Originally Posted by nickvalo

Hello everyone! This is my first post, so I wanted to quickly send a BIG THANK YOU to all of the regulars on this forum. My Mom has Parkinson's and I've been immersing myself with information about the condition. Reading your personal experiences has been the most valuable source of information!!

After reading quite a bit about PD, there seems to be credibility to the idea that it may not just be a lack of dopamine that results in PD, but also imbalances in other neurotransmitters like norepinephrine and maybe others. It also seems like it's possible that carbidopa, as a general decarboxylase agent, may also inhibit the synthesis of tryptophan to seratonin ... leading to or contributing to depression. My Mom, like many other PWP, also suffers from depression and is on an SSRI to increase seratonin levels ... again showing that more than just dopamine is in play in this complicated condition (whether it's directly or indirectly related to PD or carbidopa).

Being new to the PD world and coming from an engineering/troubleshooting background, I was surprised that my Mom's neuro made no effort to actually measure my Mom's neurotransmitter levels and has taken a very myopic view of just using sinemet to increase dopamine levels. There is no analysis to see what else may be off balance that is contributing to the root cause of her PD ... or off balance because of the sinemet/carbidopa.

All this is just background to my real question ...

Do any of you have experience with a treatment plan that includes getting periodic blood platelet measurements of your catecholemine levels? It seems like a good idea to get a measure on the various neurotransmitter levels and treat accordingly in an effort to bring a balance ... and to make sure that certain neurotransmitters are not being depleted by her current therapy (e.g., carbidopa) over time. One example could be that if we find that her norepinephrine levels are low, maybe an antidepressive medication that works on both serotonin and norepinephrine may be a better option verus an SSRI. Another example could be that if we try a more natural approach like l-tyrosine or mucuna instead of sinemet, how does that affect her neurotransmitter levels. If we have measurements over time (e.g, every 6 months), we can track changes and make adjustments as necessary.

Any thoughts, feedback, criticism, experience with this approach?

THANK YOU in advance!