Food and drugs

[Phil Tompkins <philtomp@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Since I seem to have reached that stage in PD where it has become
increasingly difficult to walk the narrow line between too little
and too much levodopa and to achieve that delicate balance between PD
symptoms on the one hand and drug-induced dyskinesia on the other,
I'm wondering to what degree food intake is a factor.  Is my
difficulty in finding just the right drug dose a result of not paying
enough attention to what did I eat and when did I eat it?

I know about the desirability of maintaining that nice 1/7 ratio of
protein to other nutrients, although I haven't tried to observe this
rule consistently.  Are there other factors that can be important,
such as the quantity of food eaten, the time drugs are taken vs.
time of eating, the frequency of food intake, ratio of solids to
liquids, the effects of regularity and of constipation (and its
opposite), the digestibility of what I ate -- things of that order?
Will I have to become really disciplined about food, and in the end
eat the same things every day at the same time and in the same
quantity in order to achieve the right drug effective doses?  When I
pig out, do I in effect cast my pills before swine?

I would greatly appreciate any observations, good rules of thumb or
sources of information on this subject.

Phil Tompkins
Hoboken NJ
age 60/dx 1990