Follow me for a minute if you will. It has been known for ninety years that levodopa causes an increase in blood sugar in rabbits and, presumably, in humans as well. If true, then we get a spike in our blood sugar everytime we take a levodopa/carbodopa tablet. I have no reason to think that a similar reaction occurs with agonists or other drugs, but that simply leaves the issue open.

Assuming that the effect is limited to those of us who depend on L/C, that means that many, if not most, of us will walk into the problem at some point in our patient careers and will experience the sudden rush of insulin flooding our systems, the surge and retreat of glucose being sucked out of our blood and into the muscle cells, the similar movement of potassium out of reach that can turn us into zombies, the imbalance as we confront a similar movement of magnesium, the action of the kidneys as they attempt to fill their role in the balancing act by concentrating urine and peeing away excess water, the resulting loss of large numbers of water soluble B-vitamins and minerals leading to dehydration, ....you get the picture.

With this way of looking at things, everytime you take a sinemet or generic you are setting off a very unpleasent cascade of events that may ultimately do you in.

There is a possible solution that I began fooling around with today. With the holidays rushing at us so quickly, let me suggest an easy experiment for you. I tried it this afternoon twice and am amazed at the results.

Just take a teaspoon or two of vinegar each time you take levodopa.

There is indeed a reaction of some bbsort that causes the food that is eaten by a diabetic to drop in the glycemic index by approximately 50%. The assumption has been that whatever action might exist that it was related to the food consumed but that is not proven.

I suspect that the excitement for PWP is over at the Insulin end of the bar and that the diabetic patients who have been trying to figure this out have done us a great favor.

Try it. Not with your food but with your sinemet.