Hi everyone trying to help me: It seems we all have had problems and some are still struggling to find the optimum medication. My problem is I am symptomatic with vertigo, nausea, rigid legs, tremors in the legs and arms at night (like a stranded seal with flippers flipping) stomach muscle spasms, burning restless legs, acute sense of smell as if the air in my bedroom is toxic (that is a subject in its own right).

Hence I have not experienced a switch on and switch off – at least not at present. I have been keeping a Sinemet diary for a week. I used to take Sinemet Plus (100 mg of Levodopa and 25 mg of Carbidopa ) 3 times a day at 6 am – 2 pm and 10 pm. Only clue to the efficacy of this dosage was my ability to touch typing again and being able to walk inside the house without rigidity and turn swiftly. Ron pointed out that this left me with no Levodopa in the blood stream for several hours at a time, and I needed to even out the peaks and troughs by taking the same total dosage in 50mg parcels every 4 hours. I have more or less done that and the result is much much worsening of rigidity, vertigo, muscle exhaustion (blamed on Chronic Fatigue), freezing, micrographia. Last night I was tremoring so much that I could hardly sleep.

The regime was a simple division of 300 mg of Levodopa in to six parcels of 50 mg each taken at 4 hour intervals instead of 8 hour intervals. It made things worse, as I was under-medicated.

SO I am now on to regime 3 on week 3. Start the day off with 2 hefy doses and then 4 equally fractioned doses of 50mg each at 3 hour intervals -6 doses in all per day.

Ron Recommended:

taking the first dose as late as possible, 6-00am if you can't take it later.
Then 50mg every 3 hours giving;
6-00 100mg
9-00 100mg
12-00 50mg
3-00pm 50mg
6-00pm 50mg
8-00pm 50mg

Suggested 2 x 100 in the morning is an attempt to see if one can be on all morning, and to get some idea of one’s responsiveness to L-Dopa.

He also advised me to keep careful notes of what time I switch on and time I switch off.

Lindy was also trying to get this information from me.
"whether you are having any relief at all from your symptoms, and if so how long after you take your sinemet?"

In Ron’s words
“In the long run, you will gain experience and confidence to optimise your own regime.
Others can only suggest what they have found helpful.
We will get there, but you have to be prepared to test various regimes, and select the one that works for you.”

I will report back should this be of help to anyone new to Levodopa or cannot get it to work.

On day 1 alone, I have improved amazingly, spells lasting an hour when I can move, carry plates, although I still cannot get in an out of arm chairs without help nor get my legs over in to the bed which is 57 cm high from the floor

Rick, thank you for your innovative advice. Some day I will try it if all else fails. I am too frail of heart right now. Meanwhile thanks again to everyone who reached out to me.

Kenki