Anybody with Parkinson's Disease who've tried acupuncture?

I've heard that acupuncture helps reduce parkinson's disease symptoms and medication dosage as well. Anyone has experience with this and would you please share the details of the treatment, how long you've been on it and your function now?

I don't have Parkinson's Disease but a very close friend of mine does have it. She did try acupuncture for a while and she said she felt a little better. She had to stop the treatments because her insurance didn't cover it. She said the person doing the treatments would give her a light massage afterwards and her body didn't respond well to that. I guess you can be sensitive when you have a disease like this. She has had the disease for about 5 or 6 years now and it's getting worse. She takes all kinds of medications and has trouble sleeping. She just takes one day at a time and hopes for the best. Her employer is very understanding because she is late for work a lot and also out sick a lot. Maybe in our lifetime they will find a cure for it or at least a medication that has little or no side affects to people can live a relatively normal life.

Acupunture can be very effective as a pain control method. Parkinsons is a degenerative condition and I feel it is very unlikely acupunture would be of any value.

Many claims made by alternative medicine practicioners are highly exagerated. Very few have been tested carefully using the scientific method. Also to establish proven value as treatment more than one study is needed.

I do not like pills much, however for some conditions there is nothing else available that comes close to the effectiveness of modern medications. In the case of Parkinson's, adjustment of dosing and trying different combinations of medications can lead to reasonable control of symptoms with few side effects. Unfortunately the meds involved with Parkinson's treatment currently, often cause side effects, and it may be impossible to eliminate them in some cases.

You end up having to make a compromise, is getting rid of symptom A worth suffering side effect B.

I would suggest doing some research at a university library that has a medicine and or nursing faculty. When using the net stick to non-profit information providers.

Large amounts of info on the web is put there by the companies selling the drugs, and therefore cannot be trusted to be unbiased.

Better nutirition of all things non pill like is good for everything.

Perhaps try a search on Michael J Fox Parkinsons - search for a cure, I think stuff will come up if you search it and you can probable email them as well for ideas.