I can trace the stiffness back more than 15 years. It started in my lower back, then spread to my left hip, then to my hands, and most recently to my neck and legs. For more than five years, I've been dragging my left foot and sometimes tripping over nothing. About three years ago, I started having spasms or tremors while I was at rest--especially at night. About two years ago I started having pain and sweating around my eyes, with occasional double vision. I have this burning sensation in my legs and feet that happened only occasionally a few years ago, but happens every day now. I have a tendency to wander when I walk, often walking into walls or other people. Occasionally, I've found my self walking backward. I've been a computer programmer for years, but a couple years ago, I noticed that my left hand was typing slower than my right hand, which is very odd because the keys I typed were correct except one hand was like a word or more ahead of the other hand. There were other problems too, like some confusion and some compulsiveness. And then there's the fatigue--I get so tired i feel half-dead. I also noticed that stress could definitely make me feel much worse. People at work noticed that I had changed. I could go on, but you probably get the idea. My thinking was that all of this was just part of getting older.

My doctor kept checking me for specific things and the tests always came back negative. For example, they thought the stiffness might be arthritis, but nope, no arthritis. The eye doctor says my eyes are fine. MRI tests for MS came back negative. CT scans came back negative. I became really frustrated because I just knew something must be wrong, regardless of what the tests may show.

Then late last year, I had a sleep study. I had a bad case of sleep apnea. I was also having a lot of spasms while I slept. Some of them were so violent that my wife was bruised a few times. The sleep study showed that I was only getting about four percent of the necessary deep sleep. They also concluded that I had Restless Legs Syndrome.

The doctor gave me 1mg of clonazepam at night to control the spasms while I slept. He also gave me sinemet 25/100, once a day at first and then twice a day. I also began continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy for the apnea. (For those who don't know, I wear a mask that increases the air pressure to my airways and makes me breathe normally. It works well.) So with this therapy, I began to feel almost normal again. As a matter of fact, I felt pretty good. I was feeling like doing things again. All of the symptoms I mentioned in the first paragraph went away. But, because recovering from sleep apnea is like coming out of a brain fog and can take a long time, I didn't realize that the symptoms I had had could have been from something like PD, rather than apnea.

So while I was feeling better, I was sent to a neurologist who said I was fine and was perhaps drinking too much coffee. At that time, I hadn't yet put the pieces of the puzzle together, so I didn't tell him about the symptoms I had been experiencing and how sinemet made them better. (I also subsequently stopped drinking coffee, but it didn't seem to make any difference.)

So, then, my primary doctor raised the clonazepam to 2mg and I started to be very forgetful and confused. So he took me off the clonazepam and the sinemet and put my on zyprexa (which is a drug for schizophrenia). That was one of the worst experiences of my life. After a month, I decided that I wasn't going to take any more of that, no matter what. He then proceeded to diagnose me as having a dysthymic disorder (i.e. severe chronic depression).

I changed doctors, but as I live in a small town, the medical folks seem all too inclined to close ranks. So now, everyone says I need antidepressants. The latest thing they want to give me is Cymbalta, and that supposedly will relieve all of the symptoms that I described above. Well, they had me on Zoloft and that didn't help. All it did was make me shake a lot. It's also a paradox to me that they are trying to relieve me of symptoms that are already relieved by the sinemet.

I really don't feel depressed. I feel angry and frustrated. It's not that I want to have PD. What I want is a diagnosis that makes sense.

So between doctors, I went for several months without any treatment. That was a rough time. The spasms at night are so bad that I just cannot sleep without some medicinal assistance--and nothing over-the-counter helps. The stiffness I can tolerate. The pain around my eyes is the worst, however.

I have finally talked a doctor into letting me have Sinemet again, twice a day. Each dose only lasts about eight hours, so my days are like a roller-coaster ride. I have the clonazepam back again, too, so I'm finally sleeping again.

So what should I do? I think I have PD, but maybe the diagnosis doesn't matter as long as I get medicine that helps me live a somewhat normal life. I do have disability insurance, however, and a diagnosis would make my life much better, financially speaking.

They want me to start on the Cymbalta next week, but I'm wondering why I should take something that I don't seem to need. I'm worried that if I refuse to take the Cymbalta, they'll just use that as proof that I am depressed and being an uncooperative patient.

Suggestions would be sincerely appreciated.