 |
 |
For: Linda Morgan. Hello Linda, I can perhaps help with some of your questions; It is not unusual for a period of stress to cause a sufferer to 'skip a few steps' in the downward spiral which is Parkinson's. In some cases PD symptoms only appear after some stressful event, and it is understandable when people conclude incorrectly that the stressful event was the cause of PD. Freezing is a symptom of under-medication in my experience, and it is one of those symptoms which responds well to levodopa. Assuming that your use of the term 'several years' means around 5 to 7 years with PD, it is at about this time that things begin to get tricky. The 'honeymoon period' with levodopa is beginning to come to an end, which means that, (and I'm just guessing here) you can no longer take enormous dosages like the Sinemet 200/50 (200 mg levodopa, 50 mg Carbidopa) without running into some adverse symptoms. In most cases the adverse symptoms are called dyskinesias - random, uncommanded movements, often accompanied by writhing movements of the whole body, or part of it. There are some alternatives to these symptoms; overwhelming tiredness for instance. Don't get too depressed at the bad news in the previous paragraph; there is some good news, and that is that you can exploit the potential of levodopa therapy to well beyond the 7 or 8 years that thw books talk about. I have been using levodopa for the last 18 years (I was diagnosed 19 yrs ago) and still manage to be in control for most of the day. It does need careful assessment, and I could go on into more detail, but perhaps that wiil do for now. Regarding heredity, the short answer, backed by statistics, is that PD is not hereditary. However, when you read the small print you find that it CAN happpen, albeit in only a very small percentage of cases. I would suggest that your husband would be much better employed worrying about something more probable like 'will I win the lottery ?' Regards, -- Brian Collins <[log in to unmask]>