My husband was prescribed Madopark by a GP at a health centre, who initiated the treatment in consultation with a neurologist. He has been taking Madopark since October 2023 and is now on the target dose of 2 tablets three times a day, totalling 600 mg per day. He has experienced positive effects from the medication, but now the neurologist he saw in November 2023 wants to withdraw his medication for reasons that are unclear to us. The neurologist wants my husband to halve his dose over the course of a week before stopping completely. Isn’t this too rapid a tapering-off? It should be added that we are, of course, concerned that his previous symptoms will return to how they were before he started taking levodopa.

Perhaps you could ask the neurologist why Madopark is being phased out. Sometimes this is done if there is a suspicion that it is not typical Parkinson’s disease. Phasing out the dose over a week might be acceptable if he has only been taking it for a few months. If he has Parkinson’s, a deterioration can be expected, but in that case it often does not occur immediately after the dose is tapered off, but perhaps only after a few days or even weeks. It is not dangerous, but can of course be troublesome. /Dag Nyholm