my opinion.

quote:

I baffles me why FDA is not approving it.

Hi, cerebro, welcome to the forum. How did you end up here? Not that we aren't happy to see you, but you sound pretty healthy to be interested in an AD discussion forum. (And isn't that nice!)

Apparently, the FDA has not approved cerebrolysin because the company that sells it hasn't gone through the testing that is necessary to get approval in the States. The clinical trials that are required here can be pretty expensive ... maybe they don't think the market here is big enough to be worth it, when they're already selling the drug in dozens of other countries.

I'm curious as to why you have to keep taking the med, if the problem was due to an infection. I'm not familiar with arachnoiditis. Can you feel the symptoms starting up again when it's time for the next dose? Or are you just taking every possible precaution to make sure you never experience the symptoms again?

Has the FDA ever considered extending approval to foreign drugs, as long as the certifying country meets certain standards for their own drug review?

If a country -- say Germany -- has approved a drug using sufficiently rigorous criteria, why not just recognize its approval for U.S. sales?

I have a feeling this has something to do with pharma industry politics and bureaucratic turf protection rather than actual safety and efficacy.

In the Dimebon thread, there was a discussion about having the medicine shipped to the USA legally. With Cerebrolysin, it appears that one could order it directly from the company, no?

quote:

Originally posted by JAB:

quote:

I baffles me why FDA is not approving it.

Hi, cerebro, welcome to the forum. How did you end up here? Not that we aren't happy to see you, but you sound pretty healthy to be interested in an AD discussion forum. (And isn't that nice!)


Apparently, the FDA has not approved cerebrolysin because the company that sells it hasn't gone through the testing that is necessary to get approval in the States. The clinical trials that are required here can be pretty expensive ... maybe they don't think the market here is big enough to be worth it, when they're already selling the drug in dozens of other countries.

I'm curious as to why you have to keep taking the med, if the problem was due to an infection. I'm not familiar with arachnoiditis. Can you feel the symptoms starting up again when it's time for the next dose? Or are you just taking every possible precaution to make sure you never experience the symptoms again?

I stumbled upon this forum because I googled "Cerebrolysin," and this forum popped up as the second or third hit.

The reason I have to continue taking Cerebrolysin, is (as I described in my post) the fact that my symptoms do return although with much more time in between than they used to. In fact, I am doing this course right now because I got some of the symptoms back.

Arachnoiditis, from what my neurologist explained to me, is the inflammation of the outer lining of the brain. Encephalitis is the inflammation of the inner lining of the brain and certain areas of the brain itself. My condition was diagnosed by several neurologists as either Arachnoiditis or Encephalitis. Not many neurologists in the States know what Arachnoiditis is. Frankly, I do not really want to research this problem - when I got it, there was no Internet yet. At this point, I just want to live a healthy life - so I am not interested in getting into this research as long as my very rare symptoms can be alleviated by a 30-day course of intramuscular Cerebrolysin.

The infection that caused the Arachnoiditis also affected other organs in my body, and I suffered from severe pain in other parts of my body for 16+ years. It was hell, so the dizziness was not the biggest problem, and it went away after 5 - 6 years more or less. I got this illness when I was 18 1/2 years old, and I am 39 now. Most of my adult life I lived in a lot of suffering, but in the past four years or so, my health has improved to the point that I consider myself almost cured. I don't think that anyone can be completely cured from several chronic illnesses that lasted for as long as mine did. If I feel 90% improved or better, I will take it for the rest of my life.

Cerebrolysin is used in Europe not only for Alzheimer's, but also for head trauma's, stroke, and even for students who undergo rigorous study and want to improve their memory in retaining the material they learn. It is also used in children with learning disabilities. In other words, it has a very broad effect on mental health.

I am in no way associated with the manufacturer and am not benefiting from posting this. I just wanted to let you guys know that I have been using this medicine for almost 20 years now and I can only say good things about it.

Both of my wife's grandmothers developed Alzheimer's by the end of their lives, and I just don't see why not try Cerebrolysin with such patients. The reason this medicine has not been approved by the FDA is that (according to what I have heard), it costs $250 million dollars to take a drug through the FDA approval process, and the result is not guarantied. I wish the FDA would automatically approve the medicines that have been approved in other 1st-world countries (like it happens in Russia, for instance). But this is not the case. So, each individual should make their own decisions on whether or not they should try Cerebrolysin. My opinion is that for the lack of any other medicine with no side effects and so many reported benefits, why not try it when you know that everything else available in the US will fail?

Good luck to you all.

http://www.all-drugs-online.co...tective/default.aspx
You can buy it online at the link above. Assuming that Ebewe could verify that they are using Cerebrolysin, all one would need would be a physician to agree to administer the injections. Of course, this would mean that a physician would have to accept the liabilty...................
Cerebro, are you giving this medication intravenously to yourself? Do you have the name of a doctor who is willing to help you?

