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It has been a little while since i posted anything...things have been quite tough. however i wanted to respond a little, comment a little and thank again for the advice and support always reappearing here inside this computer land. my mother has had quite a time of it the last couple months as has all our family. long story short...cramping, pain, confusion, delusion, depression, suicidal wishes...she was put on morphine, valium, and most recently mellaril. within 5 weeks she moved from home to emergency ward to hospital to rehab center to 2 board and cares, and back to emergency then home to 24 hour care. that is one long story. the good news is, and seems to relate to some of the questions i have been reading about hallucinations, mellaril, clozaril, pallidotomy. well, anyway, we finally got her to Dr. Waters at USC, really the first time in 10 years she has seen a true specialist. The doctor (and a psychiatrist we saw last week) said she was very surprised and not happy to see my mom on morphine. she said she almost never sees a parkinson patient on such a strong pain killer and found it very inappropriate. she also said the mellaril is inappropriate as it counteracts any good the sinemet is doing. the morphine just makes one more confused, frightened and panicky. and her pain is from levodopa fluctuations, not a hip problem. at this point we are praying the next week will not be too tough...she starts on a very low dose of clozaril tonite and then tapers very slowly off the morphine. then i was very surprised to hear that Dr. Waters thought my mother might make a candidate for a pallidotomy. The doctor herself said she doesn't push for the surgery that much, however my mother's case seemed to be an exception. She did say that my mother has one of the more complicated situations she has seen, but she gave us some hope. and not only that, she got on the phone and worked with our regular neuro., since that is where the insurance lies. It is all so difficult, but having some goals, even very short term, help tremendously. i apologize for the length here. [log in to unmask] debbie