Yes, we do epsom salts all the time on PN forum.

There is also a topical cream by Kirkman 100mg/gram

Some foods have good amounts of magnesium:
3oz of almonds 270mg
Edamame beans
navy beans...

Foods can be looked up at
www.nutritiondata.com

But epsom salts is a great way to relax ...just be careful, they make the tub slippery to get out of.

A Timeline

1993 - Synergen synthesizes GDNF

July 1994 - French researchers report Vit D3 increased NGF - GDNF 5x in the lab

Dec 1994 - Amgen buys Synergen

1996 - Amgen trial of monthly injection into brain

Sept 1996 - the French team report Vit D3 increased GDNF 18x in lab

April 1999 - Amgen halts GDNF work

Summer 1999 - NYU researchers show a better way. New Amgen interest

A Phase I trial began in 2001, under the direction of neurosurgeon Steven S. Gill at the University of Bristol Institute of Clinical Neuroscience at Frenchay Hospital in the United Kingdom GDNF was directly infused into the putamen by a pump delivery system. Catheters were inserted into the brain, and GDNF was delivered from pumps implanted in the abdomen. < p> According to researchers, “Within a couple of months, patients were noticing dramatic improvements in their ability to move, and these continued over almost four years of treatment. Even after ceasing medication, the patients’ improvement has been maintained.”(3)

Dr. Michael Hutchinson of New York University related that videotapes of the patients taken before and after treatment were “quite amazing.” One patient initially "took five minutes to walk across a room.” After three months of infusion, “he jumps up and walks back and forth.” (4) After one year in this 2001 Phase 1 safety trial, patients averaged a 40 percent improvement in their symptoms with no serious side effects, reduced dyskinesia, and a 28 percent increase in the amount of dopamine stored in their brains.

In 2002, another Phase I trial was initiated using unilateral direct infusion of GDNF with 10 patients at the University of Kentucky, led by Dr. John Slevin. As in the Bristol trial, researchers and the patients reported positive results.

“… Notably, there appeared to be bilateral improvements, including improved postural stability, which continued through the washout period. All patients with PD also showed evidence of improved affect and fine motor control and speed.”(5) (PD Pipeline)

Dec 2002 - Spanish team report Vit D3 increased GDNF in rats brain striatum when injected intraperitoneally

After the favorable results in the Bristol trial in 2003, Amgen, which had donated the GDNF, stepped in and volunteered to sponsor future phases. The company initiated a multicenter, placebo-controlled trial that included 34 patients, all of whom had a pump-and-catheter delivery system implanted. Half the participants, however, received only saline solution for the first 6 months, and were then switched to GDNF.

Inexplicably, Amgen’s methodology differed from that of the successful phase I trials. The company used larger catheters and a different type of pump (a continuous rather than pulse delivery), and smaller doses of GDNF. Trial participants again reported improvements in their symptoms. After a 6-month analysis of the trial data, however, Amgen in June 2004 reported that improvements in symptoms were not statistically significant, and attributed them to the placebo effect. Even so, Amgen announced that all subjects would be entered in an open label extension study to try to resolve the differing trial results.

On September 1, 2004, however, Amgen abruptly halted the trials and withdrew treatment from participants in all of the study groups. Amgen cited lack of efficacy, and safety concerns, specifically indicating brain autopsies of some of the nonhuman (primate) subjects revealed damage in the cerebellum. It was later learned that the primates had received much higher doses than the human participants. Amgen also announced that GDNF neutralizing antibodies were found in five study participants, and these might lead to a reduction of naturally occurring GDNF in the brain. The Amgen study was initially reported on at the annual meeting of the American Neurological Association conference in October, 2004.

Some of the Phase II trial doctors, including the University of Kentucky team, Dr. Hutchinson of NYU, and Dr. Penn at the University of Chicago, did not agree with Amgen’s conclusions, nor with their safety concerns, and continue to question the statistical tests and methods used in the Phase II trials

The brain autopsy of one of the Bristol study participants, who died of an unrelated heart attack in 2005, revealed that dopamine-containing nerve fibers lost in Parkinson’s disease had sprouted back in the region where GDNF had been infused. Because the GDNF had been infused into one side of the brain only, the effects of the treatment could be assessed by comparing the two sides.

“This is the first neuropathological evidence that infusion of GDNF in humans causes sprouting of dopamine fibers, in association with a reduction in the severity of Parkinson’s,” stated Dr. Seth Love, who studied the tissue. (10)

Read the rest if you can stand it

Feb 2009 - Spanish team reported both protection and repair and GDNF increase in SN of rat model by Vit D3 intraperitoneally

------------------------

So, you are a Big Man at one of the biggest Pharms on the planet. You have this chemical that you own the patent for and it does amazing things for, not only PD, but probably other things as well. Things that generate a large part of your cash flow. It will doom some of your competitors but, hey, that's business.

