My friend Jan replaced Sinemet with an amino acid with Mucuna Pruriens combo; this was an extremely difficult but rewarding change once she got through crisis of change. She had no other choice at the time, given how badly Sinemet was going for her. After two years, she cycled back onto Sinemet because of cost of the amino/mucuna regime and had a very brief honeymoon with it, but then again, she didn't do very well on Sinemet for long, especially at the doses she seemed to need. Dyskinesa galore.

A few months into this, she added an amino acid-rich vegetable complex, the Neurogenic Extracts, and was able to reduce too much (for her) Sinemet to a single tablet of 10/100. That was a year ago. Since then, without support from the vegetable extracts, she's reduced from a high of 4.5 tablets / day and is now at 3 tablets. She seems to do better on the Merck brand, still taking the 10 / 100 formulation.

Any drug change takes lots of support. We found that the minimum timeframe a dose change to settle in is about 10 days an, from there, to allow about 3 weeks to a month or so for stabilization before the next reduction. Not to push until there's stabilization.

Now, she's looking like Amantadine is going to need to be eliminated from her regime. Here we go again.


Best wishes!
Trisha