Vicki, now 48, was diagnosed with Young Onset Parkinson’s Disease (YOPD) back in 2007, with initial symptoms presenting three years earlier. Hers is the ultimate story of patient power… Vicki was one of several participants who took part in a revolutionary medical clinical trial, which involved brain surgery.  

Imagine being diagnosed with a chronic degenerative neurological condition... then one day being offered a place on a trial for a new drug that’s tipped to be the cure. Speculation is that it won’t just stop your illness but will reverse it - to give you back the life you once had.  

The delivery system of the therapy is invasive, scary even but worth the risk because the potential is exciting and the end game, until recently, unimaginable.    

Even the BBC were interested. Nine participants were followed for six years, resulting in an award-winning, heart-wrenching documentary ‘The Parkinson's Drug Trial: A Miracle Cure?’��In anyone’s book this was quite a scoop for an impossibly complex condition impacting on a largely invisible community, many of whom the public at large would consider ‘too young to have Parkinson’s’. Most on the trial reported a marked improvement, making it all the more shocking when due to some aspects of the trial design this phase 2 study was deemed a failure. 

This is something Vicki feels strongly about: “I don’t doubt that GDNF works - it was incredibly effective for me. I doubt anyone who saw the documentary would think otherwise. We all knew we were taking a risk but knew that it was for the greater good.”

“I’m upset that because of a number of design aspects of the trial, it technically failed. From our real life evidence it clearly was a revelation, if not the miracle, as billed.

  We just need to raise the money and awareness to make this a reality to give hope to all of our fellow parkies,” says Vicki. 

Time for urgency is now !