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To all: It's 10:15pm pst and moments ago I finished watching the Primetime segment on Parkinson's, featuring Dr. Iacono at Loma Linda achieving amazingly dramatic results on a patient on whom he performed a pallidotomy earlier today. To say I'm filled with emotion would be an understatement. Initially, as an early-onset, early-stage parkinsonian, I felt, when viewing the persons shown with advanced symptoms, as if I were peering over the edge into the deep, dark abyss that apparently is my future. Then we were introduced to the gentleman on whom the operation was to be performed and my heart went out to him as he was shown in the grip of severe tremor and dyskinesia. Then, as I viewed what was shown of the operation, and as it became more and more apparent that the patient was experiencing unbelievably dramatic and immediate relief from his symptoms even as he lay there on the operating table......well, the tears began to flow. Then we saw the gentleman jog down the hallway in glee (was that from the operating room?!!) and his feelings of joy and relief were shared by this viewer and were overwhelming. I know I'm in the throes of emotion right now, and I know that pallidotomies must still stand the tried and true tests of full scientific scrutiny and study, as well as the test of time and what long term effects might be and so forth, but I also know that tonight I saw on television a man who earlier today, and for some years prior, was suffering debilitating, crushing, torturous, imprisoning symptoms of Parkinson's disease, and who tonight, as I write these words, is apparently, based on what we saw and were told, enjoying very substantial and dramatically immediate relief. To the gentleman (whose name I don't recall) who couragously allowed his "before, during, and after" condition to be shown on national tv, I send my heartiest congratulations and heartfelt appreciation for sharing your life with us. To Dr. Iacono, keep up the great work, and while the scientific scrutiny and study of pallidotomies wends its way along its painstakingly slow and necessarily deliberate path, I say that as long as you can give the kind of nearly miraculous relief to Parkinson's patients that I saw tonight, godspeed, keep doing what you're doing, and teach what you're doing to other physicians. Best regards, Larry Allen ([log in to unmask])