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Betti Adams:
 
First, I don't think too many of us were confused when you replied to Sara's
message, but addressed it to me!
 
Second, on how it was possible to reduce Dad's meds.  We had passively
accepted everything the doctor(s) said as truth until I began reading some of
the posts in this message base.  However, it was not until my father received
an accidental overdose of Sinemet while hospitalized for pneumonia that we
really began to realize the Sinemet itself can cause dimentia, and it was
only after his VA neurologist insisted that Sinemet could NOT be responsible
that we began to seriously question all of his treatments.
 
Dad, like many other older PDers also suffers from other illnesses, one of
which is variously diagnosed as bronchial asthma, or emphysema.  Our personal
research into one of the medications for that disease (Theophylline, brand
name Theodur) revealed that it, too, could cause dimentia and hallucinations.
 We asked permission to decrease the dosage or cut it out altogether.  There
was an immediate increase in periods of lucidity (lucidiness? lucididiness?)
We also began to chart Dad's lucid periods relative to his medications and
discovered that he was much more lucid in the a.m. when he had spent the
entire night without medication, and began to go completely "out of his head"
around 5-6:00 p.m. (after his third daily dose of Sinemet).  We requested to
decrease the Sinemet, and charted a further improvement in his condition.
 
Like Sara, my sisters have had the option of "playing with" Dad's medication
dosages for quite a while.  One problem with Dad is that he doesn't want his
medications "tampered with" without direct order from his doctor.  Thanks to
his family doctor, my sisters (both primary caretakers) now have a new
resource--a visiting nurse twice a week.  Dad seems to take her as an
extension of the doctor (which she is).  So that if she approves a medicine
change, it's okay with him, too.
 
Thanks also to the family doctor, Dad has a source of oxygen in the home now,
which will hopefully prevent him from hospitalizations and the chance of
overdose or, even worse, the possiblity that he might "catch" a worse disease
than the one he went in with. (He was once, while hospitalized with
pneumonia, roomed with a man who had a bacterial lung infection!)
 
I don't know if this helps you or not.  I just know that it seemed to help us
(and him) when we became more aware of the apparent effects of his
medications.
 
I wish you luck.
 
Manderwiz aka Joyce Saylor