I found a doctor!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He's in the United States (hooray!). He's board certified medical doctor who also got educated in naturopathic medicine. He does some alternative treatments that are kinda questionable as well. This makes me a little leery, but as long as the cerebrolysin is legit, that should be ok, right?
I don't know if the cost (for me) will make it impossible, but I'm going to ask.

jellybeans, contact Ebewe directly, and ask them for contact info for legitimate distributors. DO NOT trust any website that sells meds unless and until you've made sure they're legitimate! Many of them are not what they appear to be. And it looked to me as if some countries are making their own version and passing it off as being Ebewe's. There's contact info for Ebewe on the thread on cerebrolysin on the Caregiver forum.

http://alzheimers.infopop.cc/e...=316109502#316109502

hmp10, trust me, the pharma industry is VERY unhappy with the clinical trial requirements in the U.S.! Our regulatory bodies feel that other countries do not have testing requirements that are rigorous enough. The FDA may accept data from a foreign clinical trial as one of the requisite trials, but only if additional testing done in the U.S., under U.S. supervision and following U.S. regs, confirm the foreign study's findings. E.g., the Russian trial for dimebon will be accepted if the key U.S. trial produces similar findings. (But that Russian trial involved top-tier U.S. researchers at every step, too, and followed our requirements.)

In the case of cerebrolysin, there have been a number of studies on using it for AD and/or vascular dementia, but almost all of them have problems as far as the U.S. is concerned -- very small and/or open-label, for example, and/or did not use sufficiently rigorous criteria for selecting the patients to be tested. Details are in that thread.

That $250 million that cerebro cites is very old data. The last time I looked, the number was up to $850 million plus. However, that is the average cost for successfully bringing one new drug to market, and it includes the costs of the many failures as well. There's also "cost of money" included -- i.e., what the company could have gained if it had invested that money rather than spending it on drug development. Some people don't think it's appropriate to include COM in the estimate.

Didn't mean to imply anything by asking how you ended up here, cerebro. You don't fit the profile of a spammer or troll. I was just curious about your problem. I'd never heard of arachnoiditis, and looked it up -- from what I read, it primarily involves inflammation of the outer lining of the spinal cord, and can cause burning pain in the lower back or legs, muscle cramps/spasms, may affect the bladder and/or bowel, etc. Sounds MOST unpleasant. Encephalitis caused by some viruses can respond to treatment with antivirals, and so I was curious as to whether the causative pathogen had ever been identified. It's great that the cerebrolysin works for you, and I appreciate your coming here to talk with us.

The studies that have been done are intriguing. The one thing that concerns me is that the med used to be approved for use in Japan, and then some sort of safety issue cropped up and Japan delisted it. I couldn't find out the details. Maybe Ebewe would tell you if you asked, jellybeans.

I'll email Ebewe. The doctor who does Cerebrolysin charges about $200 for the office visit and each IV injection is $131. So that would be 131x20 for the full series of injections. The doctor is making a nice profit! The travel would be like 9 hours a day roundtrip or we could stay in a motel, but that would be pricey too. I could afford to do this once, I don't know about being able to afford this every few months though.

One more thought. I have read that it has been given both intramuscularly and intravenously. Anything to say that one method is superior to another? I have several friends who are medical assistants and can give intramuscular injections. Is the intramuscular version mixed with saline? I have read that the intravenous one is, but nothing that I have found yet says the intramuscular one is mixed with saline. If I did the intramuscular version, it would be $400 a month plus shipping.

jellybeans, take a look at that thread on Caregiver. If I recall correctly, all of the studies on AD, VaD and Parkinson's dementia (and all the ones I read on stroke) were done with IV infusions in saline. The pharmacokinetics would be very different for intramuscular injections.

Thanks, JAB. I read an abstract from adis online http://adisonline.com/aging/Ab...mentia.1.aspx(couldn't read the whole article for free) and that said that it could be given IM if the dose was under 5ml (I saw that part on Google, not in the actual article abstract). And, believe it or not, there are forums where totally healthy people are using IM (some are body builders and some are seeking immortality.)

And some need to have their heads examined.

I'm not seeing what you found, either on google or scholar for that paper.

quote:

Originally posted by JAB:
And some need to have their heads examined.

I'm not seeing what you found, either on google or scholar for that paper.

I typed in cerebrolysin intramuscular into google and I could see the part about 5ml being safe for IM injections, but from the free part of the article at the link , it didn't say that.

I checked the website that says that it can be ordered from the company.

quote:

Originally posted by Cecilia, aka, Ces:
I checked the website that says that it can be ordered from the company.

Can you provide the link? I got the EBEWE website, but didn't see anywhere that would let me order it on their site and I spent a lot of time looking.

The only studies I've seen that have used intramuscular cerebrolysin have been for disorders other than dementias -- autism in children, for example -- or were being done in animal models.

I would stick with the dosing regime that's been used in adults with AD, VaD, etc.

quote:

Originally posted by cerebro:
Hi,

I have been using Cerebrolysin since 1990. I had a severe brain infection that was diagnosed either as arachnoiditis or Encephalitis. There was a forward thinking young neurologist in Russia, where I lived at the time, who advised to try Cerebrolysin. Nothing else helped and I was basically bed-bound for a year and a half with horrible dizziness. I had to drop out of college due to the inability to concentrate or exert any mental effort for just a few seconds. As soon as I had to focus on any subject matter, I would get horrible dizziness. I also could not walk for longer than a minute or two without getting really dizzy.

