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Peter, i started with Sinemet as medication in 1984 when diagnosed. i am still taking carbidopa/levodopa. my suggestion to you is to start taking the drug that is part of the bodies own chemicals. it is the best choice overall. however, the dosing is not optimized unless one is lucky enough to get advice from a physician who recommends using all that we know about the dosing itself and the interferences that food choices and timing can cause. the tablets available are not optimum size for most people. looking into the pharmacokinetics of Sinemet was quite beneficial to me. The data is not easily available - and there is much variability - especially with the CR version tablets. i invite your perusal of this info which is available on my website. i am not a medical professsional. my chemical engineering education and career made it relatively easy to learn a little. to recognize that blood concentration of levodopa is the primary factor in how one functions is most important. it is best to not have high peaks (overdose) nor too little. the half-life is about an hour for levodopa alone. the carbidopa extends this measure of time required for the concentration to reduce to half - to about 2.5 hours. thus, taking carbidopa/levodopa is best done at 2.5 hour intervals with the amount being that which is sufficient to alleviate symptoms in your case at the time 3 hours after you take the medication. it takes half an hour typically for the digestion->movement into intestine -> absorbtion into blood to occur. since 75 mg. per day of carbidopa is sufficient , using 3 25/100 (smallest amount of levodopa in US tablets) is the usual dosing. because there is nausea for most if taken with empty stomach, at first the pills are taken before the three meals. this ignores the halflife and the loss of some levodopa due to digestion of the meals. (if lots of protein and fats, there will be little left when the material enters the small intestine where it can be absorbed.) there is often enough to give benefit for the 5 or six hours between meals for the recently diagnosed. efficiency will be using half-tablets six times a day with ingestion 30 minutes before the meal. taking a very small amount of carbohydrate to stimulate digestive juices with the medication is good - as is taking several crackers, pretzels, or a handfull or two of dry multigrain cheerios or a prune or such 20 minutes after each pill to move the medication out of the stomach. hope you find this helpfull, ron -- Ron Vetter 1936, '84 PD dz [log in to unmask] http://www.ridgecrest.ca.us/~rfvetter