If I were to ask myself did I get anything out of the Parkinsons Research Foundations trip? One answer would be yes. I walked away with knowledge about performing some physical exercises with a chair while I am at home and also away from home. The second answer would be that I got to know Dr. Sanchez-Ramos better than before. This happened when I heard his lecture on the topic of hoping to find a cure for Parkinsons. He was the keynote speaker at the conference held aboard the ship, Norwegian Sky. After listening to him, I said to myself that this is the kind of person that is needed in the area of scientific research, which I am confident will produce a cure for Parkinsons. I saw in Dr. Sanchez-Ramos a childlike curiosity about the various medical disciplines: those that are traditional as well as non-traditional ones. For instance, the Chinese doctors which study the energy flow in the human body and redirect that same energy to heal the body. He also spoke about far-reaching practices which have found that plants which are toxic to humans, while at the same time they were beneficial to animals in correcting abnormal movements. Several other studies were mentioned which I find it difficult at this point to recall all of them.As I listened to him intensely statements that I have read elsewhere in the past disrupted my attention to what he was saying. I asked myself what exactly did Pablo Picasso, the painter, mean when he said that we should not teach children how to draw but we should learn from them. What did the scientist Einstein mean when he said that after the crunching of infinite amount of numbers and formulas, in the end, there is philosophy? These thoughts connected in a far-reaching introspective ways and related somehow to what the doctor was presenting at that time to his audience.It appears to me that Dr. Sanchez-Ramos approaches his research holistically. This tells me that he is visionary and capable of thinking outside the box when he searches for the possibility of finding a cure for this dreaded disease. When he talks about the possibility of finding a cure, he behaves like an excited child in a candy store. He wants research done on the stem cells, on the study of gene therapy, and of vaccination as a means of protecting us from Parkinsons from birth until the end of life. He talks about bone marrow transplant that will find its way to the damaged parts of the brain by following a natural path without a forceful mechanical intervention. The rapid fire presentation of these studies that he mentioned tells me that Dr. Sanchez-Ramos is a very concerned and very human individual. His knowledge is extensive and felt confident when he captured the audiences amusement by telling the story of how barbers over time progressed from cutting hair to performing minor surgeries. By a strange coincidence at the same time that the doctor was saying this, I recollected the story of my fathers barber friend who operated a salon a block away from where my fathers barber shop was located in his native town in Italy. My fathers friend at the insistence of his client asked him to extract a painful tooth. He finally did that, but after the extraction, the wound bled profusely. The barber needless to say panicked and ran to see my father to ask him for his advice to stop the excessive bleeding. My father being older and more experienced suggested to him to place on the wound a shelled dried fava bean. To this day, I dont know if the barber succeeded in stopping the bleeding. Some would interpret this to be an old wifes tale while others believe this remedy to be true. What I am trying to say here is that possibly medicine could have progressed over the millenniums in this way. In making observations and asking the question, what if?I am confident that my doctor is the kind of research doctor who leaves doors open to learn about the endless possibilities which could happen intentionally or accidentally to bring a solution and repair my brains malfunctions. It must also be said that in order to make connections among the various fields of studies and to find the solution to Parkinsons one must be well prepared and informed and know how things are interconnected. I feel that Dr. Sanchez-Ramos could be that gifted person which will have the possibility to find a cure for this disease. His extensive mastery of various disciplines as a medical doctor, pharmacist, accomplished artist, medical researcher, teacher, and linguist and much more evokes memories of another visionary: Leonardo Da Vinci.

Have you found any medication to control the pain any longer than 2 hrs? My sister has not been diagnosed with Parkinsonism but she has been suffering with the symptoms you described in the Winter 2010 Update. She was given Darvocet which she took every 4 hours fearing if she didn't her symptoms would reoccur. She suffered a fall with no visable signs of injury except a small bruise. She is now detoxing from the medication and seems to be severely depressed.