I Came In To See My Physician Assistant Today Because Of
- Severe headache The Worst Headache of my life! lasting hours to days is a key term associated with a subarachnoid hemorrhage
- Seizures with no previous history of seizures
- Weakness in an arm or legs
- Nausea or vomiting
- Difficulty speaking or understanding speech
- Difficulty swallowing
- Loss of fine motor skills, such as hand tremors
- Loss of coordination
- An abnormal sense of taste
- Loss of consciousness
Complementary And Alternative Therapies
Some people with Parkinson’s disease find complementary therapies help them feel better. Many complementary treatments and therapies claim to ease the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.
However, there’s no clinical evidence they’re effective in controlling the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.
Most people think complementary treatments have no harmful effects. However, some can be harmful and they shouldn’t be used instead of the medicines prescribed by your doctor.
Some types of herbal remedies, such as St John’s wort, can interact unpredictably if taken with some types of medication used to treat Parkinson’s disease.
If you’re considering using an alternative treatment along with your prescribed medicines, check with your care team first.
Parkinson’s Disease Diet And Nutrition
Maintaining Your Weight With Parkinson’s Disease
Malnutrition and weight maintenance is often an issue for people with Parkinson’s disease. Here are some tips to help you maintain a healthy weight.
- Weigh yourself once or twice a week, unless your doctor recommends weighing yourself often. If you are taking diuretics or steroids, such as prednisone, you should weigh yourself daily.
- If you have an unexplained weight gain or loss , contact your doctor. He or she may want to modify your food or fluid intake to help manage your condition.
- Avoid low-fat or low-calorie products. . Use whole milk, whole milk cheese, and yogurt.
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Living With Parkinsons Disease
Depending on severity, life can look very different for a person coping with Parkinsons Disease. As a loved one, your top priority will be their comfort, peace of mind and safety. Dr. Shprecher offered some advice, regardless of the diseases progression. Besides movement issues Parkinsons Disease can cause a wide variety of symptoms including drooling, constipation, low blood pressure when standing up, voice problems, depression, anxiety, sleep problems, hallucinations and dementia. Therefore, regular visits with a neurologist experienced with Parkinsons are important to make sure the diagnosis is on target, and the symptoms are monitored and addressed. Because changes in your other medications can affect your Parkinsons symptoms, you should remind each member of your healthcare team to send a copy of your clinic note after every appointment.
Dr. Shprecher also added that maintaining a healthy diet and getting regular exercise can help improve quality of life. Physical and speech therapists are welcome additions to any caregiving team.
Constipation And Headaches Can Coexist In Many Medical Conditions
Migraines
Migraines are a debilitating type of headaches that mainly affects young people. Migraine causes severe, one-sided headaches, visual disturbances, nausea, and headaches.
Some experts believe that straining at defecation can trigger migraines. This article mentions that if you open your mouth when straining on the toilet, you can prevent migraine headaches. I am not convinced about that. In my opinion, constipation is a symptom of migraine, not a cause.
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Understanding The Neurologic Control Of The Cardiac System
Before we explore this issue, lets first learn a bit about the autonomic nervous system and about the cardiac systems place within it. The ANS is part of the peripheral nervous system, a network of nerves throughout the body. The ANS exerts control over functions that are not under conscious direction such as respiration, heart function, blood pressure, digestion, urination, sexual function, pupillary response, and much more. The ANS is further subdivided into the parasympathetic nervous system and the sympathetic nervous system. Both the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems regulate most major organs. Often, they have opposite effects, with the sympathetic nervous system activating a system and the parasympathetic system calming it down.
One of the systems controlled by the ANS is cardiac regulation. Blood pressure sensors, known as baroreceptors, reside in the heart as well as in the carotid artery, the major artery in the neck. If the baroreceptors sense a change in the blood pressure, a signal is sent to particular areas in the brain. From there, the autonomic nervous system sends signals to the heart to control heart rate and cardiac output. Signals are also sent to the blood vessels to change the size of their diameter, thereby regulating blood pressure.
Functional Exercise For Chronic/persistent Pain
There are some simple exercises that you can try around the house to help:
- If you experience pain in your legs, keep them strong by practising standing up and sitting down in a chair.
- If your shoulders are aching, start by loosening them with some shoulder rolling actions, then by lifting an object that is slightly weighty from a shelf, and then replacing it. This increases the range of movement in your back, shoulders and arms, and then your strength.
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What Are The Benefits Of Deep Brain Stimulation
The aim of DBS is to relieve some of the problems caused by Parkinsons disease, such as tremor, stiffness, slowness, and uncontrolled movements . It tends to reduce motor fluctuations and increases the amount of time spent on. It also allows most patients to reduce their medications, often by a substantial amount.
