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Rita, I was actually thinking about this point earlier, as I had had a discussion with someone else concerning a healing that might be described as similar to what you're getting at. What if a person got over PD, just kinda on their own, and then everyone stepped into say that it wasn't really a healing from PD, as it may have been misdiagnosed, as many are. Well, I figure if it ain't PD, and I have basically the same symptoms, which are progressing and which respond to Sinemet like PD does, then it's pretty much a moot point, as far as my life goes. Personally I don't care what I was healed of, as long as I was healed. If this unknown thing affected my life to the same extent PD would, I don't care as long as I can get rid of it. The researchers would obviously care, but that's part of what a study like this would hopefully uncover. If we gathered, say one hundred pd healing stories, and followed up on them, we might have to wait till these people later died of whatever, to be completely sure whether or not it was truly PD they were cured of or something else. If we never identify these people in the first place, however, we'll never know. It may be that 60 out of the 100 turned out not to have PD, while maybe the other 40 did. Whatever it is, if this other disease, while not strictly the same as classical PD, nevertheless exhibits the same general symptoms, then it could still give some clues as to how pd works. Even now, PD & AD researchers share info on the two diseases. Even tho' they're different, they can still give insights to the other, and I think this could also apply to both PD and wanna-be PD syndromes. Don't get me wrong, I actually appreciate it when people either disagree with me or highlight possible weaknesses with my arguments, cuz it makes me think them out more, and either modify them a bit to accomodate new info or another perspective, or perhaps strengthen them where they are weak. I certainly agree with your doctor that your case (i.e., it's slow progression) is atypical, but that's kinda my whole point. Luckily (I would assume) you probably aren't then in as much need of some of the drugs and surgeries as other PWPs are, or would be after that long a period. What interests me tho' are the reasons why you haven't been as affected as others would have been. Is it your diet (organic, vegetarian, all-American?), your lifestyle (smoking, religious, wild & crazy, quiet & reserved?), your environment (toxic exposures or lack thereof, country/city living, family history?), etc. Just as they look at all these factors in trying to determine why people get pd, we need to know the common factors of those who get it, but are either healed completely or barely affected. It could be, like you said, that maybe they never really had pd, but we'll never know the answers to these questions until we get enough case studies, on which we can begin doing some statistical analyses to look for trends, which would then be pursued further. Well, thanks for your comments, and I hope that I get some more good ones! Take care. Wendy