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Dear Cyber-sis 'n -family... For what it's worth... After having a hysterectomy in 1989, leaving me with instant menopause, I was put on Estraderm estrogen patches. The patches provide a steady flow of estrogen continuously. At the same time, then as now, I was taking a half of a 25/250 Sinemet 2 to 3 times daily. I had no apparent menopausal off-ons or mood-swings. To this day I still use ERT (estrogen replacement therapy) and get the estrogen via the patches. I'm now using a newer patch with a weekly-change-of-patch, rather than the change-to-a-new-patch twice weekly as I did originally - with no physical or emotional changes with the change of TYPE of patches. That said, if I ever forget to change an estrogen patch on the scheduled day, I have about a 6 or 7 hour "window" of feeling/staying the same, i.e., normal for me on my meds, and THEN my system goes out of kilter rapidly! Shaking (different from the classic PD tremor), stiffness, jerky-movements, worsening imbalance. Since having ALL these symptoms simultaneously is very rare for me, should I get 'em I recognize it's 'instant-reassessment time." And I almost always can trace the sudden imbalance to my forgetting to change the old estrogen patch to a fresh one (tho for the past 2 months I can attribute a similar reaction to Mirapex wearing off and providing me with similar symptoms) <another story> Soooo... for ME, the ERT is something I consider to be of value. Barb Mallut [log in to unmask] ---------- From: Parkinson's Information Exchange on behalf of janet paterson Sent: Sunday, October 26, 1997 12:57 AM To: Multiple recipients of list PARKINSN Subject: Estrogens and PD hi ralph you wrote: >Does Estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) have an adverse effect on PD? >Has anyone had experience with ERT and PD? >Dr Sessions et al in Med Hypothesis 1994 April 42(4): 280-282 refers to >"numerous studies" showing an adverse effect on PD symptoms when ERT was >given. However I can't find any other references for this subject. ralph, you have touched on one of my pet peeves my understanding is that 'numerous studies' is a slight exaggeration i believe that there have been numerous anecdotal reports but pitifully few actual clinical studies i have a slew of info on female hormones and how they affect pd which i could send to you separately if you wish the bottom line for me is that i believe high levels of estrogen virtually wipe out sinemet's effect these high levels can occur predictably during normal menses cycles or erratically during the craziness of hormone swings in menopause or, possibly, by using hrt for example, in re menopausal me, my med/symptom control routine is pretty smooth and predictable with 'off' periods of maybe 15 minutes a couple of times a day however, when estrogen rears its ugly head i can be 'off' for four or five hours at a stretch many times over a period of several days apparently there are one or two med steps that could be attempted to help address this situation [based on no studies, though] but i'm pretty chicken about fooling with my brain chemistry and figure, hey, i got through puberty, i can get through this my impression is that once the estrogen levels drop after menopause there is no longer any interference with the sinemet/levodopa with love to you and yours your cyber-sis janet janet paterson - 50/9 - sinemet/selegiline/prozac - [log in to unmask]