H Johnt.
You don't define what you mean by long terrm, but I would surgest
20 years as a border. Why, because it just lets me in!!
I was diagnosed in 1991, with a tremor down my left side.I knew nothing of PD and I was still working, running a £50m pa 18 acre chemical factory. I did not take too much notice of it, and I continued to run the factory for the 1st 5 years of my PD. I happily popped 3 x 100mg Sinemet Plus, little knowing I would pay dearly later, with heavy dyskinesia, for my lack of knowledge of PD. They were prescribed by my ist neurologist who headed back into the shadows, clutching my £150.
I retired in year 5 at the age of 60, not because of the PD, I had always intended retiring at 60, and had organised my finances accordingly.
in the next few years, I had to slowly increase my Sinemet until in around the 10 year mark, I was on 800 mg Ldopa per annum.
This was a wake up call, and I started, being a chemist, studying the disease and its chemistry. I tried to see similarities in the formulas of common drugs and supplements. I tried a lot of prescription free suppl ements, and ended up taking curcumin at around the 10+ year I took also
citicoline, which is given to people who have had strokes. It aids brain metabolism.You can only take so much, and I reluctantly stopped taking it
about year 12/13
I think I progressed slowly, since I kept in shape maintaining a half acre garden, avoided stress. I started my retirement with a months holiday in Hawaii, visting 4 Ilands. We then continued traveling to the ends of the earth for holidays. Some of them were quite demanding, eg Tahiti meant 40 hours flying time in the plane!
In years 15 to 20, I made contact with the research team in major London hospital, and visit them every 2 months. I am now on quite a coctail of prescribed drugs, Stavelo, Mirapex, Amantadine, trihexyphenidyl, Azelect, Looking foreward to reading the posts of other survivors Our long term plan is to remove L-Dopa from my range of drugs.