Ok, catching up a little bit here - I take this product made by America's Finest Inc. (!) called HGH 400 - it is mucuna pruriens, standardized to 15% l-dopa. So I just do a little math, and take the same amount which would be in 1 Sinemet 25/100 which is two caps of this product. I have tried removing it from the capsules and heating it - didn't seem to make a difference one way or the other, although taking it out of the caps and mixing it into applesauce or yogurt seems to make it work a little faster. I have been using it to replace most of my Sinemet for the past two months or so, and feel better than I did. I still take the Stalevo and Amantadine (but less of the latter), and now this is my fifth day totally off the Neupro patch at last (without replacing it with any other agonist), and I seem to be feeling better every day. Don't get that daily feeling like I'm dying at some point or other.

Keith, as to anything I've heard bad about mucuna - well, not really except sometimes it doesn't work in a given dose or you can have dyskinesia with it. But I'm still experimenting - on the whole I feel much evener and - well, healthier than before. I have struggled with some nightmares, but I did long before I tried mucuna, and I feel it has more to do with withdrawal from the agonists. A lot of self-determination and meditation seems to be keeping that symptom under control.