Parkinson's

The book "Recovery From Parkinsons" by Janice Hadlock covers this very well.

The book is free, btw.

She has written multiple books on Parkinsons and Asian medicine. According to her, Parkinsons is caused by qi flowing incorrectly. Now hold on, don't worry about that. The descriptions in the book of Parkinsons personalities PREVIOUS to developing the disease are very captivating. She describes my pop, who has Parkinsons, and the description is spot on. Inflexible, punctual. etc.

The theory is basically that extremely strict upbringings and being unable to express your opinions, thoughts, and emotions, causes Parkinsons. There are data to back this in the book, too.

 

Interesting. My Dad had Parkinsons. He did not have a strict up bringing at all, and was mostly pretty flexible, creative, no-controlling, encouraging, and loving. Dad was a WILD CHILD who was constantly (and deservedly) in trouble a lot, but even that was pretty lenient because he was the apple of his mother eye. His Dad tried to be more strict, but without any luck. Dad did start work very young, at the age of 10 (I started at the age of 12...we just liked to have our own money), but it wasn't uncommon when he was a kid to work that young.

 

In Chinese medicine, every illness is associated with blockage of Qi. Depending on where in the system of meridians (the channels in which Qi flows) the blockage occurs, symptoms may appear anywhere in the body and manifest themselves differently. And yes, Chinese medicine has a concept of five elements that ties those blockages to the personality types. In a way, Chinese and Western medicines are two parallel conceptual systems describing the same imbalances in body and mind in their own ways.

 

Yes it is quite hard to watch and very disturbing.

Like I said in my original post, I don't think it's coincidence that I've gone down this path of worry about this (and dystonia) since watching that doc.

Btw, on Michael J Fox, you can look back and see how "twitchy" he was even when he was a young man. My understanding of Parkinson's is that it doesn't manifest until...well, until it manifests. You don't exhibit symptoms like MJF did before you officially come down with. But the guy simply could not stand still. That lends some credence to an idea it could be mind/body and just a part of his personality.

 

OMG Brian's Song and Love Story. Same here.

My mother had a very old medical dictionary on the bookshelf when I was growing up in the 1970s. I would read through that thing and nearly every condition had: Prognosis: Death.

I still have to abort mission when reading a book and suddenly a character has terminal illness.
Why would anyone want to read about that???

 

I seem to recall reading that MJF believes his Parkinson’s began due to his alcohol and drug abuse in his 20s, although he can’t evidence this he believes this definitely contributed to it.

 

A few snippets aswell from where it may have began for him…


Parkinson's disease
In 2002, an investigation was launched into Leo and Me after an unusual cluster of Parkinson's diseasecases was noted among former cast and crew members of the show. Fox and director Don Williams were among the four with the disease, along with a writer and a cameraman.

When asked about the cluster by Howard Stern in a September 25, 2013, interview on The Howard Stern Show, Michael J. Fox stated, "Believe it or not, from a scientific point of view, that's not significant."Donald Calne, a Vancouver neurologist, said the incidence of Parkinson's in society is about 1 in 300, but that four of the 125 people on the Vancouver set of Leo and Me developed the disease. Calne said, "It could be coincidence. But it's intriguing, it might be something they were exposed to."

Also what he said to the guardian…

He told Hadley Freeman of The Guardian in late 2020: "I can think of a thousand possible scenarios: I used to go fishing in a river near paper mills and eat the salmon I caught; I've been to a lot of farms; I smoked a lot of pot in high school when the government was poisoning the crops. But you can drive yourself crazy trying to figure it out."

 

Wow, isn't that interesting how they seek all kinds of answers (poisoning by external chemicals) instead of considering the possibility of the "cluster" of them on that movie set were also exposed to each other's neuroses/personalities.

Stern doing the interview makes me wonder if he saw the possibility of TMS there too.

 

He was also filming day and night during the 80s, family ties during the day and back to the future so coupled with little sleep, alcohol/drug abuse it’s probably been a major factor.

