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Hello All, My name is Ron and I have been reading the posts for the past month or so and feel compelled to add my 2 cents worth. I am my wife's caregiver and have been for over 20 years. She was first diagnosed [about age 50] when we noticed that she was dragging her foot on our daily walks. Fearing a possible stroke, we were "relieved", at that time, to find that it was "only" PD. Our world changed that day, even though we were unaware of this at the time. There are several things that we have learned through our experience. One is to get to know your enemy and look for ways to defeat him. Research the web [ go to Google or any other good search engine and search parkinsons] and join lists like this one. Find and join a local support group. Hopefully you have a good Neuro and he or she will allow and encourage trying various meds and combinations. Over the years we have tried many combinations and the constant surveillance and adjusting of life style and medications can be frustrating. No two people react the same to their medications. In her case we found that Comtan was a Magic pill. She takes a Comtan, 25/100 sinemet and permax 5 times daily about 4 hours apart. This has worked very well for the past year. Recently we find that this is not enough and have to double her dosage during bad "offs". We are currently discussing a possible DBS operation in the near future, because the medication is no longer holding as well as it has been. I have to add that she is a very young 70, she often passes for age 50 or less and this is her only health problem. For this, we thank God. I hope that this short bio may help some one else facing these problems. Stay active and don't give in to this thing called PD. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn