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Recent comments have implied PD may be caused by stress. Most people I know with PD can relate to an emotional stress-filled event in the year prior to diagnosis. Often these events are death of a close relative or friend, divorce, loss of employment, or something similar. I know women that had a difficult child birth just before diagnosis of PD. All of these events are very stressful. There have been studies on the possibility that stress could be a cause of PD. These studies have found that many patients experienced stressful events, but many times the early symptoms of PD actually were there before the stressful event. Some of the early symptoms were 1. Handwriting had deteriated 2. Tremor may have been experienced 3. Loss of smell or partial loss or a change in smell sensation 4. Depressions were getting longer and more frequent 5. Other early indications The general understanding of the progression of PD is that it requires years of accelerated loss of neurons before PD shows first symptoms. If stress were important it would have happened many years before and maybe during the f irst 10 years of life. Stress has been blamed for everything bad. It is also stress that stimulates the immagination. Some people consider change stressful. Others consider change as opportunity. There is no doubt that stress can influence the benefit received from medications. Stress has been known to change ph balance in the gut along with other physical and emotional changes. This can change the delivery of medications. Anywhere from increased response to no response has been reported on meds during stressful times. Regards, Alan Bonander ([log in to unmask])