My sister Edna is convinced her PD was triggered
as a result of a house fire. Her home was unoccupiable
for almost a year after a kitchen fire destroyed much
of one floor in her home.

Since it was a kitchen fire all  her cabinets housing
cleaning chemicals of all types burned as did carpet,
drapes, appliances, linoleum  [you get the picture] ,
there were plenty of toxic chemicals and gases released
by the blazed materials/ solutions.

She was  * required * by the insurance company to
inventory everything that was destroyed to collect
insurance $ for it. She was inside that house for
1-2 weeks making lists and boxing items to be sent
to fire-damage-restoring companies. Everything that
left her home [paintings, furniture, photographs, etc.]
needed to be listed and accounted for before they
were sent out.

During this time that she as spending
all day in the house doing this recording, her voice
became raspy, her throat became sore and she
got laryngitis. Her eyes would burn so she would
open doors and windows and blow fresh air through
the house and she'd wear those white cupped face
masks over her mouth and nose to provide some
protection.

Within 6-10 months she developed her
first symptoms of PD. She was 48 at the time.

Now I'm her sister, I'm also an RN.  I am also the
one to first recognize and diagnose her condition.

I do not believe Edna's Parkinson's was "caused"
by the fire. I do believe that she had a "genetic
predisposition" to have PD and probably would have
developed a mild  course of PD as she got older.

I do believe that  the  toxic fire could have been
the environmental trigger that disrupted her body's
equilibrium  and defenses and put her over the top
so that symptoms were displayed. I do believe her
course was hastened by the exposure to toxic
chemicals being inhaled [ then probably absorbed
by the blood and tissues and thereby damaging
or stressing  the area in her brain that produced
dopamine ... an area already under stress ].

As I told Edna logic tells me that if symptoms show
when you have 80% loss of dopamine., then that
meant she had only 20 % of dopamine of dopamine
left to be available for her body to function. If the fire
caused her to lose 80% what caused it to stop at
80% and not advance to 90% or 100%?

It's the percentages that makes me think that the
process of developing Parkinson is a long one
and could probably begin in your teens. But I do
believe that if a significant enough stress occurs
when maybe you are ill or your immune system
is warn out  ...the process can speed up or the body's
ability to compensate gets overwhelmed and
symptoms will show through.

The analogy that always come to my mind when
I think of this process is when I take my bucket out
and go rock collecting.

As I stroll along  a beach [through life]  I pick up interesting
rocks and put them in my bucket .  At first I don't notice
 that my bucket is getting progressively  heavier. I'm
concentrating on the beach, the fresh air, the beautiful
stones...[life].

After I've collected  my stones for awhile, I start slowing down.
I switch hands toting the bucket but keep going. After another
8-10 stones that I have collected ,  I notice I've switched hands
so many times  that  both of my arms are tired and sore and I'm
nearing the point that  I can't carry the bucket any farther and I
just have to sit down...[ the symptom shows through ].

Now this step could have occurred at any  point along my outing
if I had seen a beautiful large / heavy rock  [a stress or a stressor
or in Edna's case a fire]  that I wanted  for my collection. I equally
believe that if I had not  found so many beautiful rocks along that
beach, I could have finished my journey [life] without any symptoms
showing through at all.

There are people who live there whole lives without symptoms
and on death an autopsy reveals that they had PD or MS and
they never knew it.

I have worked daily with MS for 25 years and over a decade
with PD.  Neurology has been my interest my whole career.
I have seen the swine flu shot trigger the onset of initial
symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis.   I don't believe the flu
shot  * caused *  the MS but it did bring it to the forefront.

There  are many prominent MS specialists who strongly advise
against anyone with MS getting any kind of vaccine shots out
of concern of possibly traumatizing a central nervous system that
is already vulnerable and setting off a of new attack of symptoms.

I hope this was helpful to someone,
Gail Vass

PS. Edna never had Mono, amantadine did nothing to help her
    PD symptoms and  she did have her tonsils removed at age 6.
    Our Mother's brother has PD [a very mild case]. I helped my sister
    pack and inventory after the fire. I had my appendix removed at
    age 12 and I did had Mono.  I don't have PD. She and I are 22
    months apart in age.

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