How Parkinsons Disease Affects The Autonomic Nervous System And The Heart
In PD, there are two major reasons why the automatic control of the cardiac system is impaired. First, areas of the brain that control this system often contain Lewy bodies and have undergone neurodegeneration. In addition, the autonomic nervous system itself is directly affected by Lewy body-like accumulations and neurodegeneration. This means, when the baroreceptors in the heart and carotid artery sense a drop in blood pressure and try to generate a signal to the heart and blood vessels to increase the blood pressure, the message may not get through. This results in neurogenic orthostatic hypotension , or drops in blood pressure upon standing due to autonomic nervous system dysfunction. There are no medications that can cure nOH by restoring the autonomic nervous system in PD. nOH however, can be treated. Read more about nOH and its treatments here.
Structural problems of the heart such as coronary artery disease or cardiomyopathy are not thought to be part of the pathology of PD, although of course, could co-exist with PD.
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Main Outcome And Covariates
PD or parkinsonism was the main outcome in the present study. The study period was defined as the interval between the index date to the diagnosis of parkinsonism, missing, or death. The PD-related comorbidities, including diabetes , hypertension , hyperlipidemia , depression , anxiety , and sleep disorder before the index date were considered covariates.
Labs Studies And Physical Exam Findings
- Medical History
- Motor function
- Resting or pill rolling tremor begins in one limb or on one side but will spread
- Bradykinesia -reduced arm swing, mask like facies
- Rigidity Lead-pipe or cogwheel
- Difficulty getting up from a chair
- Increased risk of falls
- Parkinsons can not be cured
- Medications
- Anticholinergics most helpful with mild motor symptoms
- Amantadine
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Do Amino Acids Cause Headaches
by Dr. Oler, ND | Aug 19, 2014 | Amino Acid Therapy, Natural Pain Relief |
One major class of migraine medications, called triptans, are believed to work by mimicking serotonin in the body, effectively binding with the serotonin receptors of the blood vessels and sensory nerves feeding the brain which can calm the symptoms of a migraine headache. However, this effect is short-lived, as this class of mediation which includes drugs like Imitrex/sumatriptan, Maxalt/rizatritan, Amerge/naratriptan, Zomig/zolmitriptan and Axert/almotriptan only tricks the brain into thinking there is more serotonin than there actually is for a short period of time, setting a person up for rebound headaches and/or other migraines in the future.
The real solution to eliminating migraine headaches is to provide the body with the proper blend of amino acids and cofactors to optimize neurotransmitter function. Doing so eliminates the neurotransmitter imbalance that can cause migraines, providing an effective alternative to triptan medications.
Link Between Migraine And Parkinsons Found
Patients who suffer from 2 or more migraines per year may be at an increased risk of developing Parkinsons disease later in life, according to the findings of a new study from Taiwan.1
The study looked at a sizeable cohort of 41,019 subjects , who had had at least two migraines during 2001. The researchers then studied 41,019 randomly selected subjects without migraine. Patients were matched to the migraine cohort based on age, sex, pre-existing comorbidities, and socioeconomic status.
The researchers, from the National Taiwan University Hospital, noted that none of the subjects in the study had been diagnosed with PD or secondary Parkinsonism in the year prior to the study. However, at the 32-month follow-up, 148 patients with migraine were diagnosed with PD, compared to just 101 patients without migraine of 1.64 P=0.0004). The PD-free survival rate for the migraine group also was found to be significantly lower than that for the non-migraine group .1
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Stooping Or Hunched Posture
People who have Parkinsons disease may notice changes in their posture due to other symptoms of the disease, such as muscle rigidity.
People naturally stand so that their weight is evenly distributed over their feet. However, people who have Parkinsons disease may start bending forward, making them appear hunched or stooped over.
What Is The Treatment For Parkinson’s Disease
There is currently no treatment to cure Parkinson’s disease. Several therapies are available to delay the onset of motor symptoms and to ameliorate motor symptoms. All of these therapies are designed to increase the amount of dopamine in the brain either by replacing dopamine, mimicking dopamine, or prolonging the effect of dopamine by inhibiting its breakdown. Studies have shown that early therapy in the non-motor stage can delay the onset of motor symptoms, thereby extending quality of life.
The most effective therapy for Parkinson’s disease is levodopa , which is converted to dopamine in the brain. However, because long-term treatment with levodopa can lead to unpleasant side effects , its use is often delayed until motor impairment is more severe. Levodopa is frequently prescribed together with carbidopa , which prevents levodopa from being broken down before it reaches the brain. Co-treatment with carbidopa allows for a lower levodopa dose, thereby reducing side effects.
In earlier stages of Parkinson’s disease, substances that mimic the action of dopamine , and substances that reduce the breakdown of dopamine inhibitors) can be very efficacious in relieving motor symptoms. Unpleasant side effects of these preparations are quite common, including swelling caused by fluid accumulation in body tissues, drowsiness, constipation, dizziness, hallucinations, and nausea.
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Limitations To The Study
The data, supplied by the Taiwanese National Health Insurance claims database, excluded relevant lifestyle factors, like past occurrence of head injury, smoking, alcohol intake, and obesity, a limitation that may have influenced the findings, according to the study authors.
