I've been doing pretty well for the past 6 months, and last Monday I saw my neuro due to some complications with Klonipin and a check up. We went through the usual tap the foot, stand up with the arms crossed tests, and then she asked me to move my hands. My right hand was actually better than my left hand this time. The fingers moved nicely as I tapped quickly between the thumb and each finger. This is also a piano playing finger independence exercise so I wonder if this helps because I do it daily to keep my fingers mobile.

My left hand was downright sore like I had been squeezed in a press. The fingers stayed clenched and I was in great pain as I moved my fingers slowly apart. I even had trouble grabbing anything or even holding the steering wheel on my way to the appointment. For the next few days, the hand continued to clench tightly to a point I had bruises on the palm. By Sunday this week, the hand had calmed down and everything was back to normal. I couldn't even play the piano during that tight period.

Well I thought everyone was happy, but yesterday I had the same thing happen again. This was while I was playing my clavichord. I was playing something with an Alberti bass pattern - pinky-thumb, middle-finger thumb (5-1; 3-1), repeated over and over for measures on end at a quick tempo. This is used by Mozart and Haydn a lot in case you're wondering. This time my fingers got slower and slower, tighter and tighter to a point where I had to stop because of the pain in the hand. Interesting though. If this was tension, there would have been pain in my arm but there was none there; just in the hand its self. The hand immediately clenched up and was stiff for the rest of the day.

Now this is interesting... I had only one dose of Sinemet in me at this point, and I was at more than mid-point in my dose. Over the course of the day, the hand got better, and by last night I played the piano quite normally. This morning, I woke up with my right hand clenching this time, and it has made it difficult to type and drive. After my second dose of Sinemet - 11:00 am, my right hand came back to normal.

All the while this clenching is taking place, my bicep muscles are extremely sore. I have even looked at them to see if I bruised something. They feel like I walked into a doorway, or someone noogied me with their knuckles. These tend to calm down after the Sinemet dose but the pain is there all the time.

My feet are doing nasty things too again, and usually in the wee hours of the morning. My neuro has me taking a Parcopa, and that seems to kill the spasms pretty well but they leave me exhausted the rest of the day.

So what do ya'll think is going on?
More medication?
A change perhaps in my schedule again?
A change in medication?

It's a bit frustrating - like being kicked where it hurts most because I was doing so well for so long that I started to forget I had a problem.

John