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Emily... From your description of of mom's symptoms, it sure sounds to me like she has PD, or a related disease. However, it should be noted that Compasine is KNOWN to cause Parkinson's-like symptoms in persons who don't have the disease and is considered a BIG "no-no" if one HAS Parkinson's! With that in mind, if mom DOES have PD, the ingestion of Compasine has GOT to be adding to her existing symptoms. Barb Mallut [log in to unmask] ---------- From: Parkinson's Information Exchange on behalf of Ejrcpa Sent: Sunday, January 18, 1998 5:43 PM To: Multiple recipients of list PARKINSN Subject: swallowing etc., not parkinsons? Just like all your warnings, mom does have bilateral pneumonia, she was admitted to hospital yesterday for iv to rehydrate and knock out the pneumonia. hospital dr thinks that will work, but suspects non-pd gastro- intestinal problems. I'd like some feedback on the following: new fancy parkinsons' specialist we saw Thursday did cursory exam and implied it wasn't pd, was all in her head (no joke intended). Neurologist suggested phasing out permax and referred her to new psychopharmacologist for different antidepressant. Seemed okay advice as far as it went, but... Said not to add anything else now, come back in 3 months. She's been on: 50/200 sinemet CR x 3/day extra carbidopa/levadopa before getting out of bed to boost her in AM (I forget exact amount, one yellow pill) .05 mg permax x 4/day (which lists some o these g.i., dysphagia side effects) 60-80 mg prozac oxybutinin (ditropan) x 3/day (2 at bedtime) keeps trying new gi drugs, most recently one purple prilosec cap/day seemed to help. (mom did have gallbladder/pancreas problems over 30 yrs ago, and had been taking compazine (!) occasionally ever since. cut it out completely only 3 months ago.) Here's one question - she's never had any dyskenesia (sp?) or hallucinations, and generally seems to have high drug tolerance. Dx only 6 months ago, but in retrospect symptoms of shuffling, slowness coming on for several years. Is it possible that she's under-medicated with sinemet? Non-neuros are discussing possibility of non-pd g.i. disease. I have no problem w/checking that out. barium gi x-ray was negative couple wks ago, she's also scheduled for abdominal CT scan in couple of wks. second question: am I grasping at straws, pushing for neuropharmacology solution? other symptoms - lost vocal volume, cramped handwriting, severe retropulsion when not medicated, falling backwards, stepping too fast forward, no tremor, difficulty getting in & out of bed, turning over, sitting down, standing up, raynaud's syndrome in hands (numb fingers.) (for the record, used to smoke a lot, but quit cold turkey 18 yrs ago.) thanks as always. you guys are the greatest. emily ([log in to unmask]) for mom 76/dx 6 months