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Jim, (and all) After reading your post about your black out, I too am beginning to wonder. I had the same thing happen to me on several occasions. The difference is that I have never completely blacked out. I used to get these episodes of faintness while shopping, driving, etc.. I had always had great blood pressure. Bottom line, 3 years ago this happened when driving so I went to the ER. I had a drastic drop right there in the ER. 5 minutes later I was fine again, the nurse came to check on me five minutes later and I was fine. My doc kept me in CCU for a few days. David Meigs aka: Pappy [log in to unmask] ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Dolan" <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Tuesday, September 05, 2000 2:41 AM Subject: Re: Parkinson's May Affect Nerves Outside Brain > I am 58 and was diagnosed in May of this year. Tremor is my most apparent > symptom, but after learning more about the disease it became apparent that > I have other symptoms, some for a few years. > > The kicker here is that a good 15 years ago I had a fainting spell. I got > up from the couch, went upstairs and while urinating...bam...I went down > like a ton of bricks. I was put through a whole series of tests, with no > apparent cause found. The neuro (my cousin) concluded it was caused by a > drop in blood pressure caused by suddenly standing up and contributed to by > the urination. > > Now I read this...hmmm! > > Jim Dolan > > >One key symptom is orthostatic hypotension -- a drop in blood pressure > >that comes when people stand up. Some patients have it all the time, > >complaining of dizziness and even fainting when they stand. > > > >The symptom has been described in association with Parkinson's, and has > >sometimes been blamed on the drugs used to treat Parkinson's. > > > >But Goldstein found this drop in blood pressure was associated with a > >loss of the sympathetic nerve endings. These nerve endings produce a > >neurotransmitter that is related to dopamine, called norepinephrine.