Hello Dr Mariano. I d like to ask you your opinion on a L-dopa trial i had today. Despite my neurologist was skeptic i asked him to let me try l-dopa to see if my musician s dystonia could respond to it because i known a lady who is a french horn player with embouchure dystonia who founds out to be l-dopa responsive. I know that generally Dopa-responsive dystonia is considered different from musician s focal dystonia but i wanted to try. As expected after assumed 25 mg of levodopa-carbidopa i didn’t felt any improvements on my dystonia, but it s not this that i find strange…
What i find strange, and what i d like to have your opinion about, is that i didn’t have any levodopa adverse effects that i heard are common during levodopa trial like low pressure, sleepiness, nausea etc… more considering that i generally suffer of mild low pressure, my average pressure is about 95-60 and i always suffered from vertigo when waking up from a sitting position… even the Dr was a bit scared about any possible problem with lowering of blood pressure due to my usual low pressure levels…

Well it was like having taken just a sugar pill for me.

Now i was wondering this: if my dopamine levels were normal, taking l-dopa shouldn’t i have risen my dopamine levels over the normal range causing all those side effects due to dopamine and l-dopa like low pressure, fatigue and dizziness?? Consider that in these days i was also debilitated because i got fever and i suffered of insomnia during the last 2 nights… in fact i was a bit scared as well but i absolutely wanted to try l-dopa and didn’t speak about that to the Dr….
I must generally say that i ve always been very resistant to all anti-depressants i took in many years and almost always i had no side effects at all (and no improvements as well), and quite resistant to other psychiatric drugs as well… it could possible that i don’t absorb well substances at bowel level??? If i had some kind of gut problems which impaired my assimilation of nutrients could this as well impair drugs or supplements absorption???

P.S. I’m actually assuming 100mg B6 and 25mg P5P daily, could it impair levodopa effectiveness??