I would like to add my two cents here as I have been hitting the books on this pretty heavy here of late.

There is also a concept of an "auto-toxic" reaction. A true auto-immune reaction involves antibodies and the more advanced areas of the immune system. Auto-toxic reactions involve the more primitive areas and the microglia. It is a more brute force response without the precision that comes with identifying the enemy and producing a defense just for him. It holds the fort, so to speak, until the special ops guys can get there.

As a result, there can be a lot of collateral damage if this primitive barrage is not shut down as soon as it is no longer needed. But it is essential in those early phases. The problems arise when that primitive defense doesn't shut down properly or reactivates upon minimal stimulus.

Things can get quite deadly. Sepsis is a case of this runaway reaction. The invaders may be long gone but the microglia continue to pour out inflammatory chemicals.

PD seems to be a similar situation. Researchers (Carvey, Liu, Hong, etc) established a decade ago that fetal exposure to chemicals (lipopolysaccharides or LPS) from the maternal immune response could "prime" the offspring's primitive system to be hypervigilant and run for months when shutdown should have been in hours.

This hypervigilant reactivaton seems to be a major factor in PD. And not just because of the physical damage. There are about two dozen different inflammatory chemicals involved and they are very active and alter our behavior in many ways - including producing what we have considered PD symptoms.

We have seen clues to this on this board. Remember Ron Hutton laid low by an infected tooth? The inflammatory response to the tooth triggered the bigger reaction of his own microglia. Then there are those intriguing cases where a PWP reports that an antibiotic for an unrelated infection seemed to erase his PD symptoms so long as he took them. Much to the doctor's amusement. And pretty much ignoring the facts that some antibiotics (tetracyclines and penicillins,in particular) have a property totally unrelated to their effect on bacteria - they are great anti-inflammatories capable of breezing past the BBB and are fat soluble as well and so go deep into the brain. Once there they calm the microglia, the chemistry rights itself, and PD symptoms improve or even disappear!

I have been on the verge of trying one of these (minocycline). I even talked my GP into a month's worth, but I may have found an even better option which I am trying first.

Green tea extract is, well, I have shouted "Eureka!" too many times. Let's just say that the last four days of my life have been very encouraging.