dear Judith,
Sometimes I think the dopamine screws up the worst around the PMS
time, or it does something to the hormones or verse visa?
I hope you find you answer very soon..

but I will put it up anyway.

A while back I gave a talk to the local state Scleroderma society.

And while preparing for that I found a connection reported for carbidopa use
along with the supplement 5-HTP. What this causes is a change in the skin that resembles scleroderma. The interaction has only been observed and is not
understood.

You can Google carbidopa scleroderma for some hits.

Also this site:
http://www.hairdoc.com/book/chapter19.html

gives a list of drugs that have been reported to cause hair loss:
Carbidopa has one citation
and Levodopa has a few more
I found this site quite good.

Other drugs cause hair loss too. Depakote does. Some doctors recommend using zinc supplements for hair loss, when other reasons cannot be found.
The B vitamin Biotin also.

Hair loss is very complex, and hormonal influences, plus some nutrients all interact together.

Thanks, Mrs. D.--

I discovered that 3 other drugs I take are listed as possibly causing hair loss, and most of the PD drugs are on the list (although agonists are missing and I have seen articles about agonists and hair loss). So it might be really difficult to identify the culprit. Shows how complex an issue it really is.

Any reason not to take or to limit amount of zinc or biotin?

- J

use in Parkinson's. But I did find this one today:
I would say if any PD patient is taking a drug that depletes zinc... then a supplement would definitely be needed. The most common depleter is ACE inhibitors used for hypertension. Zinc is depleted by hormones, steroids, diuretics, and hydralazine. Zinc Monomethionine is inexpensive and well absorbed with little or no nausea. Nausea can be terrible with the sulfate form. One a day is a typical dose. The brand is called OptiZinc and it is by Source Naturals.

Biotin works in the mitochondria, and enhances carnitine transport into the mitochondria. I could not find a direct reference to Parkinson's and biotin.
Typically 3 mg/daily is used for hair loss.

I would not take mega doses of zinc...without physician supervision, since PD is complex. There are conflicting reports of high/low zinc and many brain syndromes. This has not been clarified much to date.

Thanks again, Mrs. D.

I've decided to give biotin a try since zinc sounds like it might do more harm than good. I'll let you know if I see any difference in a month or so.

-J