My dad has had Parkinsons for approximately 6 years or so now, with the last 4 on Sinemet.
His doctor added Comtan to his regimen back in November. Since the. We have noticed some disturbing behavior.
He was on 3 25/100 tablets every three hours between 7am and 7pm. When the doc added Comtan, he said he could take one full pill with every dose. Well, that was a disaster. He got to the end of the 2nd day and was as dyskenetic as I had ever seen him, heart racing, said he felt like he was coming out of his skin.
I got him to reduce the Comtan to every other dose. He was still incredibly wired all the time so we reduced the Comtan to 1/2 every other dose.
Dr. Okun had mentioned that he recommends that his patients who have trouble with Comtan move their doses closer together and reduce the Comtan.
So I got him to do 2 pills every 2 hours, and wanted to get him to 1 1/2 to see if that was adequate to give him benefit without all the side effects.
He shops compulsively, is sorting and organizing nuts and bolts in the garage until 10pm (and claims he does that because if he sits for any length of time he stiffens up and can't move), has odd thoughts and sometimes, esoecially towards the end of the day seems disjointed in his speech as well. Not to mention that he and my mom fight like cats and dogs.
He looks strung out physically. Both my mom and I are going to go to his next doctors appointment with his neuro with him, but should we continue to try and taper him down in the meantime?
His doctor gave him license to fiddle with timing etc of his dosages, but it just seems like he's getting far too much dopamine.
Anyone have any experience with anything similar happening?