Originally Posted by 1990nyboy

My wife has now had PD for about 5 years. For the first four years the Parkinson's was more of an annoyance than anything else. In the last year it has become appreciably worse. She is seeing a pretty decent MDS, although his availability is generally minimal between visits.

Susan has no tremor, but has rigidity. The rigidity is generally pretty responsive to Sinemet. She is on 25-100 four times per day. She is also taking Mirapex 0.5 1 tab two times a day and 1.5 tabs two times a day. In addition she is on Azilect 1 mg.

Recently the rigidity has become far worse at night than what it was previously. But the most difficult problem is that her gait and balance have deteriorated dramatically over the last month or so.

The other complicating issue is that she has had a severe back problem (sciatica) that causes excruciating pain for which she has gotten a series of steroid shots. They helped for a short period, but would begin to "wear off" after a few weeks. For the back problem she will be having surgery this coming week and has already started working with a great physical therapist who is expert in working with PD.

To some degree it is hard to differentiate the back from the PD regarding gait and maybe balance and I am sure we will get things clearer after rehab from the surgery.

I wanted to ask people what your experience has been with gait and balance problems: have you seen things deteriorate this rapidly? is there any helpful treatment for gait and balance? Right now more than anything else (other than the pain from the back problem) gait and balance are really the worst things that she is dealing with regarding the PD. These are becoming severe and really are affecting her ability to work and function on a daily basis.

Any advice would be most welcome.

Howard