[Lotus]

Mucuna is just dilute L-DOPA, which mainstream medicine considers too dangerous to use except in Parkinson's where the patients can no longer produce enough of their own dopamine. L-DOPA is what causes Parkinson's patients to eventually wiggle uncontrollably (dyskinesia). Additionally, you could be desensitizing your dopamine receptors and/or downregulating the levels of your enzymes that produce your own L-DOPA.

Prescription L-DOPA is combined with carbidopa to prevent it from being converted to dopamine outside of the brain. (Premature conversion causes side effects and wastes the drug. The same is true of 5-HTP. Unlike tryptophan, 5-HTP becomes serotonin outside of the brain, which can cause heart valve fibrosis or pulmonary hypertension.)

From what I've read mucuna pruriens has been used for over 4500 years in Ayurvedic Indian medicine.

L-DOPA from mucuna pruriens has been shown to be safer and more effective for controlling Parkinson's disease than the pharmaceutical drugs Levodopa and Carbidopa. This is because the vast array of other chemical constituents that accompany L-DOPA in the unprocessed plant also play a role in its ability to manage Parkinson's disease. Since Parkinson's is in large part a deficiency of the neurotransmitter dopamine, this adaptogenic herb is crucial for anyone looking to manage this disease. It also looks to be very promising as a treatment for recovering drug addicts and people suffering from depression related illness, since these people have deficiencies of the neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine (which the velvet beans contain and help balance in the human body).

A review of the clinical evidence for complementary and alternative therapies in Parkinson's disease.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25143234