Hello all, I’m Tony, I was diagnosed with PD 6 years ago. I guess I knew there was something wrong, a feeling of general unsteadiness, a few years before getting the dreaded diagnosis and it was a real shock as my symptoms were not the classics (or so I thought at the time) I now know better. I’ve been resisting joining this forum, denial I suppose, but I’ve more or less come to terms with the illness and accept my limitations. Luckily my symptoms are mild, and I seem to be a slow burn but that comes with its own challenges. Levodopa, even in small doses unleashes a seemingly innumerable army of writhing snakes into my muscles so I’ve been on what is apparently a fairly unusual regime of Amantadine and Rotigitine for the past few years. I’m trying, and struggling, with levodopa once again since the side-effects of Amantadine in particular are uncomfortable. I’m hopeful I’ll find the right drug-cocktail in the near future. Luckily I was able to retire early at about the time of my diagnosis, I travelled a lot for my work and that would have been very difficult to sustain with PD. I’m also lucky to have a very caring and supportive wife and family around me so I’m blessed in that regards.
My main passion and what keeps me going through the bad days is music, sadly my guitar playing is seriously affected but I can still manage a few notes and with the advent of electronic music and MIDI in particular I can still write and record some the songs I have floating in my head.
To amuse myself, and while I could still more or less play, I wrote and recorded a song called Dopamine, a tribute to the mighty and magnificent culprit of our troubles and its many and varied attributes, I hope it entertains some of you if you are generous enough with your time to take a listen.
I’d be happy to hear from other songwriters who have found solace in the virtual musical world to chat and swap stories. All the best…