The Cerebrolysin was prescribed to me as intramuscular injections of 1 ml once a day for 30 days. The neurologist advised to repeat this course twice a year. I had done so for 4 years or so and then went to once-a-year 30-day course. At this point, I am on a once-every-two-year course of Cerebrolysin.

The result of the treatment was that I was able to go back to college and finish it. I immigrated to the US from Russia 13 years ago. I am a Senior Network Engineer making a six-figure salary. I run 10k (7 miles) several times a week, swim 2 miles, and generally feel almost completely normal. I do have some residual effects of my illness once or twice a year, and when they become more severe, I repeat a 30-day course of Cerebrolysin, which always results in a significant improvement within 10-15 days of he beginning of the course. I have been living a normal life now for almost twenty years since I was struck by that debilitating disease. I have not seen a neurologist in the US for this problem because I know how to fix it when I start getting symptoms. Cerebrolysin was not approved by the FDA when I first came to this country, so I had to have it brought to me from Russia by visiting friends. Thirteen years later, Cerebrolysin is still not approved in the US, and I have to continue to ask my friends to bring it when they come to visit. I always keep a two-three-course supply (60 - 80 doses) just in case.

I have never had any side effects from this medicine. To me, this is a miracle drug. It has been used in many countries in Europe for several decades. I know that because I have been using it for almost two decades myself. I baffles me why FDA is not approving it. Cerebrolysin is manufactures in Austria by EBEWE Pharma Ges.m.b.H.Nfg.KG. Their web address is www.ebewe.com

If your relative has a serious neurological illness that is not curable by FDA-approved medicine, I do not see any harm in trying Cerebrolysin. I don't think that it is prohibitively expensive. I have just googled it and found pharmacies (probably Canadian ones) selling it for $30 per 10 1-ml doses. For more serious neurological diseases like Alzheimer's, a higher dose (more than 1 ml per day) is required, and the treatment may cost a few hundred dollars a month. Still, this is worth trying in my opinion.

Cerebro, could you email me @ pakotlar@gmail.com . I'm going to be traveling home to Ukraine soon, and would like to pick some up. I don't know who to trust and how to get the actual Ebewe produced product. Thanks man.

I am a "totally healthy" person in the US using Cerebrolysin, injecting 5mL IM daily.

IM injection and sterile technique is not rocket science. If you haven't been to nursing school, absolutely read up on it and/or get instruction from a health professional. But don't be scared off just because it involves a needle. MS patients are routinely taught to do IM self-injection of interferons.

I can't authoritatively speak to the pharmacokinetics of IM vs. IV administration of Cerebrolysin, but the package insert specifically calls for IM administration for up to 5 mL and IV for over 5 mL, and I believe many of the animal studies used simple parenteral injection. The IM/IV distinction arises because it's not a great idea to inject more than 5 mL fluid volume at any one time into any one muscle. When administered via IV drip, the saline dilution is simply to help protect the vein from damage due to pH differences, etc.

I believe most of the human studies used doses of at least 10 mL. I've been considering trying 10 mL, in which case I will inject 5 mL IM using two different sites. IV drip is a rather time-consuming process, but if you are so inclined, inserting a needle into a vein is also not rocket science.

(FYI, Cerebrolysin is essentially a peptide drug.)

"Of the parenteral routes, only intravenous administration can be considered efficient in delivering peptide drugs to the systemic circulation. Intramuscular or subcutaneous injections are less effi­cient due to the absorption and diffusion barriers presented by the muscle mass and connective tissues under the skin. While most peptide/peptide-type drugs can be efficiently delivered to the systemic circulation by parenteral injections, a poor disposition profile still leads to low therapeutic concen­trations which necessitates high dosing frequencies. Frequent injections, besides being unpleasant to the patients, also lead to complications such as thrombophlebitis and tissue necrosis." (PMID 8042854)

So there's that.

Trevyn,
Just out of curiousity, why are you taking Cerebrolysin?

quote:

Originally posted by jellybeans:
Trevyn,
Just out of curiousity, why are you taking Cerebrolysin?

I'm interested in the potential memory/cognition enhancement effects. This is actually justified in the literature; see PMID 9700674.

Thanks for your reply.

Trevyn
Are you a doctor or nurse?
Which company do you order Cerebrolysing from?

quote:

Originally posted by jellybeans:
Trevyn
Are you a doctor or nurse?
Which company do you order Cerebrolysing from?

Nope, and I don't even play one on TV.

I'm still trying to find a favorite source, I've ordered from several sketchy online pharmacies.

Darn! I was hoping that you were a nurse with tons of IV experience who happened to live in my state with a reliable trusted source of Cerebrolysin.

It was a nice (though highly unlikely) hope while it lasted.
Thanks for all of the information you provided about Cerebrolysin though