best of luck.
i certainly found i had to become an advocate for my parents and my kids whenever healthcare was involved. my parent's generation had complete faith in physicians.
fwiw, my neuro is great, very interested in trying alternatives IF i recommend them but he's never going to recommend them himself due to legal liabilities.

sinemet contains a natural occuring amino acid and carbidopa. less than 5% of levodopa gets to your brain so of 300 mg of sinemet, 15mg might get to your brain. maybe a lot more gets to your mother's brain. but think about how much amino acids gets into your bloodstream when eating something high in protein such as cheese, tofu, chicken? it's an awfully safe drug.

http://health.nytimes.com/health/gui...ase/print.html