Hello
I'd be grateful if anyone can read this and offer insights. Apologies for the long message.

Hello
My 83 year old father (who lives in Ireland) was diagnosed a few months ago after responding to a low dose of Sinemet 25/100 - 3 half tablets a day (this was the diagnostic technique used).
His symptoms before treatment were staring eyes, slight shuffling gait (but we missed this as he needed a hip replacement which he refused for years), slept a lot, really hard to understand speech, drooling, very hard to notice tremor in one hand, seeming distant, his spark had gone (he used to have a big personality, funny, active, happy-go-lucky kind of guy).

We feel bad that we didn't suspect Parkinson's. It didn't cross our minds. We wondered if he'd had another stroke (he had a mini one ten tears before). We asked the hospital to do some investigations as things were getting worse. In retrospect, he probably had symptoms for at least 2 years.

The sinemet seemed to help. His speech was much clearer, his personality seemed to come back which was lovely. He was less foggy.
Seemed like a magic pill. The docs were pleased and said that as he was on a low dose ("which we'd give to an old lady not a big man like him"), they'd up it to 3 tabs a day of 25/100 and Sinemet CR before bed.

After a few days he became confused
and had hallucinations and was uneasy. His movement didn't seem to improve. The CR tablet was stopped but the negative confusion and hallucination continued. We gradually dropped it back to 3 half tablets a day to see if that improved things. It seemed to ease the confusion a bit.

All of this was then thrown up in the air as he had the hip replacement a few weeks ago (with spinal not general anaesthesia). Whilst in hospital the docs upped his dose back to the three tablets and the CR tablet at night.

Since the op (about a month ago) he's been confused, has little strength, paranoid, hallucinations, disturbed sleep at night and has been sleeping loads in the day. The op went well and his recovery physically is good. We have reduced the dose gradually back to the three half tablets a day to see if any improvement. He seems slightly less confused but it's still there as is his lack of strength.

At this point I feel we need to wean him off so we can start at a base point again with no medication. Things are getting worse and he was more mobile before any of this. I'm wondering if what we are seeing is medication side effects or the advance of his PD or something else.

It's tough as he's in another country and my mother is struggling to cope. We are planning on moving them to my sister's so we can keep a more consistent watch but that will take a few months.

We are very new to this world and reading a lot but I'd welcome any insights and to ask what others would do while we get up to speed.

Thanks
Bernie