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On Thu 25 Mar, Rebecca Hudson wrote: > Dear Listmembers, > After a recent hospital stay my medication was greatly increased. A PWP > friend told me today she thought it sounded excessive. What do you > think? > > Here is my schedule: > > 4am 50/200 CR sinemet > 6am 1/2 of 25/250 sinemet > 9am 1/2 of 25/250 > 2 .25 mg permax ( .5mg ) > 10am 50/200 CR sinemet > 12pm 1/2 of 25/250 sinemet > 2pm 2 permax > 3pm 1/2 of 25/250 sinemet > 4pm 50/200 CR sinemet > 6pm 1/2 of 25/250 sinemet > 9pm 150 mg doxapin > 1/2 of 25/250 sinemet > 50/200 CR sinemet > 2 permax > I take propulsid 3 x a day (this is new) > And lorazipam as needed > We'd appreciate any thoughts on this. > Thanks, > Rebecca Hudson > > > Hello Rebecca, I think your sinemet schedule could well be the cause of problems in later years. Remember that in a newly-diagnosed PWP, it was only a few months ago that you still had enough Dopamine-producing cells to enble you to function normally. Now that a few more cells have died off what you really want is a dose of 'Artificial Dopamine' (which is what you get from Sinemet or Madopar tablets) of a magnitude to replace those recent losses. Instead, you find doctors prescribing enormous doses (such as 250 mg )- a size of tablet which I would outlaw if I could). They do it because the effective duration of such a tablet is very large, simply because a fraction of the tablet replaces the missing dopamine, and the rest goes to feed a huge overdose. To understand how we manage to cope with overdoses at that time, yet in later years it becomes a critical factor, I would suggest that you read a couple of articles which I wrote to explain that and other aspects of Sinemet. It remains the single most important drug to PWPs even though the new Dopamine Agonists take some of the load. Between them, we get a better deal than ever before. Try this URL: http://james.parkinsons.org.uk.html -- Brian Collins <[log in to unmask]>