We tend to think in a cause and effect manner where disease is concerned. A bacteria makes you sick. Simple, right? Find something that kills the bacteria and you are cured. A-B-C

This is called linear thinking and is effective in many situations. Not necessarily correct, but effective.

But some conditions don't lend themselves to this model and require a non-linear approach. And much of western science has a hard time with this.

PD is one of these.

Instead of a straight line (linear) view, imagine a process where a collection of factors contribute to raise the overall level of. for example, stress in a system until it reaches a certain level and trips a switch. Once that switch is tripped, the things that did not affect you yesterday do so today. A time deadline, for example, that would have been no problem last week is undoable this week.A threshold was crossed and the entire system shifted.

In the world of neuroendocrinology these thresholds are called "set points" and they do indeed shift in response to stressors and they don't easily shift back. Many of us recall a major stress in the months leading up to our first real problems. But those were just the problems that finally became obvious. There were likely a series of such thresholds crossed and barely noticed before that and we are still climbing the next. PD is "progressive," remember?

Too much research money goes into chasing the beginning point of the linear model. There may be no "magic bullet" and the management of PD may require the management of our lives. That is why you Newbies need to think about shedding that high stress job etc.before that next threshold is crossed.