The median follow-up time of 32 months may seem comparatively short compared to other longitudinal investigations, like Scher et als analysis of the AGES-Reykjavik cohort that occurred after several decades.3 Having a follow-up of < 3 years may have prevented the researchers from better understanding the long-term effects of migraines on PD risk, the authors wrote.
And while the authors noted there could be some bias to consider, given both conditions are neurological, the study benefits from its large sample size and offers useful evidence supporting a positive association between migraine and PD for researchers to consider further.
Experts now suggest that future studies, perhaps using targeted brain imaging and neurologic examinations , someday could elucidate even more insights behind the cerebral vulnerability migraine possibly shares with PD, a development that could lead to a better understanding and treatment of the 2 conditions.
Ways Parkinsons Disease Affects The Eyes
According to the Mayo Clinic, Parkinsons Disease is a progressive nervous system disorder that affects movement. Symptoms start gradually, sometimes starting with a barely noticeable tremor in just one hand. Tremors are common, but the disorder also commonly causes stiffness or slowing of movement. There many other prevalent symptoms and complications of Parkinsons and the eyes are no exception.
Diplopia
Diplopia is the medical term given to double vision. Unfortunately, it can be a common occurrence in patients with Parkinsons Disease. It may occur in up to 30% of PD patients. The exact mechanism for the cause of the double vision in not fully understood. The double vision may occur in straight-ahead gaze or in a particular direction of gaze . Another very common source of double vision in PD is convergence insufficiency, which is when the eyes are unable to converge normally for up close visual activities like reading. This would produce double vision when only reading.
Double vision may be helped with PD medications if the person is not actively being treated. Interestingly, some PD medications themselves may cause double vision. If the double vision is consistent, the optometrist may be able to prescribe prism in the patients glasses to help compensate for the misalignment causing the double vision. If the double vision is due to convergence insufficiency, a separate pair of reading glasses with prism compensation may be best.
Dry Eyes
Blepharospasm
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What Is Deep Brain Stimulation
Deep brain stimulation works by inserting fine wires into one of three sites in the brain that are important in Parkinsons disease. These are the subthalamic nucleus , the thalamus, and the pallidum. The STN is the most common structure targeted.
DBS works by reducing the activity of these tiny areas that are overactive in Parkinsons disease. DBS helps to slow these parts of the brain down because the electrical pulse inhibits the activity in the brain surrounding the wire.
Common Causes Of Dizziness And Vertigo In Parkinsons And How To Treat Them:
In people with early Parkinsons disease , the dizziness has in many cases linked to a lower Montreal Cognitive Assessment score raising the possibility that dizziness may be a non-movement symptom associated with cognitive decline .
Dizziness or vertigo can be tied to many causes and is not unique to Parkinsons. Symptoms can be caused by medications, low blood pressure, anxiety, cold, flu, dehydration, heart conditions and more. Tell your doctor immediately if you regularly experience dizziness or vertigo.
Page reviewed by Dr. Michael S. Okun, Parkinsons Foundation Medical Director, Professor and Chair, Department of Neurology, Executive Director of the Fixel Institute for Neurological Diseases a Parkinson’s Foundation Center of Excellence.
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What Is Parkinson’s Disease
Parkinson’s disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder and the most common movement disorder. Characteristics of Parkinsons disease are progressive loss of muscle control, which leads to trembling of the limbs and head while at rest, stiffness, slowness, and impaired balance. As symptoms worsen, it may become difficult to walk, talk, and complete simple tasks.
The progression of Parkinson’s disease and the degree of impairment vary from person to person. Many people with Parkinson’s disease live long productive lives, whereas others become disabled much more quickly. Complications of Parkinsons such as falling-related injuries or pneumonia. However, studies of patent populations with and without Parkinsons Disease suggest the life expectancy for people with the disease is about the same as the general population.
Most people who develop Parkinson’s disease are 60 years of age or older. Since overall life expectancy is rising, the number of individuals with Parkinson’s disease will increase in the future. Adult-onset Parkinson’s disease is most common, but early-onset Parkinson’s disease , and juvenile-onset Parkinson’s disease can occur.
Lower Back Pain And Back Of The Neck Pain Are Most Common
Pain occurs for a number of reasons and its not always clear what the cause is, making it difficult to figure out how best to treat it. I believe that most common pain problems in Parkinsons Disease are the same as in the general population, but amplified. Low back pain and back of the neck pain are probably the most common pain conditions in PD. The reason Parkinsons Disease patients have so many problems with their low back and their neck is their posture. Parkinsons Disease causes a stooped posture. Some of this happens with age anyway, particularly in women after menopause when their bones soften, but is always worse from the PD. All Parkinsons Disease patients have some degree of stooped posture and many also tilt to one side. Because of the stooped posture, the muscles in the lower back have to pull much harder to keep the spine upright.
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