My situation is a bit unusual and I truly don’t believe I have Parkinson’s.
I want to quickly add, my father currently has Parkinson’s and was diagnosed at age 52.
The other odd factor in this equation, is that when I was a bit younger (22-25) I was big into bodybuilding and used steroids. I even used a steroid that raised prolactin and used a dopamine agonist to combat that.
Anyway, I’ve completely quit steroids. It was a 2 year process and right now I’m about 9 months since last being on trt. I am very healthy, athletic and active. I do sports all the time and work in construction. I do NOT have any motor or movement symptoms whatsoever. The only two symptoms that might be attributed to Parkinson’s are low sex drive and constipation.
I have had low sex drive as a result of steroid use. It has improved drastically during this 9 month recovery. I go through ups and downs. I’ll go weeks with having a normal sex drive, then go weeks with almost no sex drive at all. I attribute it to the steroids. But it is worth noting.
Constipation has been a rather strange phenomenon I’ve been experiencing the past year. It comes and goes. I go through phases. It seems like when I go off my routine, I feel constipated and don’t have smooth bowel movements. Some days it’s perfectly fine but recently i haven’t had much regularity. I even went on a trip for 4 days and the entire trip I was completely constipated. Again, I don’t have a serious constipation issue, but it isn’t always regular relieving bowel movements.
I’m wondering what are the chances I could have Parkinson’s. I never heard of using dopamine agonists or steroids inducing PD, but is that a possibility? Also, my dad having PD, does that put me at risk?
Are my symptoms, mainly constipation, something to be concerned about?
Welcome to the forum. Sorry to hear about the symptoms you’ve been experiencing. The first thing we’d recommend is that you contact your GP or healthcare professional and talk things through with them, as they’ll be placed to advise you on what’s happening, and what the causes may be.
Hi @Blueandgold
I agree with the moderator but could I direct to www.deanparsons.net.
Dean is a writer and psychotherapist who new he was ill at a young age too and it took him 20 years to finally get his diagnosis.
I’m sure he would be a good source of information and understand your situation.
But first you need to talk to your doctor.
Hope this helps
Good luck
Tommy ™
Hi @Blueandgold, I would say that you don’t have Parkinsons which isn’t to say that you won’t in the future. My eldest brother had the extreme form which means he had the whole body shake, the @Moderators2 have said that it isn’t common in families or hereditory but up to a point it is. What you have in low sex drive and constipation can be cured by your GP. Some people start with a tremor in the hands, in my case I had a groin hernia operation and this triggered my Parkinsons, I also had an Essential tremor which turned out to be Dystonic(this I still have despite having a Deep Brain Stimulator fitted) but I wasn’t finally diagnosed until I was 58. Hopefully you won’t get the disease but if you do, someone will be on here to guide you through the process. I wish you all the best.
Hi blueandgold I Don, t know if I, m unique in the fact that I am the 9th person in my family who has been diagnosed with pd and it looks like my cousin is about to become number 10 so it can be heraditary you need to see your gp and get ball rolling and ask for a dat scan stay positive and Don, t read everything just wait until you know
Pete
Thank you for your response. I just saw a post on Facebook from doctor oz and what really stood out was the constipation. It’s been fairly recent that I’ve been having it. I’ve been using a lot of milk of magnesia and that helps but I feel like it’s sort of odd that a 26 year old healthy athletic guy is not able to poop regularly. It got me really thinking.
I’ve been struggling with low sex drive for a long time. There’s a lot of ups and downs. I’ll go weeks feeling normal sex drive and there’s weeks where I feel nothing. It’s been a long recovery.
I’ve never heard of anyone in my family of having Parkinson’s. It just really has me thinking. I don’t show any signs of being ill. Just constipation. I kinda feel like I’m overthinking but it really has been stressing me out. I just want to feel normal. It’s scaring me to think that something like Parkinson’s could happen at a young age.
I really feel like I’m overthinking, but I can’t help to stress about this. I’ve had issues ever since I stopped the steroid crap, and I’ve always attributed low sex drive to that. I’m seriously praying that it is from the steroid use and not a serious illness like Parkinson’s. I’m asking for advice here because I do not have health insurance and I really can’t go to the doctor over this. Especially if it’s a case of overthinking.
Well I guess you know yourself by now that steroids are not good (and that is why you stop taking them - well done); they can obviously impact your body and mind also long term, so it probably takes more time to recover. Your symptoms could be related to PD, and the fact your dad adds to it, but it can also be something else.
If the uncertainty bothers you a lot, why not doing a Datscan? It is expensive but very reliable as shows the outcome even at the earlier stage of PD, so at least you would know for good where you are.
Is low sex drive and erectile dysfunction something that develops in the early or later stages of Parkinson’s? Will you notice change in sex drive before motor issues? Or is it typically something that develops later in the disease?
This is a difficult one to answer as everyone who has Parky is different. I noticed when I was on medication the loss of sex drive which is why my GP prescribed Sildenafil, it is basically Viagra and helps with erectial dysfunction. The motor issues will come later in the progression of the disease.
Constipation goes hand in hand with the disease but you have just come off steroids which may have impacted on both your conditions, these in turn should hopefully improve once out of your system. It is best to wait and see how you are after a while off the steroids.
Good to see that you’ve received some advice from cruisecontroller and as he mentioned it is a difficult one as Parkinson’s affects people in different ways. We have a section on our website which addresses issues relating to sex and relationships which has a lot of information that will be helpful to you. You can find this info here - https://www.parkinsons.org.uk/information-and-support/sex-and-parkinsons.
You can also give our helpline a call for more support on this on 0800 800 0303.
hey, friend, if you buy viagra of high quality, then you will certainly cope with your ED. To be honest, there are a lot of examples in life when men with ED cured after they had a lot of sx. So, in order to have a lot of sx, you should certainly try viagra
