This has turned into a more serious project than I first thought. Complicated as well. I'm nowhere near positing anything but I would be very interested in hearing others experiences.

This experiment actually began about six years ago on this forum with "Rosebud" as the chief instigator. A small group of us were pricking our fingers several times a day for a couple of weeks in search of the reason that we had such a hard time staying on. We found something unexpected - a pattern in the level of glucose in our blood in the mornings. It was a "ski jump" graph that climbed slowly over about a two-hour period and then dropped like a slow motion stone back to beginning levels over a fifteen minute period.

That fifteen minutes was when we went "off". We never got further than that due to a number of reasons, but I have wondered about this ever since.

I am going to try to be slow and methodical here because this is some pretty complicated stuff and I want to avoid embarrassing mistakes on this level.

First, the vinegar. The popular press and certain business people maintain that it is apple cider vinegar that matters but the little research that has been published leads me to think that it is probably the ascetic acid in all vinegars. That may not matter, but then again it might. I began a week ago with a one ounce shot glass of the ACV and nearly ended my career then and there with chemical pneumonia. It will take your breath, for sure. So I suggest that you cut it with water.

I can report one thing to you that elevated the seriousness of this in my pink little eyes - it interacts with the dopamine systems and does so quickly and powerfully. Or at least it triggered strong dyskinesia almost immediately and that would seem to stem from either an increase of transmitter or an increase in the receptor sensitivity. Either way it is worth a closer look. I have cut back the dosage to a half-tsp at mid-day and have chased the dyskinesia to when I first hit the bed. I hope to eliminate that as well tonight but we will see.

I had been having trouble with stability (staying on) and was in danger of becoming home bound. I feel much more stable now. In fact, after not leaving the house for three weeks, I have twice found myself out on my own meeting friends for breakfast followed by errands until mid-day.

I had been taking - every two hours - (1) levo/carbo controlled release (200/50) plus (1) levo/carbo standard (100/10) every two hours starting at 6 AM and ending at 8 PM. Today I took the two pill combo at 6 AM, 8 AM, 10 AM, skipped noon and went to 2 PM, then 4 PM, 6 PM, and I am sitting here at 7:57 PM and I don't want to take any more F%#%g pills and I seriously doubt that I will.

Think about that for a minute. Levodopa is a very dangerous and seemingly addictive drug. I have been taking that poisonous little so-and-so for TEN fripping years. In all that time I have left home without that "precious" little bottle exactly one time. You ever see Richard Pryor's skit where his crack pipe is seducing him? That is a junkie and, thanks to a colorful youth, I have known a few junkies. And you folks is junkies! I was too until sometime in the last few days!

It is very weird and totally unexpected. It is damn near crazy. But there are drugs that can do that. Naltrexone can drop a true, opioid addicted 60 pound junkie in his tracks at 100 yards. So can that darned vine whose name I never can get right. But somewhere in those steamy jungles one of our number named Fiona of New York wanders with the shamans.Her last note home started out, "Uh, guys, I seem to be getting better."

My point being that things happen and sometimes they happen unexpectedly. All I can say is that this was notwhat I expected. And remember the most important phrase in science is, "Now, that's odd!!.."

<Because computers are prone to jealousy and take it out on our manuscripts, I amgoing to post this a part one and will followquickly with part two. >

That darned vine is Ayahuasca -- a mix of the vine Banisteriopsis caapi, a source of MAO inhibitor and one or two other herbs containing DMT. There seems to be anecdotal evidence that it has a positive if temporary effect on pd.

btw the last I heard from Fiona, she was still moving forward.

Let me see if I can get back on track. Get back into the flow....

When that small group of intrepid rodents previously praised shed their own blood for the good of all, the strange graph that resulted seems to be what is known as reactive hypoglycemia. Now this is a controversial subject often rejected as hysterics, twaddle, etc. by the medical profession. Well, you all knw how I shun controversy, so I am going to confine myself to PD-related points as much as I can.

Reactive hypoglycemia (RH) occurs when you have the symptoms of low blood sugar but without actually having low blood sugar. See, that wasn't so hard...

What I am trying to say is that hypoglycemia results when glucose drops below a threshold of 40 units and the brain becomes at risk and klaxons start going off and in some cases you die. But with RH, the threshold is up about 70 and although the symptoms are the same they are NOT due to your blood sugar dropping. Instead, they are the result of your endocrine system going bat - sh%t crazy and flooding your system with stress hormones in an attempt to raise your vital signs (which are just fine without the help, although it would be nice if you could adjust that darned threshold......)

So you find yourself floating in sea of cortisol, adrenaline, noradrenaline, aldosterone, and god knows what else and everyone of them set to make you go to pieces.

And when this happens your PD symptoms go wlld. And you go OFF! And if anyone checks your glucose the readings are going to look great because it is not the number that is the problem, it is the out of adjustment threshold!

Well, that is as far as I have gotten in this but I will keep on. It offers hope of a new way of dealing with some of the more miserable non-motor symptoms - OFFS and freezing for starters.

G'nite.