I agree, needles aren't for everyone, not even these 23ga butterfly type.

Your research into a 200mg capsule sounds like a nice small-dose way to start; lowest I could find is 250mg w/o any purity info. What brand did you settle on, Mike?

John

The website is ...(they won't allow me to post the link as I have fewer than 10 posts). I sent an e-mail to confirm that their mp is purity tested and they said it was processed in an FDA inspected facility. They gave the name of it on the website. It cost $15 per bottle for 60 caps. I also checked the company for complaints at the BBB and they had a B+ rating meaning it was pretty good. I think there were three complaints related to ordering.

I toyed with the idea of Zandopa, but having to deal with a powder was unappealing to me. I am not sure that the pill form will be as bio-available as the powder, but i am going to give it a shot. I also want to make sure that the other trace components of mp are there i.e. the nicotine, seratonin, etc. as in one study they hypothesized that there might be yet undetermined products that make mp effective. I am also not convinced that the rx l-dopa doesn't actually fry the dopamine pathways.

I still wonder why no one is doing a large controlled clinical trial on this stuff. I found old articles around 2002 that said they were going to do it, but nothing else has surfaced. Guess there is no incentive (financial) to do so.

Anyway, hope this stuff works, or it will be the traditional l-dopa/carbidoba for me

Mike

physician formulas

Thanks for the info, Mike. Keep us posted on your (hopeful) success.

J.

Hey Mike.

Just curious to hear how your MB experience is going.

Amazon lost my initial order, so I'm waiting on a shipment from another company.


J.

Someone in the early stages should try a "low dose" approach with MP. More is not always better and MP just might do things at very low doses that it would not at higher ones. Or maybe it should be weekly rather than daily. There is more than Ldopa in the whole powder and if it is as I suspect working by sensitizing receptors then big doses would quickly overwhelm while small and/or intermittent might not.

Shipment finally arrived from physicianformulas.com (pkg from Amazon.com never did), and have been taking the MP every second day for ten days now, dosing at 100mg (half a capsule dissolved in water).

Definite improvement in energy levels and mental clarity. Some relief of [originating] right arm tremor, depending on the task at hand. Huge lift in general emotional state. Sleeping more soundly, too. Like Ric has mentioned though, when time's up and it's off, it's a rather quick event regardless of efficacy period.

Overall – and so far – it's a good reaction. We like it.

I'm adding this to this thread even though there are more recent ones. But this one's subject field is explicit and will be more easily found.

I have reread this whole thread this morning and I have an idea about mucuna that makes the erratic nature of its effects actually make a little sense. This is purely speculative, but the more I think about it the more it fits. Bear with me bcause it will need a little verbage.

I have not been using mucuna because of the difficulty of predicting and controlling it. It is like riding a wild horse at times. Most recently I have been experimenting with dextromethorphan (the ingredient in cough syrup). I have also been testing ginger based on a paper published earlier this year which showed that it had multiple anti-PD properties.

I find that ginger and DXM have similar effects. That doesn't surprise me. They both belong to a small group of chemicals called NMDA Receptor antagonists. Other members of this tiny club include ecstasy, theanine, PCP, magnesium, and memantine.

They act with varying degrees of effectiveness. You may remember a few years back the story of the PWP who was a stuntman pre-PD. Some friends pushed him in a wheelchair into a concert. Someone gave him some ecstasy. Fifteen minutes later he was walking - on his hands.

My own experience with the two that I have been trying i not so dramatic, but it has been very positive overall. They do trigger dyskinesias if you aren't careful. A little bit - just a pinch or two - has me on in 30 minutes, but a little more sends me over a line and I go deeply off.

It is like riding a wild horse at times.

I think mucuna, while it is a source of levodopa, is an NMDA receptor antagonist as well.

If so, that is potentially very important because most of the ones known are either illegal or ineffective.

The smaller the dose, the better.

You've hit the nail square on in your 3rd para; it certainly can be a bronco ride. I started by taking half a capsule but after a month or so, even that proved to be too much on a regular basis. I was revved up most of the time and not always in a good way.

Still, the few times when the reaction was over the top, the increase in energy seemed to be generally worthwhile as one of the mental gains was cognitive clarity.

I only use it now when I've got a "piano tied to my *****," and a small amount (pinched into a green smoothie) goes a long way. Used sparingly, I still like it.

If my suspicions are correct and mucuna contains not onla L-dopa but also an NMDA receptor antagonist (NRA), then things start to make sense. Dextromethorphan is a well studied NRA and serves as a sort of Rosetta Stone on this. The effects are very similar. A bi-phasic response depending on dose. An absurdly low effective dose. Dyskinesia once you cross that threshold. Do it right, however, and you have fast onset and extended ON times as well as reduced meds. The past two days I have reintroduced mucuna by simply touching a damp fingertip to the powder. There is so little there that I can't estimate it.

NRAs were a hot area of research until the mid-90s. Two things pushed them to the side. One was the new dopamine agonists. The other was a lack of effective NRAs lacking side effects and offering potential profits along with being legal. It was a jump away from the idea that it is all about dopamine. The hypothesis is that it is glutamine that is at the heart of the problem. Russell Blaylock's book "Excitotoxins- The Taste That Kills" was written about then.

There are other NRAs, both proven and suspected. Ginger, for exmple, had identical effects on me. Others are better established but needing further attention include theanine from green tea, valerian root, memantine, and magnesium.