A naturopath once did say to me that there’s increasing evidence of poor gut health leading to it, but that springs to mind, TMS can cause digestion problems like it did for me so it is plausible.

 

I’m late to these posts, but was mesmerized by all this information. I lost my sense of smell (and most taste) five years prior to being diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease (2019) I can look at all known PD symptoms and, if I go strictly by western medical info it would be reasonable to determine that I likely had PD for at least 5 years prior to loss of smell. Anosmia (loss of smell) is one of the very first symptoms BEFORE people get a firm diagnosis. I also had tremor in my right hand, constipation, anxiety, insomnia and apathy. Finally getting a PD diagnosis was such a relief…or so I thought. It was wonderful to have a medical reason for all that I was suffering. Now, in summer 2024 I have weaned myself off ALL 7 medications that had been prescribed, I have changed my diet to eliminate most carbs and sugar, and I exercise so much that my neighbor thinks I’m training for Ironman. I should note that I’m 70 and not overweight. I am 100% certain that I have TMS and have been reading Alan Gordon’s book and everything Sarno has written. My tremors have nearly ceased and my biggest complaint now is left leg/piriformis/calf pain that i am certain is TMS. Moral of this story - I have been afraid of every ailment and more so as I have aged. I have reset my mind, and my body, and I no longer go to a physician unless I must. (had pacemaker implanted recently and didn’t think it wise to do that in my garage). I stopped all “PD support groups and would never watch the MJ Fox Documentary. Some research showed me that he is NOT the poster child for Parkinson’s as he has MANY issues unrelated to that. Once again I’ve written War and Peace.

 

They didn't say only not being allowed to express yourself produces this.

Technically, in the book, there were 4 causes of Parkinsons. One is foot injury (this is related to qi, the body doesn't realize that the foot is injured and never allows it to heal, and once the foot heals, things get better). At any rate, it's not simply a difficult childhood that can cause it, but any sense of not feeling like you can be yourself. Maybe feeling like he NEEDED to start working at 10 did it? Who knows? I'm not sure if it's nothing or any of those. That book changed my consideration of Parkinsons, though. Certain things in the book were like someone was stating my most private thoughts. Like I'm the only person who actually thinks this crazy stuff. It actually horrified me that I might get Parkinsons. Some of the things it talked about were behaving from the perspective of giving yourself commands rather than moving naturally. The way I perceive the world in my crazy, self-diminishing way, was essentially spelled out in that book. The likelihood of someone randomly forming those thoughts, and publishing them in a book, and having them match the way I think seems rather low. I can quite literally see my dad doing that, and as I watch him every day, I feel like lots of what he does, as he is the most kind person I have ever met, is done from the point of NECESSITATING doing it, or being a goodist.

I'm sorry your dad experienced this.

 

You came off parkinsons medications?

 

I am very close to being off all medication. I am currently taking one, 25-100 Carbidopa/Levodopa per day. I had been taking 6 tablets per day. The medication all has side effects and it becomes very difficult to distinguish those from PD symptoms. Many of the people with PD whom I know just don’t want to (or are unable to) do the strenuous and constant exercise needed to deal with the motor and non-motor symptoms. I don’t blame them. This obviously doesn’t work for everyone. But I got tired of being turned into an unemotional zombie by physicians.

 

When you say constant exercise, do you mean programs guided by doctors? My dad has PD and is doing exercise basically endlessly, Speak Out in the morning and evening, lung capacity, other exercise programs, etc.

He's on a low dose of C/L twice a day.

 

Thank you for this, I read every word.

Since starting this thread about 6 months ago, I've pretty much dropped all of my suspected PD symptoms to the point it occurred to me just the other day that they were all gone. PD symptoms, like so many other TMS-derived ailments, was hopefully just a ship passing through the sea of my mind, hoping to find a harbor to drop anchor. I'll continue to low-level worry about it, but hopefully I can keep it in its TMS-place.

Anyway, thanks again for posting and very happy to hear you've managed to wrest control of this for yourself.