Hi Matthew,

I have been hoping you would check in with us and wondered how your mom is faring. I think the journal is a fantastic idea and one that becomes even more important to maintain as things advance and medications become more complicated; this is of course, if the neuro determines it is indeed PD and symptoms eventually advance.

It sounds as if your mother is doing world's better although not quite back to where you would like to see her. Sigh- PD, very stealthily and slowly, tends to rob of us of things we take for granted. It's amazing how the medication can restore us to near optimal levels, sometimes we get caught up in the bigger, more disabling symptoms and lose sight of the little things like you note voice inflection or emphasis, and "color", or expressing emotion. Oddly, we don't always note that we are losing these things; it takes a close family member or friend to comment and note when they are lost or regained for us to even register the loss.

Your mother is currently taking Sinemet 25/100 three times daily? This is a very normal starting dose and if the CR is used and works well with her system (we don't all metabolize this the same way), she may see some extended benefit. When you do take note of her in your journal, you may want to keep track of how she is toward a dose ending. Sinemet has a very short half life of an hour and a half or so. I think when people first beging using it they see benefit from 3-5 hours, so you may want to ask her questions as to how she is doing near the end of a dose or observe and take notes only to get a baseline reading of how long a dosage benefits her. This may help in her med management too down the road.

Good luck with the neurologist and let us know how it goes.

Laura