One of the more persistent problems I encounter regularly (daily) are episodes of severe brain fog, during which "Gary has left the building", my breathing becomes very shallow and I can only lie down due to my balance going completely. These episodes typically occur in the early evenings and/or after my main meal, when my stomach is full.
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The Overlaps Between Stress and Parkinson's Disease, Part 2
Although the seven stage framework has been developed to describe acutely applied short duration stress, without any reference to PD, the very same framework also describes well the declining state of a PwPs body over time - if the disease is allowed to progress. Therefore, we believe that not only are PwPs permanently stuck in such stress response states, the degree of the stress that we are stuck in also moves through the stages as our situation is allowed to degenerated.
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How A Dog in the Family Helped Me to Understand My Parkinson's Disease
Then something profound and disturbing, but extremely important happened. As I was sitting there, I switched into a deeper "off" state - one in which I zone out completely, lose myself, the brain fog descends, I stiffen up and become rigid, eyes glaze over, I withdraw from the world. hat happened next was extraordinary.
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The Vagus Nerve and Parkinson's Disease
I first discovered the Vagus Nerve (VN) when I was researching how Parkinson's Disease begins in the gut: "Braak's Hypothesis" of the disease states that the problem spreads from its origins in the digestive tract to the brain, using the Vagus Nerve as the conduit. My interest was further piqued when I read that people who had had their VN severed via a vagotomy - a surgical "solution" for stomach ulcers - appeared to have significantly less likelyhood of developing PD.
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Parkinson's Gave Me Gratitude For... Family
My career was cut short by Parkinson's Disease. I lost my Great Love, my life's pursuit and have had to grieve. To change and adapt, to evolve once again or perish. I'm currently lost, at sea, not sure what to do or what I am capable of. Yet Dave has found his Calling, in his family and his career. Very bravely, he formed his own business, Raptorxotics. He has squared his own circle and now his animals, family and work are one.
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My Experience with a Dopamine Agonist Medicine for Parkinson's Disease
The very first drug I was put on after my diagnosis was ropinerole [dopamine agonist]. It was only marginally effective. So my original neurologist kept bumping up the dosage until it made me vomit and have diarrhoea, cold sweats and such dizziness that the only thing I could do was lie down. The neurologist's solution was to put me on, in addition, anti-nausea medications permanently. Later, I self-discovered this class of anti-nausea drugs are not supposed to be used long term.
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Insights into Parkinson's Disease
In taking us along with you on your journey you have realised that we are all different yet also all the same. It matters little what kind of music helps us, the fact is that there is some music for each of us that heals our symptoms. For me it's The Shadows music. I discovered this when I was recovering from a mini stroke and the friend came round to play his guitar for me. I could literally feel my brain responding as though I had guitar strings in my head.
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Surviving and Parkinson's Disease
By Jennifer Oldroyd, Contributing Author and Person with Parkinson's.
Just like the family of a person who smokes can suffer from passive smoking, the carers of people with Parkinson's suffer from Passive Parkinson's. If they still want to do things together they have to slow right down to accommodate the Person with Parkinson's. The question is - is this necessarily a bad thing? While we do not draw Parkinson's into our lungs, a negative way of looking at things can be infectious and negative thinking is stifling.
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Coloring and Dot-to-Dot Book Therapy for Parkinson's Disease
I immediately had a gut feeling this was likely to be one of those "ah ha!" moments, due to the following reasons:
- visual stimuli are massively important for People with Parkinson's;
- the shrinking of handwriting is a classical symptom of Parkinson's onset and we need to constantly challenge all such symptoms to keep the disease at bay;
- relaxation and escaping ingrained stress response is absolutely key to improving symptoms of Parkinson's;
- continually trying something new and challenging our brains to create new neural pathways is key to pushing the disease back and back.
The Overlaps Between Stress and Parkinson's Disease, Part 1
I have been reading Dr Jim White's "Stress Control" afresh, but now from the perspective of a Person with Parkinson's (PwP). This is a course written about stress itself, without any reference to or context in Parkinson's. Yet, anyone affected Parkinson's who reads it will be very familiar with what they find. I will be writing extensively on this subject, but to set the scene, first I would just like for us to consider a list Dr White provides which covers how stress can affect the body. People affected with Parkinson's the world over will recognize very many of these as the acute symptoms of their condition - but remember here Dr White is writing purely about Stress.
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Impacts of Diagnosis on Parkinson's Disease
I hope that my experience might be a catalyst for change, because, in speaking with a significant network of people with PD around the world, there are many with diagnosis and aftercare treatment experiences even poorer than my own. I feel, therefore, we do need an overhaul of how the healthcare diagnoses and treat people with Parkinson's. Simply stated, the current experience of too many PwP (People with Parkinson's) is that they are prescribed drugs as a singular treatment pathway and given a narrative of hopelessness at diagnosis.
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The Beast Within and Parkinson's Disease
There is a beast inside me. The beast is not my Parkinson's illness. The beast is myself. Parkinson's is just the empty cage. Let me explain, because although this is difficult reading, I believe it is important to share this epiphany.
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What Emotions Have To Do With It
For those of us lucky enough to share our lives with someone with Parkinson's we can use this as an opportunity for both of us to learn something about self-awareness and the hope that can arise from noticing and implementing simple changes.
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Caregiving for a Person with Parkinson's Disease
Here at Out-Thinking Parkinson's, it is our mission to help not only People with Parkinson's, but also the people who love and care for them, those who also have, in a very direct way, their own lives touched by the disease.
One of the most valuable contributions we can make, we feel, is simply to express the feelings and thoughts of what it is like to be a person affected by Parkinson's or to care for someone with the disease. We hope this humanization of PD will help others in the same situation come to terms with living with the disease and bring new understandings for the wider community too.
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Is Movement the Definition of Life?
And so I must go on. Evolve into the changes and learn, again, to embrace the growth that I am going to go through to get where I want to go.The part of this phase that brings up my curiosity is that where I need to go is to the side of a man who has been living with early onset Parkinson's Disease for six years. A very specific part of his brain has neurons that are on the fritz that cause him to have trouble moving or prevent him from moving at all. This is not the vacation that I presumed it to be when I longed to be able to just exist with everything arranged nicely so that I could vegetate, chill, and relax as my primary avocation
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How I Stopped Dying Inside and Started Out-Thinking Parkinson's
This is my story. It is intended both as a personal insight and to help others. It is a story about the vital importance of hope, potentials, positive mindset and the will to overcome when learning to live again after a diagnosis of Parkinson's. I write these words for everyone who's lives have been affected by the disease, whether directly or indirectly.
For no-one can truly live in the dark places of hopelessness.
So let me show you that all is not lost and why Parkinson's is not the end of life as we know it.
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My Experience with Counselling and Parkinson's Disease
For me, it began when my own mind was changed and with it the opening up of my ability to be emotive. My Mind Change is quite literal. New pathways, new mental capacities, new thought horizons. Not just thinking different thoughts, but thinking in different ways. Unleashed potentials, to do and say and affect things in ways I could never have dreamed possible before. The story of "How I Changed my Mind" is still one with a mystery at its heart, because there are hidden players, external to this text, forces at work I have not spoken about…
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