On Fri 29 Nov, James Johnston wrote:
> Hi. I'm not sure I agree with the statement that it is better to take
> 1/2 of a 25/100 every 2 hours than a whole one every four hours.
> With a half a pill you get a different peak concentration of the drug in
> your blood than with a whole pill. In other words, with a whole tablet
> your blood level goes up higher, so it might relieve the symptoms
> better. I think you should find the dose that gives you the effect you
> want (1/2, tablet, whole tablet) then see how long that effect lasts
> (1.5 hours, 2 hours, 3 hours). Then your schedule is based on that. Does
> anyone else do it this way? Carol Johnston ARNP
>
>
Somehow, I knew that I wouldn't get away with my rather generalised example.
The point which I was trying to make is that If you take a tablet with an
effective life of about 2 hours (e.g. Sinemet) once every 4 hours, you are
going to have 2 hours over or under-medicated, depending on your particular
requirements, followed by 2 hours of no medication. (= misery)
I have gone into the concept of 'Peak Concentration' in some detail (As Ron
Vetter will recall) and I think it has little relevance to what happens when
the Levodopa actually reaches the brain. However that is another (large)
subject for another time.
I would not dream of working out my dosage regime in this way, as there are
such a lot of variables to account for, so I wrote a computer program to help.
If you would like to see a description of the program, and how to prepare
input for it, take a look at the URL given below ( This page is part of Ron
Vetters Web site, which he generously made available for me to use for the
program description.
http://www.ridgecrest.ca.us/~rfvetter/brianspd.html
If you get no response, split the URL in two:
Go to http://www.ridgecrest.ca.us/ - This gets you into the site.
Then go to ~rfvetter/brianspd.html This finds my page.
Regards,
--
Brian Collins <[log in to unmask]>
