I assume you know that I meant that one had been diagnosed 10+ years. One thing on a very positive note is that if you are diagnosed with young onset PD (before age 40-50), then almost always it is a slowly progressing type of disease. You can live a full life (with proper treatment) for a long-long time. This is especially true if you are started on an agonist of MAO-I such as Azilect.
The wonder drug, Sinemet (generic name carbidopa/levodopa) starts causing bad side effects after 5-10 years (dyskinesia, onn/off problems, etc). Unfortunately, I was dx when they wrote you an Rx for 50/200 Sinemet on your first visit and said "Take it every 3-4 hours)!

Needless to say, I am plagued with dyskinesia, but there are ways to take care of that (Amantadine - which I cannot take - and DBS surgery).

It is truly a promising future for PWP who have been diagnosed within the last decade because of what they now know. And that is where Sergey's work can really come to play as a positive in search of a cure.

How are you doing anyway, Vicki? You can send a private message if you don't want to say anything here.
peggy

doesn't it seem a bit unusual to have google and intel FOUNDERS among us? Does it get anymore technical or online?These two men with mJFF are an extraordinary force of collaboration and they don't come any more equipped...especially their innovation and intelligence.

They are patients too and Sergey's question mark is enough I would think, to have to cope with this "thing" all his life. He is battling it already and lucky us.

Change scene to Intel: what else would we expect from millionaires and billionaires? They will change things. Look how much they have already.

And Michael on Scrubs and Rescue Me is the best lemonade I've ever seen from a lemon.

These guys make you feel a little more hopeful.

I think we're in good hands now. The process might move a little bit faster.

One thing I always thought was connected to Parkinson's was thought process. Before I became ill, I was constantly multi-tasking and my thoughts were always five steps ahead of my physical tasks. Did we somehow short-circuit our brains......I'm being serious here.

dear bluedahlia,
the path to illness - is the american way - stress, eat junk food, believe drug
commercials, take antibiotics, ruin the immune system.
a downward spiral - and poisoning of the air, earth and water, do not help this
generation at all...
I agree with your thoughts on multi tasking!

dahlia,

i picture many short circuits as a result of a blown fuse.

Only older homes "blow a fuse" today; we "trip breakers," and I have tripped many a breaker since diagnosed with PD!

Peg

Well I'm on my way to getting rewired....passed all the assessments for DBS and meeting with Dr. Lozano on July 27th. Surgery anytime after that.

Sad that I'm looking forward to having holes drilled into my skull. But I have no choice as I can't live like this anymore. The dyskinesias are totally exhausting me.

Any chance Sergey will have an answer before then?

I must align with the "Can't" faction. PD is, as was pointed out earlier, just not a disease that can be cured. At least not by anyone but the patients themselves. I have come to see PD as being a disorder very much like anxiety. Doctors don't cure anxiety. They can only mask its symptoms.

The child may be, through exposure in utero, be born anxious. But a larger number are born with a genetic makeup that makes them vulnerable to the environmental factors. Years go by before the stresses of life send the anxious patient seeking help. That usually brings a pill that masks the symptoms but little more.

Meanwhile, beneath the surface, anxiety has been taking a toll on the heart but that will not be a factor for years. For now, the increasing anxiety takes a toll. The home becomes both refuge and prison. The effort to maintain the status quo becomes harder and harder, and panic attacks lurk in the shadows. At some point the cardiac damage begins to be felt and the world begins to close in.

This blending of genetics, environment, life events, personality, social support, systems failure, and the onslaught of physical degeneration combined with an absence of support in the society leads to greater and greater cardiac damage. It becomes harder and harder to do the simplest task....

That's what PD is. I don't think there is a name for it. Like a tar ball on Pensacola Beach, we are the cost of certain decisions made before we were born about the kind of society we would have. Some major changes must be made to the society to prevent new cases and we existing ones just need a quiet place to fish.

Quoting bluedalhia:
Sad that I'm looking forward to having holes drilled into my skull. But I have no choice as I can't live like this anymore. The dyskinesias are totally exhausting me.

Best to you on your DBS!

Rick:

I believe you could have written this book:
Deep In The Brain is a cerebral self-examination written by a philosophy professor who was riding the top of a success wave when he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s.
In this book, Helmut Dubiel analyses his response to the personal and social implications of his Parkinson’s disease. He does not blame or excuse. Rather, he tries to put his and other’s reactions in context of the overarching laws of social interaction

This sounds like a book I want to read! Review comments by Marty D:

I’ve often asked people, “Which would you prefer: to lose your body or to lose your mind?” Given that I live with one parent with Alzheimer’s and the other with Parkinson’s, this question has personal weight. In his book, Professor Dubiel clearly expresses his preference for holding onto the self despite the ostracism brought on by the physical distortions of Parkinson’s. Knowing you are being unfairly rejected is still preferable to knowing nothing at all. On the other side, in Still Alice the protagonist affirms this appreciation for the self when–in a lucid moment–she acknowledges “I didn’t meant to get this way. I miss myself.” The mind is a far greater gift than the body.

I took the question to be rhetorical.

At this point, I am looking for a better/the best quality of life. The more we know, the higher that quality will be. Sergey's contribution is welcome - we need all of the information we can get and new eyes with fresh ideas to analyze and ponder that information. In that context, the patient has just as great a voice as anyone else - and more skin in the game!