Like many, people with Parkinson's, I had completely stopped listening to music some time before diagnosis. This "closing off" or withdrawal from the world of the senses is one of the running themes which I have found in talking to very many people with Parkinson's. But whenever I see people with other neurological conditions like Alzheimer's on the TV, invariably they seem to be existing in silence, and have forgotten the music that one made them come to life. Even quite recently, I could not recall seeing people with such conditions, as shown in the reality of their lives, with music even playing in the background, and certainly never saw them with a personal choice of music, carefully chosen to stir all sorts of memories, being played loud directly in their ears via digital headphones. Thankfully, the profound impact of music on people with neurological illnesses, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's is now coming to the fore.
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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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Nutritional Deficits in Parkinson's Disease
A Person with Parkinson's (PWP) typically has dental issues, salivary issues, swallowing difficulties, probably H. pylori, probably methylation disabilities, an imbalanced microbiome and slow transit, resulting in nutrient deficiencies, together with multi-drug interactions along the way. Hinz diagrammed some 29 interactions and barely scratched the surface. Unsuspectingly, those who shop and cook their own meals may provide the added edge.
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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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Mannitol and Parkinson's Disease: A Review
Based on this evidence, while I am in no way advising anyone else to do so, I have personally decided to add Mannitol into my recovery plan** and have invested in a kilo of the powder. I have just taken my first teaspoon to ensure there are no side-effects and will build up to the recommended dose over the next few days. I will report on outcomes.
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A Critical Analysis of Medical Science and Parkinson's Disease
"Nowadays, some of the PhDs and presenters don't even take the time to learn the nomenclature and techniques used by the co-authors who actually interface with the patients. They just deal with the numbers. Medicine becomes so much simpler when it's been de-personalized. The Dr. abdicates his responsibility by simply purveying what his specialty has dictated; the patient becomes his diagnostic label... PD in our case.
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Playing Card Therapies for Parkinson's Disease
I find I can shuffle, deal, turn, tidy up, halve and gather the pack of cards. It can be quite stiff and difficult but this seems to be one of those things, like playing with my basketball, which allows me to almost always access some movement, this time for my fingers. Indeed, I find this is giving me more and more knowledge of my hands again. You can see me performing this type of exercise at the end of the video below.
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CoQ10 and Parkinson's Disease
Research has found that the level of CoQ10 is substantially lower in the mitochondria of people with PD and that a CoQ10 deficiency can increase the risk of dopamine cell death in the substantia nigra region of the brain.
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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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Moving in the Mind and Parkinson's
Certainly, whether I am correct or not that the mind dancing has significantly contributed to this change, clearly there are health and wellness benefits to the gentle movement therapies I have been developing and espouse. I believe that this kind of muscle growth is unusual in Parkinson's, which is often associated with muscle atrophy.
Read MoreA Hop, Skip and Jump Forwards in Parkinson's Recovery
Here I am outside in the Garden. I am using the patterns of the paving slabs (visual stimulus), getting into the groove of the music (audio stimulus) and the feedback with the ground(motor stimulus) to help my brain and body remember the joy of movement.
Read MoreBasket Balls, Music and Reversing Symptoms of Parkinson's
I highly recommend anyone with Parkinson's get a basketball or a netball - the weight and feel matters a lot - and just play, feel, stimulate the muscle memories which are still there. Bounce, balance, catch, throw your way back to moving, every single day. Explore, play, be curious. Practice, but make sure you have fun with it. Enjoy whatever movement you can release, no matter how small. Feel good when you manage to extend your range. Feel good factor = dopamine reward = more movement = more feel good - and that is science fact. In the video I am playing by myself, the therapeutic effects are magnified by the social quotient of playing ball with family members and friends by massive amounts.
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Diagnostic Discovery and Treatment of Parkinson's Disease
K.O.R.E. is based on Wellness Engineering techniques (which is how, I believe, "Complementary Therapies" should be more properly termed). K.O.R.E. employs kinesiology muscle testing to identify root causes of health issues and then uses bioenergy and biomechanic techniques to seek to resolve them. We are looking at how such strategies might work for resolving Parkinson's symptoms, through experimenting on myself.
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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.
Food As Medicine, Food As Poison in Parkinson's
I cannot stress these concepts enough for PwP: food is absolutely critical to symptoms, good and bad. Food interacts with the medication too. It simply is not enough to rely on drugs, and if you have periods where the "drugs aren't working" it is vital to look to your diet.
Read MoreOut-Thinking Parkinson's Radio Interview
In this interview recorded for a local radio station back in April 2016, I discuss more about the origins of the Out-Thinking Parkinson's project telling my own background story and discussing some of the things we discovered along the way.
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Neurologic Music Therapy for Parkinson's Recovery
I recommend anyone interested in Parkinson's Recovery to take a look at Jim Kennedy's research and follow his journey of self-experimentation into NMT. You will find Jim to be very positive and upbeat - no doubt because he has chosen to fill his life with music. You can follow Jim's work via his Facebook Page.
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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.
Read MoreA Helping Hand with Movement Recovery Exercises
In my previous diary entry, I showed, by developing our ideas about incorporating balls-on-elastic into our gentle movement therapy, how we came up with a simple exercise regime to open up the fingers of my hands. In the sequel video included in this post, it is becoming ever clearer that our concept of "applied neuroplasticity" does work. Here, I demonstrate the further evolution in my own movement, resulting from practicing these ideas over and over again.
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Focusing on Wellness: A Companion's Piece
I have been able to make it to my mid-forties without sitting on the opposite side of a diagnosis desk. There is a whole lot of luck involved, but also a belief that I am in charge of my own life, health, and wellness. I have always paid attention to my body. I understood that body and mind are in a partnership that constantly needed to negotiate. I have always seen the signals of pain, tiredness, and wellbeing that my body gives me as an integral part of how I needed to plan my days and live my life.
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