a bit confused

[Guest guest]

Hi all. My name is Marcel Abraas & I'm new to this list. I have read

the messages here for a couple of days now & I am touched by what I

read. I hope you forgive me for diving right in and posting a

question, but I am a bit confused about things and could use some

advise from the experts (that's you).

Last Tuesday I heard doctors were considering the possibility that my

Dad may have Shy-Dräger's, or MSA, and that he had to visit the

hospital today for a talk. As my dad is not used to asking questions

& informing himself as well as he should, my sister went along. The

result of a 45 minute talk was that they said as far as they can see

now, it's not MSA.

Their reasoning, however, was that MSA is dysfunction of Multiple

Systems, whereas with he has 'only' autonomic failure, being extreme

low blood pressure (60/40 but higher when he is lying down). When I

talked to my sister afterwards, she disagreed with that, as we know

he also has occasional urinary incontinence, a tremor in his hands

(but only when he gets emotional, he said) and the " drunken man's

walk " .

Having read about the MSA Diagnostic Criteria I would think there is

reason to worry. The doctors, however, feel no further neurological

tests are necessary, nor does he need to go back in 6 months or a

year. He is being referred back to his cardiologistto take care of

the low blood pressure. He had 2 MRI scans, one of which was good,

the other was less than good (but not 'bad'), and his PET and SPECT

tests were ook (I hope I have all the names & results right, I only

heard it once so far).

So what does this mean? If I got my info right about PET and SPECT,

it can't be MSA, or even can't become MSA? And if not, why aren't

there more tests to determine what it *is*?

My dad thinks his 'funny walk' was caused by the medicines he got.

Since he's been taken off of those now, I'll probably know soon

enough, but having spent some long days worrying over possibly

knowing what was wrong with him, I'm reluctant to go back to an

attitude of 'they don't know, but let's not worry'.

I hope I'm no being intrusive with just dumping this here, and I'd

really like to hear what you have to say.

Thank you,

Marcel Abraas