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Your-own-body-collagen? Terrific, Joan! YOU GO GIRL!! And watch out Kids, 'cause your mom's gonna be mighty vocal now! <grin> It's my understanding, m'dear that when your own body is the source of the collagen for your collagen injections, that the benefits of the injections last MUCH, MUCH longer before the collagen is absorbed by your body - somewhere in the vicinity of 18 months benefit as opposed to the 3 to 5 months of benefiting vocally that the bovine collagen gives ya after getting the injections. I found it very frustrating to get my voice back after getting the injections and then losing it once again every few months! Then the Kaiser MD - the ONLY Kaiser MD whp performed the procedure - moved to another Kaiser facility to work and it's so far away that it's impossible for me to drive there.... THAT'S actually like the good news and the bad news..... with the MD's moving being the bad news. The GOOD news is that I found out that I read that as "we") can get permanent hydroxylapatite (a substance kinda like chalk) IMPLANTS placed into my vocal cords now because tho that has been FDA-permitted for other diseases for the past 10 years, it's NOW been FDA approved for PD and related diseases. Judith Richards posted about the implants being surgically implanted into the vocal cords a coupla-three months ago - being performed at Johns Hopkins by Dr. Charles Cummings. I've been tracking down MD's in the Los Angeles area who do the procedure and YIPPEE - Dr. Gerald Burke at UCLA (who did my initial collagen injections into my vocal cords on May 19, 1997) does the implant procedure!!!!! Sooooooo..... as soon as my Medicare kicks in again (allegedly any day now, according to Social Security), I'm having Dr. Burke do the insert operation (it's a 1/2 hour out-patient surgergy) NOW - as for MOI vacationing in Peoria, Illinois? Why, uhhhhh..... SURE. I've always WANTED to vacation in Peoria! <giggle> I'll pencil it in my calendar..... and'll be there right after my year long vacation around the world! (I WISH!!!) <smile> I hate to tell ya this, Joan, but somehow, I've never thought of Peoria as being a vacation area. ... ya know..... like Cancun, or Hawaii? <grin> Hoping this messages gets to ya 'cause 98% of my new posts to the List have been returned by the email "Postmaster," claiming the "winsock <whatever THAT is> isn't working <groan>. Much love..... Barb Mallut [log in to unmask]