My husband had DBS done a 1 1/2 years ago. Very successful for him , he doesn’t take any medication anymore but I found that he is slowing down. I saw that there has been studies on mucana supplements. I would like to try but I don’t know where to buy it( good quality) and how much he should take
Anyone that can help?
Thank you so much
Written by
gigi9
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I chose to do the Mucuna route for a couple of years. I used both Barlowe's Brown and "NOW" brands. The Barlowe's has 260 mg of L-dopa per pill, and the NOW has 60 mg of L-dopa per pill. A single dose for me was 640 mg L-dopa (2 Barlowe's and 2 NOW). I got a small measure of relief from this dose.
Finally, after reading about people on this site who were able to go back to playing the piano and guitar after taking carbidopa/levadopa, I started taking carbidopa/levadopa. A single dose for me is 125 mg L-dopa. With this much smaller dose I feel like I don't have PD with regards to finger dexterity and being able to walk normally.
If you are going to use Mucuna, I think that both Barlowe's and NOW are good brands. However, without something like carbidopa to keep the L-Dopa from turning into dopamine in the body, and thus not able to cross the blood brain barrier, I wouldn't expect much relief.
Because I had nausea from carbidopa/levadopa, I also got a prescription for carbidopa and took a quarter of a carbidopa pill in addition to the carbidopa/levadopa. Since I now had standalone carbidopa, I did an experiment where I used carbidopa with some of my NOW pills, and it did work as effectively as the carbidopa/levadopa. However, standalone carbidopa is way more expensive than carbidopa/levadopa, so financially it didn't make sense to continue this as a long-term treatment. It was just an interesting, successful experiment.
I hope this information can help you make the best decision for your husband.
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