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Hello Yen, Hi! This is Krishna Ayala. After reading your letter, I was amazed at the similarities in our cases. I was diagnosed with PD at the age of 30. My neurologist put me on 3 sinemet 25/100 a day and I was doing wonderfully.....each dose would keep me going for at least 4-5 hrs. I was ecstatic because that meant I could still work to my fullest capacity. Four months later, I became pregnant with my first child. That was the beginning of my downward slide. Don't mistake this statement to think that I blame my pregnacy for it. Never once have I regretted the fact that I was going to have a baby. I'm just stating facts as they occurred to me. I did fine during the first trimester (1st three months of pregnancy). During the second trimester, however, the sinemet efficiency dropped down to 2 1/2 hours. That caused me great alarm. I told my neuro about it, and he increased my dosage to 4 sinemet a day. By the end of my third trimester I was up to 5 sinemet a day and each sinemet was effective for only an hour! I was in a state of panic. I had to do work in the office, come home and do the dishes and cook food for me my husband. It was getting extremely dificult to carry out these duties when my sinemet was good for only an hour. and, yes, I forgot to mention the fact that I lived in new jersey and worked in new york...commute time each way 1 1/2 hours, which meant I was on the bus to or from the office for 3 hours a day and I always felt that whenever I was 'on' while commuting, it was valuable time wasted!!somehow, I managed to make it through my pregnancy and work at the same time. By now, I was extremely depressed and frustrated. There is only so much a person could do by being 'on' for 5 hours out of 24. Specially when the 'on' times were extremely dyskinetic and 'off's were extremely rigid. This was in 1989. Fortunately at work, I had very good and understanding bosses, and what the heck, call me immodest if you will, but I work fast and produce accurate timely output, which meant that the projects I worked on , were always delivered on time. I managed to drag on this way for until april of 1992, when I felt that I was becoming rather unproductive and then I informed my boss that I'd like to go on long term disability. To which he agreed. That was the end of my job. The days that followed, were equally miserable, because I missed my work and my condition wasn't getting any better, only worse. All this time at home caused me to think a lot about the whole situation from a different perspective. I came to the conclusion that the cause of my quick deterioration was because of the high dosage of sinemet taken in the early stages of PD. I'm serious about this. It is true in my case at least. But, it was too late by now. What was done could not be reversed. I did however get down to 3 sinemet a day after my delivery. But my 'on's and 'off's were either too dyskinetic or too rigid. I did see 3 other top neurologists in the newyork, new jersey area and all three concluded that my body was extremely sensitive to sinemet. It's been nine years now since my diagnosis, and in the meantime , I've had a pallidotomy performed (nov. '95) on the right side of brain because my left side was far worse than the right. For about 6 months after surgery, I can't tell you how good it was. I was able to sleep thru the night after about 7 yrs of insomniac hell. But, I seem to be in a no-win situation, for 6 months after surgery, my pd worsened and has been taking a dip every 6 months following. However, I have never regretted the surgery, for without it I'd have been worse off! I'm glad I had it done when I had it done. Right now, I'm on mirapex but my response to it , tho definitely an improvement over the sinemet/permax combination, is still not as good as the others have reported it to be. I'm seeing my neuro again next wk too see what can be done to improve the situation. So, Yen, my advice to you would be....go slow on the sinemet. In case u r interested, I went thru a perfecly normal delivery and my son was perfectly normal. He is now an active and healthy 8 yr old boy. I thank God for that. Feel free to ask me any doubts u might have. I'll be glad to help u. good luck to u. regards......krisayala e-mail [log in to unmask] ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com