Update: One loyal reader, a somewhat interesting fellow who I have met a few times, solved another conundrum; nobody ever told us army brats why every soldier with the surname "Clark" was called "Nobby" Clark.
Well, thanks to the internet, he found the answer at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobby.
Now if I could solve "Dusty" Miller, I might get to sleep at night.
On with the show: I told you I would give you the history of my time as RSM of the substantia nigra. Here goes. I first noticed that my sense of smell was not sensitive, even with foul odors. Friends and family might comment on "that sewage smell" and yet I could not smell anything unless it was a sickly sweet smell. Now I can't even smell that. Sadly, I cannot smell the roses but, on the upside, I can't smell feces or vomit either. I tell you it "sucks " lacking a sense of smell. I was 64 years old and I no longer could smell.
In mid-2010, I was helping my son make study cards for his psychology course and my handwriting became smaller and tighter toward the end of a sentence. It almost hurt to try to write Writing was too onerous. I quit trying to write more than a couple of words. There would be no cards but thank goodness for the computer and my skill on the keyboard, I helped make study pages.
Early in 2011, I swam a mile in the pool's training tank and followed that up with a mile run. I was in great shape, so it surprised me when my right hand started to shake without any input from me. I thought to myself, 'That workout must have been much harder than usual!" and I put it out of my mind. A few weeks later, I finished a long run in South Miami Beach. When walking to lunch with my wife, my right hand started its jig. My wife grabbed my hand and told me to stop it. I did and in doing so, I surrendered to her the role of RSM.
After that, my wife took charge and made me see the GP and then, as set out in my 2011 entries, I went into the Parkie system as follows:
* GP refers me to a neuro who says no medication yet. My hand has a mind of its own, but no meds ("you are not a watchmaker after all). This doctor is at least my age so it is doubtful he can treat me through to the end. Add to that, I was the first patient on his list that day and he shows up one hour late. I accept his diagnosis of PD but this was not going to be a productive relationship. No, I wasn't a watchmaker but, the tremor in my right hand was to the point that I tried to hide my hand out of embarrassment. No drugs!
Ptooie!
Time to revisit the GP.
* I tell my GP my horror stories and ask him to refer me to a neuro whom I know slightly. This neuro gives me gold star treatment and puts me on Amantadine, Mirapex, and L-Dopa. Practically overnight the tremor screeches to a halt and I feel almost normal; however, this neuro says I can stay with him if I want, but, his office is just a "ham and egg "operation and I might be better off at the movement disorder clinic so he sets up an appointment with a neuro who deals exclusively with movement problems. Neuro #3 increases my L-Dopa by 50%.
* An advantage of the movement disorder clinic is it runs research projects and I was chosen for one which looked into the effects of caffeine on PD. It turns out there are none. However, the use of amantadine was questioned by the nurse (highly competent). You see amantadine is an anti-viral drug which, for some reason, has a positive effect on PD. The nurse remarked "I don't know why amantadine is there.? The research doctor told her it was probably there "for the tremor". Works for me.
My tremor is tremorless.
Tomorrow: The cause(s) of my PD.
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