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Hello to Kristin (and others), from Adelaide South Australia Great to read your letter, from such a caring, close knit forward looking family. You ask for advice. This I am not qualified to give, but I can tell my story and offer some thoughts. Like your Dad, I suffered late onset mild Parkinsonism whilst living an active life. My line of work was veterinary research and my fun included figure skating on ice, wind surfing and driving (manual transmission cars), walking and cycling. Onset was in my mid 70's about 5 years ago and I was diagnosed a yearlater. I was devastated and became severely depressed. My symptoms were a little different to your Dad's I had little tremor but quite severe freezing. Also I lost coordination of my feet. I was thrown off my wind surfer whenever my feet froze (not conducive to winning races as well as being undignified) and I "wore out" 3 sets of clutch plates in my car in 12 months. Since then I have found a regime for my PD which works for me. My main activities now are caring for my invalid wife and trying to write up my findings about PD for publication on the Web. My wife takes priority so the writing up is a bit slow at times. Your Dad seems to be very much where I was in September 1994. My wife read (in OMNI) of an experimental treatment for depression which involved a combination of Eldepryl and an amino acid found in chocolate. In addition to lifting my depression within 45 minutes, it seemed to have some effect in moderating my Parkinsonism. I set about experimenting with dose variations to see if the affect on PD was real, and if so, to find the dose regime which would give me the most benefit. First I needed to find a symptom that I could measure and which I could use to monitor the effects of various treatments. I settled on a rapid, toe tapping exercise (which had been used in my initial diagnosis). Counting the number of taps I could do without freezing (0 to 40) gave me a firm basis to judge the effectiveness of any treatment I tried. The substances I have been using are Eldepryl and either compound cooking chocolate (initially) or (subsequently) an L-tyrosine complex (LTC) which I get from a health food store. There seems to be little difference between the effect of the chocolate and the LTC, but the ingredients of the latter were better documented, and the dosages easier to control. Over the next 113 days I varied the dose levels and timing, of these 2 substances measuring my toe tapping at intervals of several times a day to every 3 minutes after dosing. I kept systematic records of doses, times and responses, and have converted these records into a series of dose:response graphs. Day 1 gave some relief or several hours startyng shortly after the dose of Eldepryl & chocolate Days 3&4 showed neither Eldepryl nor chocolate alone had any noticeable effect. Days 11 through 52, with various changes in timing, produced more and longer relief. Day 52 showed that with too much LTC, excess excitement resulted, but in this excitement a breakthrough occurred and I realised the importance of allowing Eldepryl time to act before taking LTC. This gave greatly extended relief, which I subsequently extended to a full 24 hours relief from a single morning dose. Days 53 through 70 saw the optimum delay worked out and a small double blind trial confirmed in general my subjective findings. Days 70 through 113 saw the level of Eldepryl gradually reduced to 100 micrograms [yes that is just 1 per cent of the recommended daily dose!!]. I have since found periods of up to 16 days symptom free are possible, without medication. Now in my 80th year I am symptom free of Parkie. Recently I won my first ever wind surfer race, I hired a car and drove a manual shift smoothly. Now I can put on my socks and trousers while standing. I feel no imbalance in my legs when walking and I can do up my shirt sleeve buttons without trouble. My neurologist proclaimed me free of signs and symptoms. Life is good again. The critical features of this approach are: A very small dose of Eldepryl A critical time delay (I believe this gives the Eldepryl time to begin acting as an MAO B inhibitor) A dose of amino acids (I have been taking a combination of Phenylalanine and Tyrosine. I believe it is the latter, a substance from which dopamine is manufactured,which is the important agent). I am writing this all up in detail to publish it as a Web Page. However with my increasing blindness and caring for my wife I have little time or money to further this project (important as it is) at present. I would love to hear further from you and your Dad, but direct E-mail to me would be best as I do not know how much longer my eyes will let me screen the parkinsn list for interesting letters. For others who may be interested, I am seeking small ($25) donations in return for further information in order to assist me complete the task of writing up my research results and publishing them on the WEB. With a little assistance and encouragement, I hope to be able to have a Web Site up in the next few weeks, though it will take some time to complete. If you E-mail me, I will send details without necessarily waiting for your donation to arrive. My case may be idiosyncratic. I may have been a misdiagnosis. But we won't know how many people diagnosed with PD will respond as I have without further trials. In the meantime, the risk in trying this regime seems to be low. It involves taking a greatly reduced dose of Eldepryl, and following it shortly after with a normal food substance (chocolate). The result for me was immediate and dramatic improvement in symptoms. The critical features seem to be the combination of Eldepryl, the amino acids and the time delay. There does seem to be a real danger that too large a dose of this combination may produce hyperactivity and over excitement, but this may be an undocumented danger faced by all who take Eldepryl shortly before a meal! In my quest I found doctors reluctant to advise me as I was working in an area of the "unproven". However I kept both my GP and neurologist fully informed of what I was doing, as I believed they only could help me if my experiments went amiss. Both were very interested and cooperative, for which I am very grateful. I would appreciate feedback to this letter. I have been working on this project for 2 years now, and some positive reinforcement would help me to bring it to a conclusion. Donations will be gratefully received at Parkinson Project PO BOX 320 STEPNEY SA 5069 AUSTRALIA Miles Pulsford <[log in to unmask]>