My first symptoms were in 1994/5 and I started to feel very stiff, also had rigid shoulders and neck, especially on right side. And other people started to treat me as though I was miserable, even though I wasn't.

I was tested from that point on for everything under the sun, and spent a while under a truly baffled rheumatologist. After three years I didn't go back, the symptoms were still there, nobody seemed to know what they were, and I simply couldn't be bothered.

Around 1997/8 and friends and family were starting to get concerned, so I went to my GP, was referred to a different kind of specialist who diagnosed Fibromyalgia.

By 2001 I had changed GP who believed I had neurological symptoms, something I had not considered. After several different neurologists not really seeing anything I was diagnosed with atypical 'possible PD', put on sinemet, and for the first time in years regained movement and facial expression. I remain in the 'possible' bracket, though my neurologist refers to my condition as 'your PD'.

Those without tremor often seem to have a longer path to diagnosis, for what seem to me to be obvious reasons......

Current thinking seems to be that PD is a cluster or spectrum of conditions, which further complicates matters......

Lindy