dopamine

This Week’s Highlights: The PD clinical trial that proves the power of placebo; My God, that’s a lot of basketball; Diagnosing PD by MRI; on-line PD exercise finder/directory; an awkward conversation about PD and male sexual health; and more ...

Please don’t try this first part at home... What if I told you that you could snort saline solution up your nose and it would significantly improve your Parkinson’s disease symptoms? When you inhale the solution, it will work better if you line down, and tilt your head back. Take your time, and release the solution a little bit at a time...at least over 5 minutes, and maybe as many as 10 minutes. And what if I told you that this has already been attempted in a clinical trial, and the improvements measured were clinically significant? There’s only one problem ...

This Week’s Highlights: Battling neurotransmitters; Interrupted Sleep - why recent changes in Restless Legs treatment may be relevant for some with PD; acetylcholine’s role in PD symptoms; Why Hope Is Important; PD Summer School; positive deviancy; magic therapy; Judas Priest; research briefs & more ...

If you have Parkinson’s disease and pain or discomfort that interrupts your sleep, then I think I have some fresh insight, and for some, something to discuss with your doctor. (I can’t believe I’m writing an article to explain another article that I wrote, but I’m still processing a lot of this myself.) Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS) is a horribly misleading term for a condition that is estimated to affect 5% of the U.S. population. The branding, at least for my mind, connotes a playful condition, when it is actually a painful condition at worst and a sleep-depriving condition at ...

A friend forwarded me a video of an excellent inspirational and entertaining commencement address by legendary college football coach Lou Holtz. On the surface, it has nothing to do with living with Parkinson’s. He does not have PD, and he was addressing newly minted college graduates ready to take on the world. But when he said the following, I felt like he was speaking to me directly, right here and now: You have to have something to hope for, something to dream. And even though you’ve done great things so far, what’s going to happen now? I think the coach’s ...

Restless Legs Syndrome and Parkinson’s disease have interesting dopamine connections. Some Parkinson’s pain may actually be restless legs or arms. Could changes in RLS treatment over the past few years be relevant to getting a good night’s sleep with PD? To those unfamiliar with the condition, the terminology "Restless Legs" makes it difficult to accept as the serious condition that it is. Whenever I hear the term Restless Legs Syndrome, my brain thinks "ants in my pants". I picture myself back in elementary school, being forced to sit at a desk, when I’d rather be running around outside.  That is far from ...

Conventional wisdom holds that far more than half of my dopamine-producing neurons were dead by the time of my Parkinson's diagnosis in 2008. I'm guessing that death toll has risen to about 95% now. The remaining 5% (+/-) of my dopamine neurons probably don't like me much. I’m not sure they really understand that Parkinson’s isn’t my fault, and I suspect they hold me responsible for not taking care of 95% of their friends and colleagues...not to mention the increased workload. Regardless, I like all of my body parts to give me 110%, especially my last 5% of dopa neurons ...

Medications for PD fall into three categories. The first category includes drugs that increase the level of dopamine in the brain. The second category of PD drugs affects other neurotransmitters in the body in order to ease some of the symptoms of the disease. The third category of drugs prescribed for PD includes medications that help control the non-motor symptoms of the disease, that is, the symptoms that don't affect movement. The most common drugs for PD are in the first category, dopamine precursors—substances such as levodopa that cross the blood-brain barrier and are then changed into dopamine.  Other drugs ...

Weekly Update - Highlights include: World Parkinson Congress 2019 heads to Kyoto, Japan for the epic battle of "Parkinson's Disease vs. Chopsticks - Will We Go Home Hungry?"; focused ultrasound and PD; NIH awards $3 million grant for 5-year PD exercise study; deteriorating financial skills, dementia and brain plaques; hockey pucks for Parkinson's; inspiring people with PD; how DBS changes lives for the better; does PD cause low testosterone or is it something else; PD exercise programs in the news and more ...

Losing your grip is more than just an analogy about Parkinson’s Disease. Quite literally, it's a physical manifestation of the disease, and one of the areas that is tested in the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Score (UPDRS) motor score that is used to measure the severity of Parkinson's Disease. There was an interesting study several years ago that found that declining grip strength on its own, was a good indicator of PD progression. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25653226 Why is this significant? Well, as Parkinson's gets worse, you lose more and more of your ability to grip, and this has negative impact on quality ...

Weekly Update - Highlights include: On-line Parkinson’s Exercise programs; another clinical trial treatment can't beat the placebo; feral pigs vs. placebo; dancing with your dog; Parkinson’s choruses sing for their supper; What I Wish I Knew, But Am Glad I Didn’t Know (When I Was Diagnosed With Parkinson’s); and more ...

Researchers hate the placebo effect, but for many of us with Parkinson’s, placebos help get us through the day. Maybe it’s a vitamin & supplement regimen, or your diet. Maybe there are foods you will or will not eat at particular times of the day. Maybe it’s your art or music. Maybe it’s your exercise routine. Maybe it’s your bicycle. Maybe it’s swimming. Maybe it’s dancing. Maybe it’s meditation. Maybe it’s neurofeedback. Maybe it’s yoga or tai chi. Maybe it’s a sport. Maybe it’s table tennis. Maybe it’s poetry. Maybe it’s your gun therapy. Maybe it’s a red light bucket ...

I'll admit it's an odd question to ask, "Can the action of volunteering and fund raising for PD research improve your Parkinson's symptoms today?" However, I believe that there is an interesting argument for how the action of volunteering and fund raising for PD research not only helps enable research that will benefit Parkinson's patients in the future, but can also improve your Parkinson's symptoms today. Let's call this the unexpected placebo effect of volunteerism ...