I was on Mirapex for a while for my RLS. I HATED it with a passion. Not only did it not help with my symptoms, but for the first couple of weeks it felt like it made them worse. And the brain drain? It was horrible. I couldn't remember the names of my coworkers that I see every day, I would stand up from my chair, but forget why within seconds, and start on a task only to lose interest in it a few minutes later. It was like fibro fog, only 10 times worse. But by far the most serious side effect for me was the wakeful sleeping. My brain would temporarily shut down like it was asleep, but my body was still awake. I had a couple of instances where I would be in one place, and several minutes later be someplace else, with absolutely no memory whatsoever of going from point A to point B. The last instance almost killed me-I was driving to work one morning, and we have a long quiet stretch of road near our airport I used to drive. That morning, I remember leaving home, getting in the car, turning at the first stoplight, and a few miles later, waking up to the sound of screeching tires and honking horns. I had driven for several minutes without being aware of it, and blew threw a red light at 50 miles per hour. I almost hit another car and a pickup that had the green light. Needless to say, that woke me up pretty quick, and I managed to get to work. As soon as I arrived, I called my doc, explained to the nurse that I almost took out innocent bystanders, and demanded to be seen immediately. She said she would have the doctor call me back. After a couple days, I heard nothing, so I stopped the meds cold turkey.
Eventually, the doctor did call me back, and casually asked me what the problem was, and said he could try to fit me in the next week. I yelled at him that if he didn't care that I almost killed me and a couple of other people, then he didn't care for me as a patient, and to stick his script where the sun don't shine, and I haven't looked back since. The downside was that for a few months after that, my legs felt like they had a mind of their own, and I would have given anything to have had them amputated. But they finally calmed down for the most part, and I'm back at square one, no better or worse than when I got diagnosed. Perhaps not everyone has bad reactions to the Mirapex, but I haven't heard a lot of good testimonials.