At HDDW we believe that Huntington's disease is treatable.  And in this section we provide information on prescription drugs that are available for treatment of symptoms, nutritional supplements that may have some benefit (based on early animal model data), and exercise that can be used now by HD patients.  All of the listed treatments require direction and supervision by your own doctor.  We encourage you to learn about, and if appropriate seek out these treatments.

Why encouragement?  Huntington's people are often under-treated, especially outside of specialty centers. There are several reasons for this.  Huntington's patients don't visit their doctors frequently because of the belief that there are no treatments.  The "why bother" attitude.  Another reason is that many physicians are not familiar with available treatments when patients come; or even worse they believe that Huntington's is untreatable.

Our goal is to provide information that may be helpful to you and your doctor and to encourage you to seek treatments that can improve the quality of your life. We will give dosage information on medications, not to suggest specific dosage for any individual, but to acquaint you with the range of prescribing that is used. All of the treatments listed at HDDW require direction and close supervision by your own doctor.

Treatment Categories: Treatments are separated into two categories: those that are used for symptoms and those that may be useful for neuroprotection or slowing of HD progression. Data on neuroprotection is sparse, and as more data becomes available it is often contradictory; with some investigators reporting benefit, while others report lack of benefit for the same tested drug or supplement.  

Symptom Treatments: This category provides treatment information for movement symptoms (chorea and rigidity) and for a variety of psychiatric symptoms that are related to mood (like depression), and behavior disturbance (like irritability).  This information can be less confusing if you remember two points.  First, the same medication can treat many different symptoms.  For instance SSRI antidepressants are the first drugs of choice to treat several psychiatric symptoms including depression, anxiety, irritability and perseverative (obsessive) behaviors.  Second, the treatment of one severe symptom may require drug combinations. 

Another important fact to remember is that the scientific evidence-base for any treatment in Huntington's is surprisingly slim.  For movement symptoms, only tetrabenzazine has been well studied.  For psychiatric symptoms the situation is worse; there are no large studies in Huntington's patients demonstrating efficacy of any single drug, and no large studies comparing the benefit of one drug to another.  This means that doctors prescribe drugs for HD symptoms based on their own experience and on results from studies in other diseases.

Neuroprotective Treatments:  This category provides information on treatments, both prescription drugs and supplements that may be neuroprotective. Though no neuroprotective treatment, or one that delays progression of disease has been proved for Huntington's, we will favor those that have early evidence of benefit from human testing.  Though the mouse model system has not been validated, we will be biased towards those that show confirmed benefit in these models that has been confirmed in multiple laboratories.

It must be understood that there is no certainty of benefit for any of the treatments covered here; and that what works in a mouse may not translate to benefit in people. I urge you to weigh the evidence and make your own decision.  But be safe: use supplements that have been consumer lab tested, make sure your doctor knows which ones you are taking.  Be careful with large doses for which there is no human safety data.  It is best to take large doses only in a clinical trial setting.