How does Sinemet help?
In the early stages of the disease, treatment isn’t always needed as the symptoms do not particularly affect daily life. The rate at which symptoms worsen is very individual. As the disease progresses, however, treatment becomes necessary. Whilst there are several different drugs are available, Sinemet is most helpful in improving slow movement and muscle stiffness. It is also useful in helping to treat shaking, difficulty in swallowing and drooling. As with many drugs used in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease, Sinemet contains Levodopa also called L-dopa. L-dopa is probably the best known of all Parkinson’s disease treatments. It would seem obvious to suggest that if the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease are caused by a lack of dopamine, then you should simply administer dopamine in order to reverse this depletion and alleviate the symptoms. The problem with this theory is that dopamine does not appear to cross the blood-brain barrier which means that the administered dopamine would
