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I agree in many respects with Milo Anderson that it's the patients (and their caregivers) who know most about PD. It's not that doctors (general or specialists) don't know or don't care; it's just that they don't live with the problem, and it's not high on most doctors' lists of things to lose sleep over. Don rarely sees his neurologist; he never did. She's a wonderful, caring doctor, but he's been educating her about PD. Same with our family doctor, who now takes Don along for his lectures to med students. Certainly I didn't diagnose my own stomach problems last month and remove my own gall bladder last week; those are much more definite problems with more definite solutions. PD is so terribly individual that it's unrealistic to rely solely on the doctor. That said, I think PD patients and caregivers have to work closely with the patient's doctors. If the doctor(s) won't listen, it's time to get new doctor(s). Medications don't work the same for all PDers; medicine that worked begins to fail or to produce side effects more disabling than PD. Only the patient and caregiver can monitor these effects and tell the doctor what seems to be working and what doesn't work. Don's doctors, including Langston et al. down at San Jose(?) knew virtually nothing about the stim surgery when he went in to talk to them about having it. And because it wasn't within the scope of the research they were doing, they didn't much care. Our family doctor and Don's neurologist were more supportive--but they didn't know anything about it either. We had to make the decision on our own, based on our own research. I shudder to think what our lives would be like if we'd relied on the doctors' suggestions about simply changing meds yet again. I get angry that people who never studied medicine have to become the experts, but that seems the best solution now. Joanne Sandstrom, c/g Don, 58, 21 yrs. [log in to unmask]