I HEAR YOU!

My walking is horrible.  I shuffle and freeze.   I can not walk a straignt line - I veer to the right and  my arms no longer swing at my side.   At times i look like a potted plant, frozen in place, in the middle of the supermarket aisle. I too have lost my upper body strength.  I have just made the big purchase - a power wheelchair.  I am not able to manage a scooter (can not pick up my feet to get on) and do not have the upper body strength to use a manuel wheelchair.  I gave up on sleeping one year ago.  My sinemet only lasts a little over an hour, and recurrent PD symptoms mandate that I dose myself during the middle of the night.  CR has not proven effective for me.  Because of the aggressive nature and my non-responsiveness to sinemet, my diagnosis has been revised to MSA.  You have to laugh at all this...and you are right....you are not alone.  You are among friends.

Hi there, I'm new to this and somewhat intimidated.  I was dx w/PD in Sept. 1992 I also have Kartagener's Syndrome which is in the same family as cystic fibrosis, I have no cilia in my body and have chronic sinusitis & bronchitis, have had pneumonia 43 times, plus I am a breast cancer survivor, had that gem in Dec. 1998.

I've read your letters and I can relate to what you are all saying.  I take 7 sinemet cr 200/50 and four 100/25 sinemet, sometimes it can be more or on the odd occasion less.  I had a pallidotomy done in Oct. 2002 and it brought me great relief on my left side but it's starting to wear off now.  Like all of you I too have sleep problems and have been on sleeping pills for about 2 yrs. now.  I am still walking but like most of you I walk like I've been on a bender, oh well it could be worse I guess, at least we're still looking at the grass on the green side.