I grew up with someone with untreated PD, my understanding of her has changed immensely since I started to get symptoms that were similar, around fifteen years ago. It took seven year to get to diagnosis (wrong age, wrong size, wrong face, no tremor), I was by then shuffly, blanked-faced, sooo slow, sleepless, perseverant, and looked and was treated as though I was years older, hostile, and possibly unbalanced. I got passed around the various disciplines where nobody found anything wrong with me at all, until I wound up with a neuro who recognised PD and treated me.

The years since have given me back a life, I can smile, answer a phone, function, for some part of the day move the way I want, sleep..... I would not have had those years without l-dopa.

IT is imperfect, it does have serious problems, but I would not be without it. The fact is that those who try to come off it and do have PD have great difficulties precisely because they have PD, and their brains become starved of dopamine. That there is more to PD than dopa is not in question, it's something that still needs proper attention from those who are looking at the disease, rather than the treatments. Some would say it is addictive, some would say it damages the brain, but others like me say it has given them years that they would not have had otherwise. Untreated PD does not look good, unless you are fortunate enough to have one of the very benign varieties.

Insulin has problems, it is not a cure all, but ask a diabetic what he would do without it and see what he says. Same goes for l-dopa. Until they find a way of stopping this thing in it's tracks it is one of the things we can use as a lifeline, and even the doctors are now realizing that many of the problems with it come and came from indiscriminate prescribing done by people who do/did not understand the implications, using it like a hammer to crack an egg.......

I don't see the point of trying to demonize l-dopa, there are other much worse drugs prescribed for PD, but even they offer help for some..... all of them are imperfect, what would be perfect would be a cure, but as yet there are none of those on the horizon........

Lindy