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hi bruce; In a message dated 1998/09/27 09:38:44, you write: <<How does one know when you are ready for 50/200, or 10/100, or CR, or liquid vs the standard 25/100 version? Thanks. >> in a nutshell: lots of choices to answer lots of needs! as pd progresses, dopamine management becomes more critical and sensitivity to levodopa becomes more noticable put another way, the effective 'window' for best results from oral intake of levodopa becomes smaller as time marches on in my early days [early in terms of diagnosis, but my symptoms were debilitating by then] my med schedule was 50/200 sinemet three times a day = 50mg carbidopa / 200mg levodopa every 240 minutes i never noticed any variation in my response to the meds i just knew my symptoms were under control after a few years i started to notice i was 'running out of steam' and stiffening up, i.e bradykinetic, at the end of a dose period and then getting 'twitchy' i.e. dyskinetic, as the new dose took effect i had started on the under-medicated/over-medicated roller coaster and was advised to take the same amount of levodopa but in half doses and twice as often in order to 'smooth out' the brain's exposure to dopamine my med schedule was changed to 10/100 [or 25/100] six times per day = [10 or 25] / 100 every 140 minutes and my on/off roller coaster ride flattened out nicely [a side note: daily carbidopa level is recommended at 75-150 total, so i used some 25/100 sinemet to adjust the carbidopa portion] a few years later i made a similar adjustment since i was noticing the 'on/off' fluctuation again my med schedule was changed again = [5 or 12] / 50 every 90 minutes i figured out this as optimum timing by following brian collins' symptom observation recommendations in detail for several days the benefits were a smoothing out of the on/off fluctuation due to over/under medication and an overall daily reduction in sinemet intake once in awhile i tried sinemet cr as an alternative but it always made me dyskinetic as well as dyspeptic i am now looking foward to trying tasmar as a means of smoothing out the supply of levodopa to the brain since on/off fluctuations are bugging me again and any food intake seems to 'kill' the sinemet i have not tried liquid sinemet but if tasmar were not available that would be my next technique in dopamine management to make a long story shorter pd symptoms = under medication dyskinesia = over medication the golden mean ono average ono median whatever is the goal and the goal posts are ever changing your cyber-sibling janet janet paterson - 51/10 - almonte/ontario/canada http://www.newcountry.nu/pd/members/janet/ [log in to unmask]