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Jim Ryan writes: >My wife just returned from an acupuncturist for plantar fasciitis (heel >spurs) where she claimed relief of her discomfort. She suggest I try it for >my PD. Has anyone had any experience with acupuncture? I question the >benefit, however before I decide I thought I ask for the wisdom of someone >who has walked the walk. >Thanks, >Jim Ryan >57/7 > Hi Jim, I had accupuncture a couple of years ago for pain management purposes (it was very effective). The pain was only incidentally related to PD, but in the course of things I talked with the doctor about the PD, whether accupuncture would help. This doctor is a Chinese woman trained for 20 years under a master accupuncturist in China. She said in all those years she had only seen PD healed once, after a very long and arduous treatment regimen. Well, once is a BIG improvement over what we are seeing here, so we agreed to start treatment. She used a lot of needles in the head for the underlying malfunction, along with other spots that only she understood. She treated my arm/hand tremor with needles in my forearms, which caused excrutiating and barely endurable pain, but was effective in reducing tremor in 2 week intervals. Since accupuncture is generally pain-free, I wondered about the awful pain caused by the arm treatment...she attributed it to the deeply chronic nature of PD. She attempted to treat my leg/foot tremor and dystonia, but I could not endure the pain. If you had asked me, I would have told you that I would endure any amount of pain to be free of PD, but I was completely unable to endure this anguish. I guess I would try it again if things got a lot worse for me, but in the mean time, no thanks. If you decide to give it a try, my advice is to go to someone who REALLY knows what they are doing. Accupuncture is a complex methodology that I don't think can be mastered in a few courses. Good luck! Kathie Tollifson [log in to unmask] 46/8