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Charley, I am an 56, have been diagnosed with PD for 3.5 years, and am an insulin- dependent diabetic (late juvenile, Type I onset at age 27of 30 years). Daily I take 4 Mirapex (1mg), 8 Sinemet (25/100), 2 Eldepryl (5mg), 1 Zoloft (50 mg), and 1Nortriptilyne (25mg). Currently I'm trying to reduce the Sinemet (which was 5, 25/250, at one point). I take Humalog and NPH insulin, 4 injections daily, with the first three (Breakfast, lunch, dinner) mixing both (from 3-11 units of Humalog, depending upon blood sugars -- which I test at least 4 times daily with a Lifescan One Touch II system -- and 3 at Breakfast, 4 at Lunch and 2 at Dinner units of NPH) in the syringe, and the fourth (Bed), just 9 units of NPH. My blood sugars have been varying widely of late from lows of 25 - to highs of well over 400, with an average in the 180's. Obviously this is not good, and it follows the past decade of excellent control. I am working avidly with physicians and nurses at Boston's Joslin Clinic to regain my previous excellent control. I had a complete neuropsychological battery done at Bostun University's Neurological Referral Center this past winter, and got the results on April 1 in an extensive interview with the department's head psychologist, my wife and I in attendance. It was a real eye-opener for me, demonstrating through cognitive results that a number of things (more technical than I can report effectively to you) are going on in the basal ganglia of my brain that account for many recent behaviours (related to obsessing on certain tasks, to exhaustion, to occasionally inopportune and inappropriate responses or comments by me that cause wonderment by colleagues in my professional environment, to being quite anxious about individual tasks and my work in general (made worse when deadline crunches arise -- as they do often in my work), to taking about 65 hours/week to get a 40 -hour/week job done. Hitherto I had seen my Parkinson's symptoms as the more evident, physical problems of voice loss, illegibility (even to me) of handwriting, of a stony, rigid aspect (exacerbated at "off" times). The explanation of the results of the neurocognitive workup made it clear to me for the first time that I really do have a serious health problem, one that I can't just paper over. I began to see as real difficulties in the workplace that others had either commented on or reacted to, and also many situations at home which my wife had noticed (to put it mildly) but which had not been as compelling for me. I was trying so hard to compensate for my difficulties, and thereby to avoid their real impact, that I was missing the reality boat repeatedly. Prior to last summer, I had only had two serious insulin reactions (by serious I mean reactions that I could not get back in control myself, even though they could feel quite heavy). Last August, however, then again in October, and at least 8 times during March and April of this year, I've had very serious reactions where I lost total control, lost touch with reality, could not correct it myself, and had to have significant interventions by others. These were extremely debilitating and fearsome, and three of them occurred while I was driving a car. As a result of these, and of the neuropsych cognitive results report, I decided to apply for short-term disability and am now on that, determining whether to go back to work full-time, part-time, or not at all. This a real dilemma for me, for I love to work and have a great drive to do so, and we need the income. However, I am starting to become much realistic about the actualities of my situation and will, I believe, be ready to make a correct assessment and decision about this soon, largely because of the data supplied me from the neuropsychological cognitive workup. The data is irrefutable. In addition, whereas I had never previously even been willing to think about myself as a disability candidate, the psychologist's testimony about the ease with which I would qualify has helped me move in that direction. I hope this is helpful to you. I'd certainly go through this sort of examination if you have the opportunity. Good luck, John B.