@alju

I was diagnosed with MCI in April 2026. The only cognitive med I'm taking is donepezil (Aricept). I've been taking 5mg daily for about 3 weeks. For the last few days, I've seen an improvement in my memory. It's not a big improvement, but it's noticeable. 2-3 times a day I easily remember something I wouldn’t have remembered before. But there are still dozens of things I can't remember.

I can increase to the standard 10mg dose in 1-3 weeks. Interestingly donepezil has been an Alzheimer’s drug for 30 years. In the US it is the longest-established Alzheimer’s medication that remains in routine use. Two similar other acetylcholinesterase inhibitor drugs are Rivastigmine (Exelon) and Galantamine (Razadyne). My MD confirms that donepezil has been around the longest and is the safest.

One great thing is that donepezil is one of the least expensive of any prescription drugs, not just Alzheimer’s drugs. It should be free with any reasonable insurance plan. But even without insurance, it should only cost about $10/month out of pocket for a daily 10mg dose. I wouldn't bother with the original brand name Aricept. It can be really, really expensive.

Here's what ChatGPT 5.5 Medium says: "Donepezil is an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor. It increases the availability of acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter important for attention, learning, encoding new information, and retrieving information already stored.
A responder may notice things such as: holding onto a thought or intention longer; remembering recent conversations or requests more reliably; less frequently losing track of what they were doing; greater mental clarity or alertness; easier word retrieval; better concentration and organization; fewer episodes in which information disappears almost immediately."