Well maybe it should read Happy Chinese New Year! It’s February already and I’m just getting to my first post for the new year! I hope everyone had a great holiday season. We had a great time with family over the Christmas/New Year holiday which included a trip to Disney World to celebrate New Year’s Eve.
During the busy holiday season, we tried to keep up with our exercise schedule, cycling two days a week, playing as much tennis as possible and attending the Dance for PD class every week. I continue to enjoy playing tennis and even played in a men’s double tournament here in our community finishing in the middle of the pack.
January included a visit to my Neurologist. While I am doing well I was noticing that my medication wearing OFF anywhere from 30 – 60 minutes before the next dose, particularly when the next dose occurred while I was exercising. We discussed two options, change the timing so I would take more Sinemet or try Rytary, an extended release version of Levodopa/Carbidopa.
We decided to try the Rytary and I was given a sample to take once a day in the morning for a week. After the initial week I found that ON time was at least 30 – 60 minutes longer and some days I noticed no wearing off at all between doses.
So I reported my findings back to my Doctor and we decided to go ‘full bore’ and replace my Sinemet tablets with the Rytary on a every 4 hour schedule. So far I am happy with the results with only occasional OFF periods, usually because I didn’t take them on schedule 🙂 I’ll keep you posted as I continue this new regimen.
On the research front, if you are interested what’s coming up in 2019, I highly recommend you read “The Road Ahead: Parkinson’s Research in 2019” by Simon Stott over at the Science of PD blog. He expects that several clinical trials will have some data to report during the year and several promising projects will start. Click here to read.
One last note, I have added a link on the website to a document I prepared recently for a friend of a friend who had just been diagnosed with PD. It contains my thoughts about what to do after that initial diagnoses, lots of links to sites I like, and my thoughts / recommendations about exercise, finding a Movement Disorder Specialist, etc. Click on the link in the Now What? box at the top right to view, print or download.
“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” – Confucius
