Sorry. Only rabbit joke that I could think of. Except for the classic, "There was a fine bunny from Burma; this bunny could not get much firmer; etc" but everyone has heard that one (you see why they only let me out in the wee hours ) But I digress.

If you are saying that you have similar symptoms, I would very much like to discuss them. In fact, I have a four-week followup with my new neuro on the 30th. It would be great if I could produce additional specimens. He was open enough to suggest that I use the four weeks to test the potassium to see if it had any effect on the "attacks".It did not, at least not at the doses I was willing to risk (max has been 60 MEqv).

However, I do think that one of my triggers is sodium. That would explain my reaction to MSG, a high sodium source. I also think that glucose/sugar is one for me. Emotional stress is another. And I suspect tornadoes.

I am going to adopt the convention of defining an "OFF" as a state of non-response to Sinemet and defining an "attack" as a temporary collapse of one's ability to maintain homeostasis.

Using those, I am going to lay out a rough draft of a new hypothesis using my own case as the test.

So here goes- In 1992, when I noticed a slight tremor in my right hand, my wife and I were just coming off a stint as the primary caregivers to my four grandparents. That's an eight year stint that began with a request to aid transporting one of them to the doc and ended with the passing of the fourth one. We had lived with the last one as he checked out. No privacy but we needed the roof overhead due to the two house fires, both being total losses. And since one had been a Halloween arson, we had just gone through an audit. Passed with flying colors after two days of tension.

Oh, yeah- mobile home #1 was an older model that we had gutted and remodeled using the profit from the old farmhouse we had also remodeled and gutted. Shortly before my abusive, alcoholic father's suicide but a few years before my younger brother dropped dead of a coronary. So MH#1 had a lot of work and equity in it and very little insurance.

So we borrowed a small tow behind camper and lived onsite while we began Home #2. At least until the temperature dropped and we realized how cold that little camper could get. So I began making the 30 minute commute to the site where I was building a real home. A big, real home. With salvaged material with the nails still in it. With the help of friends who quietly began to slip away. It was dried in by the following Halloween when it was probably burned by a drunken poacher.

I had a small office in my uncle's basement. The one who thought that if there was anything wrong with chlordane that God would not have put bugs in that basement.

To no one's surprise, my poor wife was by this time dealing with a stress related problem that had her in a wheelchair for six months. And I think there was a bout of flu in there somewhere. Did I mention that we were running a Mom and Pop business with six employees through all this?

I guess it should have been no surprise when I noticed that first tremor.

<I've got to pause for breath. Seeing that listed out on the screen is a mind blower! That all came down in about a 12 year period! It's a wonder I'm flippin' alive!>

I think it is safe to say that stress had something to do with my developing PD. And I think it likely that some part of me seeks stability and holds it with an iron grip. So I am not comfortable with change for its own sake. And I have no desire for bungee jumping. And everything in my closet is blue. And I go to the same restaurants and order the same things. And I don't like things that change the neighborhood.

And I don't like it when something like fluctuating glucose or sodium or potassium or similar ions change my internal neighborhood. I feel fragile or brittle and if I am touched roughly I may shatter like a large sheet of glass.

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OK, that is the first draft. Anyone relate?