@A MyParkinsonsTeam Member. Hello Patrick. Nice to meet you. My name is Sterling. You make a fine point in your statement to follow the lead of your doctor. However, unless we take responsibility for our own responses to PD, we may never find a cure for it. Gone are the days when we could trust our Doctor implicitly. Speaking for myself, and particularly with Parkinson's disease, Doctors don't know enough for me to trust them and follow their lead completely. I have to find out for myself and prove to myself about the disease that I have…so then I understand it and it will make sense to me. All that takes reading and research and trying and testing. I just cannot be passive in my own treatment. I respect your way of thinking and I thank you for your comments. Sterling

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I am a wife of a Vietnam veteran and I have PD. My husband suffers with severe Type II Diabetes with peripheral retinopathy, and lower extremity neuropathy. He has ischemic heart trouble, and does show signs of Parkinsonian symptoms. There is no ancestry PD in my family, so I have believed that my PD was given to me by AO through my husband somehow. My neurologist and my PCP and I do not communicate very well. I like the idea of what someone said about keeping a journal, because by the time I go to my appt., I have forgotten what I needed to discuss with them. If I thought that my doctors knew everything there was to treat and/or cure my PD, I wouldn't be a member of this site. I have learned more from the people on this site than I have learned from by medical team. I am not a very good communicator when it comes to describing my symptoms to my medical team. When someone asks me how I am, I just say "fine". I am thankful to those who take the time to do research and find out what is going on in the research field. I am looking forward to the day when there is a cure for PD. I have told my loved ones and my church family that I don't pray for God to heal me of PD, but I do pray for a cure to PD. When there is a cure, then we all shall be healed.

Thanks Alan for continuing to keep us informed on "whats happenin" in research to understand how PD works, so we can develop treatments or cure. As Sterling suggested this may be a breakthrough. I have to admit when I first started reading the post last night after a couple of glasses of wine, this phrase stopped me in my reading tracks, "stress on the endoplasmic reticulum in the cell rather than failure of the mitochondria". So I waited till today to read the article.
There are a lot of comments. I am amazed that Mohammad Ali took no medication and MJF only uses Amantadine.
I do not have Agent Orange in my history, That is a tragic event for the people involved.
I grew up on a farm and worked at an agriculture chemical and fertilizer business during my high school, college and after college job. Sprayed herbicides and pesticides on mostly corn fields and probably sucked in my share of chemicals.
I also try to participate in as many studies and trials as I qualify for. There are so many PD symptoms I do not see a one shot breakthrough, but therapies or treatments for individual symptoms.....and it may take a long time.
Anyway this is a great discussion.
Thanks,
Dave

@A MyParkinsonsTeam Member: I have been diagnosed with PD in Oct 2015 by an oncologist but several neurologists have not confirmed the diagnosis. Finally one did confirm after he saw the results of a DATScan. My PD has progressed fairly quickly and still can not get it under control with the medications I have been provided. In addition to PD I also have been disgnosed with paraneoplastic encephalomyelitis syndrome and severe peripheral neuropathy. All of these conditions are caused by my exposure to Agent Orange. In addition to the aforementioned conditions I have also experienced non hodgkins lymphoma, COPD, hypothyroidism diabetes and several other conditions from AO. The statement "I was killed in Vietnam by Agent Orange, I just haven't died yet" seems so accurate because of the medical difficulties I have endured since Vietnam.

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@A MyParkinsonsTeam Member,
I totally agree with you! God is faithful and merciful to us! I have been through so much that many are amazed that I am still going. Read my story!! How could I ever have done or gone through what I have without God walking me through it?? Blessings to you all!
Pam

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