Just trying to get an idea of how prevalent it is to have a period of heavy stress, trauma, or heavy surgery before showing signs of Parkinsonian symptoms?

Feel free to elaborate in the replies.

You have no idea how big that elephant is under that rug. Years and years of chronic stress and then a sudden acute stress. The first prepares the ground and the second ignites the blast.

My CV-
Born 1953. Alcoholic father. Neurotic mother.
Some depression in late teens but had a sort of epiphany where I chose to live.

Beginning about 1975 and in approximate order-
Mother attempted suicide.
I married.
Father succeeded at suicide.
Wife and I remodeled and sold house.
Remodeled mobile home and moved in.
Burned due to lightening.
Built house ourselves.
Burned by arsonist.
Wife having health problems, in wheelchair for months.
Became livein caregivers for first of four grandparents over an eight year period. No privacy and incredibly hard.
Oh yeah, running a small business all along.
Exposure to chlordane.
Last grandparent died.
Had house built. Still in it.
Still running small business. One vacation in 20 years.
Wife having more health problems.
1992 First tremor. Brother died.
1999 major case of flu
2000 diagnosis.
2000 to 2009 Relatively stable but slow decline
2009 Business failure began
2010 First endocrine problems showed at peak of stress (panic attacks, periodic paralysis, hot flashes)
2010 to 2011 Marked decline

Reverett123 ... thanks for sharing that very personal story. I'm sorry for what you've been through!

One interesting pattern that is similar to my mom's is the long period of chronic stress punctuated by an acute stressor or traumatic event. In my mom's case there were years (at least a decade or more) of familial stress followed by the death of her mom, whom she was very close to. Her passing resulted in my mom taking Prozac and Xanax, which immediately preceded her onset of PD.

I'm wondering if the years of chronic stress slowly depeletes your body of critical elements (whatever those are? glutathione? vitamin b's? etc?), and the sudden acute event pushes you over the edge so to speak.

It would be interesting to hear if others had a similar pattern.

I was just contemplating this the other day in my dad's case.

My mom had came down with a rare disease and nearly died from it and it was a few years till it went into remission with some complications along the way.

After mom was in remission and stable it wasn't long before dad's PD symptoms showed up.

stress? when aren't baby boomers stressed?
was there a surge in pd after WWII? After natural disasters?

Aren't prison populations, doctors, soldiers, firemen, policemen, etc. always under stress, do they have higher incidence of pd?

i think modern civilization promotes pd with more pollution and toxins plus with greater cases of physical trauma from more violent contact sports.

I did a post back when it was the old forum. Yep I had major stress, we were going through marital problems, my wife was on numerous depression meds-could hardly get out of bed, not that she wanted to. We ended up losing our house to foreclosure. I started showing symptoms in June of that year and when we lost the house in November I was diagnosed. There is the Scale of Life Events you have probably heard of it. It gives various events of stressors a point value. The more points you have the more likely you are to have a significant health concern/death in the near future. It tops out at 300and at the time I was over 400. HMMM there may be something to this.

How do you choose between traumatic event and stress? Aren't they connected? And within a three year time period I had two traumatic events and one involved surgery. How do I choose one answer?

I should have specified in the poll that heavy stress = chronic/long-term (years) of heavy stress.

You can have stress without trauma, but probably not trauma without stress?

Also, you can pick more than one answer.

It would also be interesting to know of the people that suffered long-term stress or trauma, whether they took psychotropic medication for it.

Soccertese,

I don't mean, can't speak for others, that stress literally and solely caused my Parkinsonsism. I do mean that stress can tip you over the edge...so all things being equal between two candidates for PD, the one under any significant amount of stress will more easily end up in the office of a MDS. Stress can lead to a host of chronic illnesses and even makes us more susceptible to the common cold? It is widely known that chronic stress weakens our immune system and contributes to one's susceptibility to more serious disease (cancer, heart disease, diabetes, metabolic disorder). It's just that I think its role is greater for people who have neurological disorders because it alters our brain chemistry over the course of time.

Not to mention that the amygdala; our "fear" center is usually impacted in PD, so this also can exacerbate stress or deactivate our flight or fight response depending on how that area has been hit by rogue killer proteins. Interestingly, smokers have underactive amygdalas; that is nicotine blunts their fear response...is this also why smokers are less likely to get PD? Surely there is some relation here.

Laura

Why chronic stress hastens progression of Alzheimer's disease
Published: Thursday, Jun 30, 2011, 17:49 IST

http://www.dnaindia.com/health/repor...isease_1560876

Previous studies have pinpointed the role of stress in Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders.

Now, scientists at the USC have discovered why.

...examined the brains of rats that had experienced psychological stresses and found high levels of the RCAN1 gene.

Davies and his colleagues suggest that chronic stress — physical or mental — causes overexpression of RCAN1, in turn leading to neurodegenerative disease.
..

In a healthy person, the RCAN1 gene helps cells cope with stress. Overproduction, however, can eventually damage neurons, preventing the brain's signals from traveling and causing disease.

... two competing theories about the leading cause of neurodegeneration in Alzheimer's disease: overproduction of the Amyloid Beta peptide and tau hyperphosphorylation. Research ... suggests that overexpression of RCAN1 is connected to both, and appears to unite the Amyloid Beta and tau theories of neurodegeneration...


...The study has tremendous implications for understanding and treating Alzheimer's disease, the authors say.

The study has been published in the Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.