hi, i'm a 47 yo man. up to 5 years ago i was in good health but recently i've had one thing after another:
retinal vein occlusion - lost sight in right eye
diagnosed with fibromyalgia - fatigue, muscular stiffness and aches, dizziness when getting up, unsteady, brain fog, tremors
insomnia
depression - with anxiety, stress, paranoia
chronic pancreatitis - abdomen pain, weight loss, constipation, nausea
tia - i had a mini-stroke in february. my face arm and leg is numb sometimes
...so i'm feeling a bit unlucky and the doctors keep telling me its unusual to get all this at my age, lol.
BUT just recently i noticed when i walk my left arm swings but my right arm doesn't. also my voice has gone quiet. i googled this and ended up on Parkinson Disease sites. I noticed many of the early symptoms match the symptoms above (dizziness, stiffness, insomnia, depression, constipation, dizziness, stroke). so i wonder if i've been diagnosed wrong, have i got parkinsons? maybe all the above is connected? as you can imagine i've been to the doctors and hospital a lot recently and i don't want to go again and waste his time with this if its nothing. i'd be grateful if anyone anyone advise me?
ps. my sense of smell seems ok and my handwriting is no worse than usual.
thanks
Hi,
Iwas diagnosed with Parkinsons Disease after being diagnosed with Fibromyalgia in around 2000.
I had a lot of your symptons but my handwriting was tiny and I also took very small steps,I went to my gp who referred me to a neurologist, I had months to wait for an appointment, like you googled it, went back to the gp said to him i thought I had pd,, he said thAt is what he put in the letter to the consultant.
My gp prescribed madopar and said if it helped he was pretty sure it was pd, well I knew a difference in two weeks.
When I did see the neurologist she was surprised that my gp had prescribed madopar but did agree it likely was pd sent me for an mri scan and then a datscan and pd was then confirmed, hope this may help you I am considerably older as I was nearly 71 when diagnosed.
Best wishes Anne29
.
he
Hi Coltaz
I would go back to my doctor if i were you and explain the symptoms that you have , i started to have symptoms about 5 years ago when i developed a tremor in my left hand , my gp put it down to anaemia, i had no reason to doubt her, then about 18 months ago i started to feel very stiff when getting up from a chair and when getting up out of bed in a morning another trip to my gp and she said it was my thyroid i have hypothyroidism , then a few months later i developed a very painful left shoulder and my tremors were becoming more prominent and there was a feeling has if my body was shaking on the inside , i went back to my gp who did a few of the usual tests , blood glucose etc as my mother is diabetic , she said if the results come back clear then she suspected something neurological they came back clear so she referred me to a neurologist , i had a idea it was possibly parkinsons as she said that she would have thought i had essential tremor but she was not convinced as i had a resting tremor she did not mention Parkinsons but i came home and googled it and sure enough parkinsons came up so i was not to shocked when the neuro delivered the diagnosis then a few weeks later my mother was also diagnosed with Parkinsons
I was diagnosed last year i was 47 years old when i was diagnosed .
Good luck
Shelly
thanks ladies. i will book an appointment on monday with my gp. hopefully he might arrange some neurological tests or try madopar just to put my mind at rest. it makes more sense to me that all my symptoms have one cause instead of all these unrelated disorders that i have coincidentally fallen to.
Good luck with the doctors appointment , your tremors are they resting tremors ? as anne said it is unusual for a gp to try Madopar they usually leave that to the neurologist , i know when my gp referred me to the neuro she did say she was not going to prescribe anything she would leave that to the neuro but i know some neuros will do whts referred to as a levodopa test , if you have a positive response to levodopa then it is more than likely Parkinsons as there is no specific test to say you have parkinsons it is diagnosed by symptoms i never had a dat scan i only had a mri scan to rule out other possibilitys , but my neuro told me at my fist appointment with him that he was more than certain i had parkinsons then a few weeks later my mother was diagnosed so then my neuro said he was certain it was familial parkinsons
Hello Coltaz
You have been to hell and back and you have my sympathy for that, you have also held yourself together while enduring the onslaught , that signifies strength of character and that you will need in the coming years. It is almost certainly PD or BLACKHEART, as I call it because it is pitiless in its campaign to cripple its unfortunate host, but you can fight it and force it back and as my friend Shelly mentioned in her post MADOPAR is a great place to start, its very effective and once optimum dosage is reached you will find things much improved.
I wish you all the very best in your fight which I know you will win.
Regards Fed
shelly - the tremors usually only happen when i'm sat down still. i can usually avoid them by continually stretching and moving my arms and keeping my mind busy. i also get jerks in my arm, shoulder and neck.
fed - thanks for your kind words and support. part of me hopes its not parkinsons obviously but part of me hopes i find out exactly what is behind all these symptoms. if i can give it a name i can deal with it, fight it and beat it.
thanks to all, i'll post again when i've seen the doctor, hopefully i'm just wasting his time. :-)
update: i went to see a neurologist yesterday at airedale hospital. after 5 minutes of tests ( checking my hands, knees, using a hammer on my joints) he said it was definitely not parkinsons which is a relief. he had no idea what's causing these symptoms so i'm back to square one. he suggested i get my gp to send me back to the consultant who diagnosed my stroke. not sure what good that will do, he's already put me on blood anti-coagulants. i'm kind of fed up with doctors and hospitals now. none of them seem to know whats up with me or what to do about it.
anyway, i wish you all the best. i hope you find a way of coping with parkinsons.
