Writing for a friend about Parkinson's disease

I have many friends with Parkinson's disease, and I've been doing a lot of writing an research about the disease for over a year now. Besides my own stuff, there are a log of good sources about Parkinson's disease. I decided to do a little more indexing of the information here on Parkinson's Disease Update. This is meant to be very much at the introductory level.

Sometimes I have to explain what blog is. I was never a big Star Trek fan, but I tell people that it is kind of like when Captain Kurk would dictate an entry into his captain's log: "Star date 2090. Captian log. The Enterprise entered sector 12 . . . "

It's just a person doing the same thing on the Internet. In my case my mission is to teach people about Parkinson's disease so that they are fluent enough to have a good visit with their doctor, and make decisions with the doctor. So, if you run into this blog, please feel free to come along on the ride with us.

By the way, I reserve the right to misspell and use poor grammar. Its a blog!

One of the most useful websites that introduced the basics of Parkinson's to us was from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Or NINDS.

The web address is http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/parkinsons_disease/parkinsons_disease.htm. From this we learned that a person has Parkinson's disease because the cells in his brain that normally make dopamine are mostly dead. So, there's a lot less dopamine in there to help him move.

The way they treat it is by putting dopamine back in the brain using a medication called Levodopa. Most people take levodopa in a pill called Sinemet. I know that is not an amazing breakthrough to most people with Parkinson's. The doctor explains all of this in the first few mintues. But, many friends tell me that they do not not hear much after the words, "You have Parkinson's disease." So, it is all worth repeating.

By the way, a little social protocol and etiquite. In casual writing like a blog, call people with Parkinson's disease, "people with Parkinson's." You can abreviate it PWPs. I'll do that alot.