As Laura said, she and I shared a similar and very disquieting experience this year. ("Disquieting", my backside! Scary as hell is more apropo.) I am convinced that there are some major clues in the mess if they can be teased out.

My own version began with a huge stress load that culminated just under a year ago when I found myself in fetal position in the floor unable to move with breathing itself requiring extra effort. During this time I had my first and only experience of a "panic attack" - an event I do not want to repeat.

As Laura noted, there was a spectrum of muscle tone involved. At one end was was almost zero tone when I found myself on the floor. At the other was maximum tone as muscles clenched and refused to release. During an attack, I would move from near normal into the first state then into the second and then back to normal over a two-hour period. During the worst times this was happening to me three or four times per day. Virtually my entire waking life was consumed.

Again, like Laura, things have gradually improved as stress has dropped and my system has adjusted. I have a feeling that the improvement has been consolidated by the high-dose vitamin D that I recently added, as well.

Several thoughts have come out of this. Stress was at the core of it all and stress means endocrine system involvement. I read repeatedly that acute stressors can trigger a shift to a hyperthyroid state. That is just one example of the plastic nature of the endocrine system. We all know what stress does to our symptoms as PD advances but we, or at least the research community, don't follow that backward to the ealy stages. There is an immune-dominant state in PD and there is an endocrine-dominant state as well. While the progression seems to be generally in that order. outside forces can upset the apple cart. An infection can shift us into an immune-dominant state. A period of high stress can shift us into an endocrine-dominant state. In both cases, our neurologist is going to be clueless.

Stress makes me freeze. The first hint of freezing or even the memory of past episodes is itself a stressor. This triggers the endocrine response of hormonal release which, in turn, increases freezing. This sets up a classic feedback loop - the hallmark of the endocrine system. Muscle tone climbs quickly up the scale. In the discussion about cannabis use, I mentioned an incident where I "forgot" that I was off. I functioned normally during that hiatus and I think it was due to disruption of that feedback loop.

I have not experienced the effects on my symptoms of an acute infection such as Ron had with his tooth a couple of years back. But, as I recall from his description, weakness was more descriptive than rigidity vis-a-vis muscle tone. Is that true, Ron? If so, there is the spectrum once again.

There is much here to ponder.