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Judy you are sure right, telling our stories is so important. My sister went through something like you experienced. At 48 she had a "numb" little finger... thought it must be caused by her bad habit of looping plastic grocery bags from the store over her fingers to carry them from car to house. Then she had a "stiff shoulder". Thought she may have slept on it wrong. Her doctor diagnosed it as "frozen shoulder" and she received Physical Therapy for it for almost a year. Meanwhile she began kinda "dragging" her right shoe when she walked. Well not dragging it but you could hear her right step but her left step was silent. I'm a nurse. I was walking across a parking lot with her and I "heard" her gait. We had been talking but the sound got my attention. I watched her walk and recognized the neurological origin. I suddenly connected her writing on the Birthday card she had recently sent me where I had noticed a tremble in the script. Initionally all of these "symptoms" over a year period of time did not appear to have any connection with each other but that evening everything fell into place. She had Parkinson's Disease. Now the next challenge was to get her doctor to recognize it. I thought it was a slam dunk... but no so. I talked with my sister and told her that she needed to see a Movement Disorder specialist. That I thought she had PD. She said Kaiser had it's way of doing things and she made an appointment with her Family Doctor first. I went in with her to the appointment and we talked with him. We pointed out her symptoms and asked him to observe her gait. His assessment was that since she could draw a circle and her writing was NOT tiny, that she did NOT have Parkinson's, instead he diagnosed her with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and fitted her with a hand brace. "No", he said. "No PD". "No Neurology Consult". I knew an excellent Movement Disorder Specialist and called for an appointment for my sister. I knew if my sister had PD, this doctor would know it and advise her as to what to do next. This was a cash visit and Kaiser refused to reimbure but within minutes the PD diagnosis was confirmed. She recommended tests to be run to rule out other possible causes for her symptoms but basically we had the diagnosis. She wrote a letter to the Kaiser doctor with the diagnosis and tests that needed to be run. And they were run. It should not be like this... we need more exposure, awareness and education! Gail Vass ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn