Dosage increase trial

I'm having times during the day where I'm feeling more 'off' than I want. I tried upping my dosage to 2 pills 5 times per day. Turned out that was even worse - dyskinesia hit pretty hard, even to the point of being painful. I'm back down to the 9 pills per day, alternating 2 and 1.5 pills.
I still only take 6 pills on the weekend, but that's not working so well anymore. Today I took two pills at 7am, then not again until noon. The noon dose took forever to kick in (about 1.5 hours), then didn't last very long, and moved into dyskinesia.
Seems I may need to keep a certain level going instead of letting myself get too far 'off'.

Foot 'pop'

When I first experienced it, I didn't understand what it was; when walking and when my left foot is lifting off the floor, a bone shifts and my foot 'pops'. It was very disturbing at first as I thought I had broken something.
Turns out it's only when I'm off. My left foot must be tightening up.

Left leg getting involved

When I am off, my left leg now has a tremor. Very different from the right side, it's mostly in my thigh. I was hoping it was going to take a lot longer to get symptoms on the left side.

Another minor doseage update

I should really update as things are happening. I think it was around this date that I adjusted the doseage a little bit. I now take 9 pills per day (during the week); 2 at 5, 1.5 at 8, 2 at 11, 1.5 at 2, and 2 at 5.

Minor doseage change

I was finding that the 5pm dose of 1.5 pills wasn't getting me over the hump to be ready to drive home. My MDS and I discussed it a bit, and I did try changing the dose to two pills throughout the day. The timing of everything wasn't working, so I quickly reverted to my old schedule with one small change. I just take 2 pills for the last dose.
So it's 5am - 2pills, 8am - 1.5, 11am - 1.5, 2pm - 1.5, and 5pm - 2.
Dyskinesia (in my foot mostly) is a bit of a bother for a while, so I'm trying to keep the doseage as low as possible.
So that's more than a year of almost no dose change.

Sinemet doseage

From a post I made in the forum on plm (patientslikeme.com);

05/30

I'm taking 8 25/100 per day now, on an uneven schedule. 5am (2), get up at 5:30,  8-8:30 (1) 11 (2) 2-2:30 (1) 5 (2). Then I go all night without. I go to bed about 9. I actually notice the 1 pill at 8 and 2 brings me back to 'on' for a while and I can then wait for the 11 and 5 dose. This is all to try to schedule around eating and driving.

Update 06/12 - I had been too lazy to cut pills in half, but in the interest of trying to smooth out highs and lows I decided to adjust again. So now it's two pills at 5, then 1-1/2 at 8, 11, 2, and 5. Same amount of pills per day. Interesting side effect though - dyskenesia has started in my foot. I sure was hoping I could put that one off for a lot longer. I think I'm going to try actually reducing the amount of Sinemet I take by a little bit, and see how that works out.

Swinging

It feels great to be 'on'. Judi and I went for a walk after supper tonight, and my arm was swinging - just like a regular person.

The times when my right side feels normal are so appreciated. I remember a PWP in Windsor saying to me; "thank God for Sinemet". I guess now I know what he meant.

I don't know when I last updated about my dosage. I had made my way to two pills, three times per day. Then I found that I was going 'off', and thought I'd just shorten the time between doses. I soon found that I was changing my schedule such that it didn't match up to lunch, and especially with my drive home. So - I tried a different approach; I take two pills at 5am, eat breakfast at 6, take one pill at about 9am, then two pills at 11am, eat lunch at noon, take one pill at about 3pm, then finally two pills at 5pm, and get ready to go home about 5:30.
I wonder if anyone else takes uneven doses like this. I'm going to ask on plm.