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Hello all: My name is Gayle Herring. I have subscribed to this list in an effort to educate myself in re Parkinson's in general and to search for a specific problem because my mother has this disease. Specifically I am trying to find info about Parkinson's causing breathing problems. My mother is 73 and has been diagnosed about 6 years. I do not know all the specifics about her meds, etc. I have recently become very concerned because she does not seem to have a good relationship with her doctor and does not know why her symptoms manifest the way they do. I have been obsessively surfing the net now for about 3 weeks, and have found only one !short! reference to breathing problems in connection with Parkinson's. :-( Allow me to be long-winded and give a brief history, for I really need some feedback. I can't be truly definitive, because I've not seen Mom's med rec's, and have only what she's related to me to go on. She lives near Paducah, KY, while I live near Knoxville, TN, which makes being truly involved much more difficult. According to her, the diagnosis was mainly a ruling-out of anything else, which left Parkinson's as the probable culprit. She had a tremor, horrible at times, and had these "spells" which caused her to consult a physician. There was a concern about her pancreas at first, but it was decided she simply had an abnormally-shaped pancreas. (I assume they looked at the pancreas to rule out sugar imbalance causing the problem). Then there was fear she had a brain tumor from something that showed in a CAT scan, but she relates that came to nothing. I'm not clear what the decision was about what caused the concern. Mom's tremor is mostly in her left hand. I remember her having this as long as 20 years ago. She has considerably slowed down in walking. I remember being aggravated years ago at how long it took her to get someplace. (May the younger generation have patience with me as my turn comes!) She definitely likes an arm to grip as she travels. I've not noticed a decrease in voice volume, but she has a problem with hoarseness. Mom's main problem is that whatever she has (she refused for ages to accept the diagnosis of Parkinson's) affects her breathing. Shortness of breath or just not being able to breathe--are they the same thing? It causes her horrible problems and can ruin a whole day. As I've seen in this forum, she has turns of good days and bad days. Sometimes she can go, and sometimes she just can't operate. In all my surfing of the net, I've seen one reference to rigidity in the chest wall muscles possibly causing shortness of breath (SOB), but that was to be decided on after ruling out meds causing it. Mom's SOB was what caused her to seek medical help, so the meds don't cause it. I assume, and have discussed with her, that the SOB has scared her, which causes both her heart rate and breathing rate to rise, which in turn increases the SOB. Mom goes to the clinic in Paducah which is supposed to be the one that treats the most Parkinson's patients in the area, although the main doctor isn't seeing her (not taking anymore patients than he already has). She says when she tries to talk to her doc about this, he just sits and nods. Albeit, we agree she should have someone more responsive, she says the meds he keeps her in do help and that she doesn't want to travel to Nashville or St. Louis just to keep in meds. (Whole 'nother basket of worms, but one I can mostly understand--age, travel expenses, disposition, the ill-health, big city and all.) Has ANYONE that looks in on this forum had any experience with this? I've been going back through the digests but haven't seen anything yet. If I've jumped the gun, I apologize. I would greatly appreciate any input concerning this and/or references for docs in the west KY area with experience treating this aspect of Parkinson's. Would also like to say that I've learned an enormous amount from looking at the various messages posted here, and hope this remains a viable forum for a long time. There are always people newly arrived at needing just this type of nformation. I'm pulling everything down and mailing it to Mom as she doesn't have a 'puter but wants to see it ALL. Thanks, much. Gayle