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I am a 78 year old retired US Army colonel, diagnosed PD on 18 Dec 1998, placed on Requip med which I took for about a month. Then,as I had previously planned to do, I switched HMO to the Senior Care Plan of Scott & White Hospital of Temple, TX. Wanting a second opinion anyhow, I went to the Chief of their Neurology Dept. who examined me and found no symptoms of PD. He explained, however, that just to be sure, he would like to examine me again after one month of no PD medication whatever. His second examination also revealed no PD symptoms! That was 24 March 1999. Immediately upon being freed from my PD "sentence", I felt that my story would best be unpublished, inasmuch as my apparent reprieve would in no way serve to lessen the woes of those who had no such good news. In the meantime I have been reading the sometimes heart wrenching stories written by scores of patients sufffering the REAL agonies, uncertainties, and frustrations of Parkinsons Disease. Slowly, almost imperceptably, I began to understand that in their entirety, LISTSERV messages carry much more GOOD NEWS than BAD. For example, almost every earnest request for HELP promptly receives at least four replies from concerned and caring persons that have BEEN THERE. The first responder may not have the perfect solution but the response is a heartwarming gesture from a person who cares. I have seen numerous followup responses that tend fill in the gaps in such manner as to give the requester ample advice to enable a reasonable decision to resolve the problem. So, it's PEOPLE HELPING PEOPLE -- it doesn't get any better than that!