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my dear cyber-sibling baldwin i am yet again taking the liberty of responding to a private post publicly; i hope you don't mind [i've edited out the silly bits!!] but i think this kind of discussion is important and appropriate for the whole list-family to share in and comment on >Your analysis of the results of Steve's >taking levodopa is right on the mark. >Carbi/levo-dopa does cause nausea at first. >Also, the lack of improvement in symptoms >may be due to the levodopa. >Six hundred milligrams sounds like too much. >I have one question about that, which may >also relate to my own response to levodopa: >Can levodopa overdose directly cause "less mobility" ? >When I awaken in the morning ... >I feel relatively good and can move relatively well. >This evidently is not unusual for parkies. yep! i think that's known as the 'sleep benefit' i.e. we can build up a teeny reserve of dopamine while we are asleep and i believe the symptoms also subside while we are asleep sometimes i can walk as soon as i wake up, med-free, and sometimes i can only shuffle i think it varies in each individual [same old story!] >Right away, I take a 25/100 mg carbi/levo-dopa pill. >About 10 to 15 minutes later, I suddenly become very slow. >Sometimes I almost can not move the mouse, my feet cramp, >I take tiny steps when I walk, and I feel bad. Could >this be due to the levodopa? could be, but i would tend to think it's simply the 'sleep benefit' running out of steam i doubt that you would see any benefit from regular sinemet in 10 minutes particularly as the first dose of the day >About 1 or 1-1/4 hour after I take the pill I have dyskinesia .. >A few minutes later I can move easily and I feel relatively good. sounds to me like you're hitting a 'peak dose' dyskinesia here >I tried taking 1/2 and even 1/4 of a pill at the first, >following it with the rest of the pill later >and still had the dyskinesia - just later. how soon after the first half would you take the second half of the pill? maybe they were too close together? when i did my own mini analysis, based on brian collins' charts i rated my symptoms every half hour and noted my med and food intake in detail on a steno pad that i kept with me constantly over a period of about five days [and still do it once in awhile] that's how i arrived at a relatively smooth [for me] level of sinemet by taking half a 10/100 pill every 90 minutes every 60 minutes was too close and i dysk-oed all over the place every 120 minutes was too far and i 'kicked out' into my statue imitation >My stomach is empty when I take the pill, and I take it with water. interesting somewhere in my archyology i found a study that said taking sinemet with something sweet aided in its absorption something to do with the resulting insulin production i believe other siblings have noticed this benefit, too [joyce tames?] so i always make a point of taking my sinemet with orange juice or a non-diet soda, or sweetened iced tea, etc i tend to suspect that this small amount of carbohydrate also prevents potential stomach upset from the levodopa which i can still suffer from although to a much lesser degree than when i was a newbie at this game the medical literature describes the first few years on sinemet as 'the honeymoon period' where one usually isn't troubled by the 'on/off' phenomenon however, i suppose as in any life-long union once the honeymoon is over the real work starts! your cyber-sibling in tweaking and adjusting janet janet paterson - 50/9 - sinemet/selegiline/prozac - [log in to unmask]