Hi Muireann,
Yes I am B12 deficient now, but I do not believe that I was when I first developed PD symptoms, as I had plenty of energy, and continued to be that way for many years. My first symptoms came when my son was a pre-schooler and I was at university studying art, and really enjoying what I was doing. By that time I had already been doing Chi Kung and Tai Chi for 12 years! And meditation too. It was almost like a puzzle I was trying to solve, why could I not go down stairs easily when going up stairs was a doddle! All the health conditions I knew of at the time said it should be the other way round. Though I know B12 issues come on slowly I am firmly of the belief that they are much more recent, they feel functionally different to the symptoms of PD.

I met someone else who followed the same school of Tai Chi as I did, and who also really loved it, who had PD. She found, as I did, that with the onset of symptoms there came a strange flatness to practice. I only met her three years ago and was quite surprised at how similar our experience had been.

I do believe that there is a place for such therapies, but I would never think of them as recovery/ cure or ask anyone else to. If people do recover through great effort and special circumstance, then I am more than happy for them. As with forced exercise, there are some remarkable stories. That they are going to work for all is another matter. I sort of have difficulties with things that say if you put immense effort in then you will get amazing results, and if you don't and there is some failure because you are not actually doing it right, or not putting enough into it. It comes a little too close to saying you got PD because you were getting things wrong, and now you are keeping it because you are doing things wrong, and I just do not think that PD is about that. There are plenty of voices that encourage people to do all sorts of things, and many of them, by their nature, do make people feel better about themselves, and the way they live their lives. Whether they will prevent the progression of PD is another matter, though they could well put off that progression for several years. They are worth doing, because they are good for maintaining health anyway.