I have been taking Sinemet for about two years now. I started off with three pills a day and upped it to six last year. The good thing is it's a generic drug (I take other drugs that are not) so it's relatively cheap. One thing I've learned is that PD patients are very experimental with their meds. I have been prescribed six pills for nearly a year now, but when I take them has changed dramatically over the year.
I started off taking the pills haphazardly. Regularly, taking my morning dose with all my other meds. But I wouldn't take my next dose until I felt I needed it (definitely the wrong way to go). Because of this I started taking two pills at a time. The dose lasted longer and when I was on, I was feeling really good. I was not changing my overall dosage but I was taking more at once. A friend who is a neurologist explained it to me as I'm getting a higher high, but it also means I am getting a bigger drop off.
Well this bigger drop off started hitting me like a brick wall a couple weeks ago. I've been tempted to request my MDS (movement disorder specialist, a subspecialty of neurology) up my dosage. However, before I did that I wanted to see how reducing down to one pill at a time and keeping a strict schedule would work. I'm happy to say, at the moment, it looks like this was the better option. I am going to have to figure out a better way of reminding myself to take my pills on time. Nevertheless, the past couple of days, I've felt a lot better during the off times, it's not as dramatic a change or as hard to deal with, and my on times have seemed to come back up to a more reasonable length that allows me to work efficiently at my job.
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