not sure if "better" is the right term, the pump bypasses the digestive system so if that is where the problem lays, i.e. slow gastric emptying, leaky gut,etc. i would speculate the pump would be better than this accordion pill. and i have to assume that the pump delivered l-dopa dosage will get to the brain sooner than anything you take orally so i would expect you would reach "ON" sooner. the drugs for the pump are at least 3x more expensive though.

i'll throw this out, to make the old time regular release (IR) and controlled release(CR) 100% more "USEFUL" as you progress, encourage competition among generic manufacturers and less consolidation, what are there, 3 generics left after TEVA sold their generic C/L and you can't get that formulation anymore, please correct me if i'm wrong. sounds trivial but not to me. but more importantly, what a lot of us could benefit from is a good rescue drug like inhaled l-dopa and the sublingual apomorphine strip, something that bypasses the digestive system. that would be the cheapest improvement. at my stage of pd, where i'm taking just C/L - battling to try to tolerate pramipaxole but it's not looking good - food is my worst enemy. now maybe these yet to be released products are greatly affected by food, they still have to run interference thru any amino acids similar to l-dopa that is in your blood, but i'm assuming they will benefit you, especially if you take them 30-40min before eating and give them a head start. so you could conceivably work out a routine with regular IR and CR and the "rescue" drugs if/when they come to market. just amazes me how much these new C/L drugs cost, isn't RYTARY something like $800/month?