How to manage drugs in Parkinson’s. Useful as a guide for dosing and understanding side effects of the medications associated with treatment.
This slide too is part one of three about managing your medications with parkinson’s disease if you have been recently diagnosed you may not have been fully informed about the implications of taking these drugs if you have had parkinson’s for any length of time you might gain a better understanding of the effects of these medications and the treatment options
Available there are several types of medication available to treat this condition we are not going to cover all of them in detail only the most common and more importantly the ones that work the first point that must be made absolutely clear is this once you begin a drug regimen for parkinson’s there is no going back the effects of many of these medications are
Still not fully understood is actually unknown how many of them work controlling the negative side effects is a complicated matter and requires a lot of trial and error surgery may alleviate some symptoms but there are side effects and you will still require daily medication some physicians are suggesting not treating mild cases with any drugs at the onset instead
There are lifestyle changes that are recommended to cope with the disease this presentation is about the drugs and how to manage them at some point in the course of this disease you will have to take medications unfortunately that’s the reality of it there is currently no alternative there are many claims of treating or curing the condition holistic lee this is
Patently false there is no homebrew or natural alternative it will alter the course of this disease you can improve and slow the condition through lifestyle changes but you cannot change the biological nature of the disease parkinson’s symptoms arise from the gradual loss of dopamine producing cells in the brain it is progressive over many years you will not die
From parkinson’s the obvious solution is to supplement the brain with dopamine this leads us to our first and foremost medication levodopa levodopa is a chemical that is converted into dopamine in the brain is a building block of sorts unfortunately levodopa is what is called protein competitive this means the proteins can offset and/or nullify the effects of the
Drug this becomes a growing problem over time as levodopa alters certain digestive enzymes making absorption even more of nishio levodopa alone cannot readily pass through the blood-brain barrier as dopamine and is absorbed through the small intestine gastric emptying is more important to absorption than protein competition take levodopa on an empty stomach for it
To be more effective it takes about 30 to 45 minutes to absorb wait there’s a catch remember that levodopa does not readily pass through the blood-brain barrier it needs a helper called carbidopa or lotus n’ which is the decarboxylase inhibitor so what is a decarboxylase inhibitor it’s a chemical that inhibits levodopa from being converted into dopamine before
Reaching the brain it prevents peripheral absorption of levodopa into the muscles this is critical in parkinson’s treatment carbidopa never does cross the blood-brain barrier only levodopa it all sounds so simple doesn’t meant carbidopa is officially added to levodopa to prevent nausea this unfortunately is not entirely true carbidopa also inhibits the metabolism
And vitamin b6 which is not a good thing taking b6 paroxetine will nullify the effect of the carbidopa they counteract each other and there is controversy to this if carbidopa does in fact inhibit v6 this is a huge problem b6 is critical for hundreds of functions in the body carbidopa has been studied as a weight-loss drug back i personally documented weight loss
At 30 pounds within six months of initiating carbidopa levodopa therapy 15 pounds of that was within the first six weeks with absolutely no lifestyle changes taking a 25 to 100 ratio of carbon dope oliva dopa i held a consistent weight of 160 pounds no matter what i do taking the ratio of 25 to 250 increases my weight by 10 to 12 pounds was in five weeks and can
Be maintained i consume a minimum of 5,000 calories daily nothing else changes in my diet activity or any other aspect of my living let’s get back to levodopa
Transcribed from video
Managing drugs in Parkinson's Disease Part 1 By ParkinsonsDB
