Samantha,

Your age would make a PD dx curious. I would be very careful about accepting such a dx without serious research and observation of symptoms. If you know anything about PD, you know that the dx usually comes years after symptoms appear, and is made by a movement disorder specialist.

We have someone here on our forum who was dx'd with PD at 27, and told at age 54 that she does not have PD. She has spent half of her life on drugs for a condition she does not have! There are others as well. Don't let this happen to you.

If it were me, I would take a close look at my lifestyle. Are you under a lot of stress? Stress makes everything the body does that is "bad" much worse! There are hundreds of causes of tremor besides PD.....rule those out.

Do you eat "right"? Nutritional deficiencies can wreak havoc in the body and are almost always NOT on the doc's checklist. Many are not detectable by blood tests, either. Most are discovered "by accident" when looking for something else.

What you can do:

1. Insist on an MRI (preferably on a Tesla 3 machine) to rule out MS and see any vascular compression that can be seen with the technology we have to date. Who knows, you may have something going on in your head that no one has even considered.

2. Get a DaT scan to see what your dopamine levels look like. Insist on this! If they are telling you that you have PD, then get this test to confirm or rule it out. It is the most advanced "test" we have for PD. At a minimum, if you do have PD, this will establish dopamine baseline levels in your brain from which progression and maybe other things can be measured.

3. Start eating organically and as fresh as possible. If you don't have a yard, try a co-op or community garden or go to farmer's markets. They are usually less pricey than a store and you get the benefit of meeting the folks who are actually growing the food you eat.

4. Start an exercise program, google the biking research for PD and some posts here on the forrm. You can get a used bike on craigslist I wouldn't do the cycling shoes where you clip in, though, they are very dangerous for everyone (just go on youtube to see some glorious wipe-out videos of folks trying to get in and out of those clips).

5. This goes without saying, but reduce the stress in your life as much as possible. Life is stressful, but you can meditate, do yoga, tai chi, etc., to try and balance things out.

I hope this is helpful. Please keep us all informed if you learn anything more.