But just as you make your first moves toward the market, one of your researchers breaks the news that the French and Spanish are claiming that you super chemical can probably be produced by simply megadosing with Vit D3.

What the heck are you going to do? You spent all that money to buy Synergen and you have launched research into making it profitable while bragging to the stockholders. If your trials succeed someone is going to point out that the world may not need you in the mix. If youpull the plug you can gain some time.

Then your researcher tells you that the French and Spanish work may threaten a lot more than your PD profits. Sheesh! What's a greedy capitalist to do???

"Is everything a conspiracy? No, just the important stuff."

spoken like a TRUE surveyor mapping out the lay of the land !!!

Rick,

I'm wondering if your drug regimen change may also be contributing to the improvements you are experiencing- sometimes less is more....

md

"So, you are a Big Man at one of the biggest Pharms on the planet. You have this chemical that you own the patent for and it does amazing things for, not only PD, but probably other things as well. Things that generate a large part of your cash flow. It will doom some of your competitors but, hey, that's business.

But just as you make your first moves toward the market, one of your researchers breaks the news that the French and Spanish are claiming that you super chemical can probably be produced by simply megadosing with Vit D3.

What the heck are you going to do? You spent all that money to buy Synergen and you have launched research into making it profitable while bragging to the stockholders. If your trials succeed someone is going to point out that the world may not need you in the mix. If youpull the plug you can gain some time.

Then your researcher tells you that the French and Spanish work may threaten a lot more than your PD profits. Sheesh! What's a greedy capitalist to do???

"Is everything a conspiracy? No, just the important stuff." "

RICK,
are those your words? or are you quoting someone? if they are yours, i'm assuming you are just stating an opinion?

http://www.picrx.com/resources/Vitam...eSubstance.pdf
http://acta.uta.fi/pdf/978-951-44-7547-4.pdf

Soccertese-

Strictly opinion on that one. Although I take exception with the qualifier "just"

Thanks for those two links, BTW.

-Rick

Just as a side note on the importance of sunlight. I don't know about all of you, but as a kid I was outside a lot, year round...yes even in the dead of a bleak, dreary Michigan winter, I ice skated on a lake and played in the snow...yet I have PD. If vitamin D insufficiency truly has a role in many diseases, I hate to think what the future holds for the wii generation.

It is alarming to see so many affluent neighborhoods in the school district where I teach look like ghost Mcmansion villages; there are rarely any people outside on the front lawn, retrieving their mail; let alone kids playing street hockey, kickball, or even just riding a bike. There are never any children outside period. It is creepy. The prefab $700-800K homes that still have families do not even have sidewalks. They are all designed to be conveniently accessed by the expressway. What are we doing to ourselves?

I can't begin to tell you how many kids have off the chart allergies! All I know is a 4 inch binder is not big enough to hold all the allergen profiles I get for the kids we teach. The ironic thing is that these children are not born with so many allergies, rather their hyper vigilant, over protective parents induce them. The kids have no pets, no carpet fibers to contend with, no dirt under their nails, no skinned knees to band aid, and they don't spend any time out doors, so you can imagine the list of allergens stemming from this. They of course, all have nut allergies, but it extends now to include a vast array of tree nuts. Those with more severe allergies are required to don a fanny pack holding an epi pen the entire school day. I swear I wonder how they actually can manage to breathe when outdoors lest it bring on allergy attack. I shudder to think of the health problems they will face as adults and am almost certain there will be a fallout of major proportions from this insane lifestyle and parenting approach. Ironically, in their zeal to protect, they are instead laying the ground work for future auto-immune related health issues.

To these parents, I have two words "George Carlin" and his take on germs and the immune system...it needs practice. If you link to the video it is funny stuff but there is a language alert...don't click if you are easily offended by the F-bomb.

"When I was a kid the big scare was Polio, but me and my friends never got it. You know why? Because we swam in raw sewage..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnmMNdiCz_s

-Laura

A good question, of course, which is why I posted the info. A side benefit of my two-day hiatus accompanied by return of symptoms is to decrease the odds that the requip was the problem. More research is needed - where is my grant?

sleep diffficulties are not listed in requip side effects. drug legacies can be positive - i've seen where mj use has resullted in more compassion and less anxiety long after use of it was stopped. perhaps siinemet can also assist in a sort of training capacity. seems to me there is a lot of room for maximizing the drugs we already have through cycling and combining them with nutrients.

i haad to googl doodlebugger - thought it meant remote viewing

narrow your research study to a specific focus-the grant will come