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Although due to the volume of info posted on the Park. Digest and my own= time limitations I only able to occasionally dip in here and there. I recall seeing some requests for info on Pallidotomies recently. As many = of you know I had a Pallidotomy on Dec. 1, 1993 done by Dr. Iacono. In fact= I had a bi-lateral Pallidotomy with outstanding results which continue on today over 4 years later. It was my privilege to work with Dr. Iacono on a weekly basis while I liv= ed in La Canada, CA, before moving to Pittsburgh. In my opinion the key to the results with a Pallidotomy depend entirely on the neurosurgeon. It i= s important to check out your surgeon thoroughly. How many have they done?= = What were the results? How long does it take them to perform a Pallidotomy? Will they let you talk with their patients who have had the= surgery? = Although I no longer work with Dr. Iacono since moving, over the years I have seen literally hundreds of patients who have elected to have a unilateral Pallidotomy, a bilateral Pallidotomy or a combination Pallidotomy/Thalamotomy. = Conservatively 85% of these patients have a good result ranging from a C+= to an A+. 10-12% receive minimal help, but no harm is done, and 3-5% hav= e some sort of complication usually a result of bleeding. NO ONE has died= as the result of this surgery or attendant complications. These results are based on a very broad patient selection pool. In further reflecting on my Pallidotomy I believe that after four years I= can make the following statements: = The Pallidotomy intervened into my Parkinson's Disease and re-balanced th= e brain taking into account the dopamine and seratonin depletion that exist= ed and given the medicine schedule I was on at the time. This in a sense reset my Parkinson's Disease time clock back to zero. = Since the surgery meanwhile the underlying disease has continued to progress with the dying off of more dopamine producing cells in the substantia nigra. Yet because the brain was brought back into balance wi= th so few of the dopamine producing cells active (let's say 10 % in my case)= , the fact that I now only have say 9% of my dopamine producing cells activ= e does not make that great a difference. Plus, I now have the luxury of taking a little more medicine when needed without facing those dreaded dyskinesias. The greatest deficits I face a= re occasional drooling, getting sleepy mid-morning or mid-afternoon, some slurred speech when I am tired or low on medicine, and being slightly slowed down in the late evening. = I continue to feel my life was given back to me through the Pallidotomy a= nd tend to view every day as a bonus day, a gracious gift from God. FOR MORE INFO SEE Dr. Iacono's WEB PAGE at WWW.PALLIDOTOMY.COM Thankfully, Don Don Berns D.Min. 110 Delano Dr. Pittsburgh, PA, 15236 = =