Just say "Thank you for your time Doctor." Then leave and don't go back.

I just went through the aggravation of changing doctors in mid-course, otherwise known as changing horses in midstream. Since Parkinson’s is a progressive disease that attempts to attack you from different directions simultaneously, what works for treating symptoms is constantly being challenged. Or what works today may not work tomorrow. Fortunately, there is progress being made, slowly but surely, through the Parkinson’s Foundation www.parkinson.org

Are you absolutely positive that your doctor is the best Parkinson’s doctor in your neck of the woods? Shouldn’t you be? Settling for second best is not a good plan if you have PD. I am now on Doctor number 5, and I can comfortably say that each move improves my ability to live a normal life (if there is any such thing).The Parkinson’s Foundation has an excellent tool for anyone looking for expert advice and resources to deal with PD.

So when I went shopping for a new doc, this tool made the process a lot easier than I expected. I used their website www.parkinson.org and found it easy to use with a list of “centers of excellence” around the country and where I found information on the doctors I now rely on to keep me ahead of my battle with Parkinson’s. Unless you treat PD as a continuous battle, you will lose the war. With Parkinson’s you can’t let your guard down and you can never give in. Never.

These are the steps I followed to change doctors.

1.     As much as I liked my doctor, deep down I knew I could do better. First step was recognizing the shortcomings of my guy. These were what I perceived as deficiencies. He was practicing all alone. There were no other resources in the practice. As a result, he always seemed pressed for time. This led me to think he didn’t keep up with all the treatments available. (I was right.) I had the sense that he felt that drugs were all that was needed to treat me. I knew from my 14 years of PD that exercise was very effective in eliminating most of my symptoms, yet he never discussed this with me. How could this happen? So for me, it wasn’t hard to see I should be getting more medical assistance than mere drugs.

2.     So with a little internet savvy, I came across the website www.parkinson.org which is mentioned above and is a treasure trove of resources and information that everyone affected directly or indirectly by Parkinson’s should explore. On this site I found reference to “centers of excellence” as the latest and best resource model available. These neurological medical practices approach PD with multifaceted resources.

3.     I then found those centers located in New York City and then visited each website and decided on the one that seemed to fit my needs best. I checked the credentials and expertise of each doctor and found one taking my insurance and new patients.

I called and made an appointment.

There in a  nutshell is all it took to get setup for the best medical treatment now available for my Parkinson’s. It was not a lot of work. In fact, if you are being treated by a general neurologist who is not a specialist in Parkinson’s, or (I know this sounds inconceivable) by a GP (General Practitioner), then you need to deal with reality. You are not being very smart. If that isn’t blunt enough, then try this. Stop the nonsense.

For me the next steps are to look at all the additional treatments I now have available and decide on adding those my new doctors recommend.

I will keep you up to date. Complicating this is the fact that there is no standard treatment that fits all, EXCEPT FOR EXERCISE. That is a universal and successful treatment for all symptoms.

If you do just one thing to help you fight the progression of PD, then choose exercise. In fact, that is a great screening question for finding a new doc. If the new doc doesn’t think exercise is at or near the top of the list, say “Doc, thank you for your time.”

 Then leave and don’t go back.

PS. I have been invited to exhibit some of my photography with 14 other photographers September 20 to 24 at One Art Space, 23 Warren Street, New York City. You are invited to come to the opening ceremony (which means drinks, music and good conversation with the photographers) at 6-9 PM this Thursday. Have a peak at one of my photos to be shown.