Here I stand, head in hand, can't turn my face at all

Maybe you saw Mohammed Ali at the Academy Awards for the movie "When We Were Kings". His face was expressionless (although, you could see the twinkle in his eye). A medical dictionary calls that look the Parkinson's Mask and defines it as "an expressionless face with eyebrows raised and smoothing but immobility of facial muscles". It is simply a fixed, vacant stare that makes the victim appear uninterested in what someone is doing or saying. A PWP with this condition can usually force a smile but it doesn't come easily. For example, if they are having their picture taken and are told to smile, they can. They just can't do it without effort.

This condition is correctly called "hypomimia" and, as I wrote in an earlier entry, it has visited me once back in February. I am told it has not happened since; although, I think I can feel a difference in the muscles around my neck and mouth, but I am getting a little paranoid. So who knows what will happen next?

An Alaskan cartoonist, Peter Dunlap-Shohl, a PWP, captured the essence of the condition in this cartoon:

The second picture in row two depicts the character with dyskinesias, uncontrolled movements brought on by prolonged use of L-dopa.

For me, so far, my symptoms are controlled by mirapex, a dopamine agonist. Dopamine agonists are drugs that act like dopamine by sending the same message as dopamine to nerve cells. Agonists are less likely to result in dyskinesias.

Now it is time for me to go and take my mirapex, with an amantadine chaser.

There is never a dull moment with this condition.