I keep reading about how the deterioration of the cardiac sympathetic nerve could be a sign of PD onset. I certainly have had minor heart problems since youth, that went always undetected by conventional ectrocardiograms, and a family history of early deaths due to heart failure. What if PD is caused by congenital heart disease and not the other way around?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...=pubmed_DocSum

In researching Parkinson's last year, I came upon a website by a doctor who said if you want to learn about Parkinson's, you first must study the Left Ventricle of the Heart. I lost the site, but I will keep searching. I only mention this because my husband, Rich now has Parkinsons. However, in October '03 he had a heart attack in the Left Ventricle. I wish I could remeber if he had already lost the swing of his right arm or not before the heart attack. I know he was dragging his right leg. He thought it was because his back was always bothering him due to his constant prostate problems, and that's why he dragged his leg. I've heard before that if we have different diseases going on in our body, these are not separate, rather the result of one systemic disease.

I suffer from what has been diagnosed as Pramature Ventricular Contraction's (PVC's). Feels like irregular heartbeat. My Neurologist says it is unrelated to my PD or my meds but I have always considered it an amazing coincidence that is appeared around the same time as my PD symptoms.

Thanks Teresa for the info I will investigate further. I have not come across this before.

Chris

Maureen, that's very intriguing, isn't it? If you find the paper about the left ventricle having some involvement in PD, please let me know.

I had electrocardiograms every year throughout my working life, but they were always normal, until my my PD tremors started to "parasite" them. However, I have had heart problems since my teenage years. Even though I was good at sports and could keep up with anybody on level ground, I was never able to keep pace with my schoolmates on uphill hikes during school outings. I would become short of breath and arrive among the last, together with the chubby kids, extremely flushed and would take hours to recover my normal complexion.

I always wondered if there was a connexion with my throat and ear infections as a child. I had "strep throat" many times during childhood. It go to the point where the doctor told my parents that I should have my tonsils removed because I could end up with heart problems or rheumatism, but then we moved to Germany and the idea there was that tonsils were protecting us from greater evil, so nothing was done.
Now I wonder...could it all be related? Could a bacterium like the pneumococcus (which also causes meningitis) be at the bottom of it all? A slow and insidious chain of fatal consequences?

Teresa-

Regarding your speculation about a possible role of a bacterium, it is interesting that the work by the German scientist Braak tracked PD via Lewy bodies from the olfactory site but also the GI tract. Of particular interest is the similarity between the path of Lewy bodies along the vagal nerve to the brain stem and a similar path of "inclusion bodies" as a feature of the virus which causes polio! I believe less and less in coincidence.

Yes, Rick, I read about that, too. It's a scary little world in there, isn't it? I have long ceased to believe in coincidences. Back in the 70's my biology teacher used to say that we are nothing but a pact between bacteria. We thought she was crazy then, but I never forgot the sentence.
My bacteria have become unruly, they have been breaching the pact and seem to have been swinging the battle axe at eachother for quite a while now. Maybe the bottom line is that we are victims of hooligan bacteria who have outnumbered our good bacteria!

Yes, the pendulum regarding removing tonsils seems to swing on about a 30-year cycle. When I was a child, it was stylish to have a tonsillectomy when sore throats were frequent. It was said that the operation was much easier on you before adulthood, so it was better to get it done as a child. At least in the US, in the 60s, 70s and 80s, the swing was toward leaving them in as they are important contributors to the lymphoid part of the immune system. Antibiotics were (and still are) routinely depended on to knock out strep.

It has been known for many years that the "scarlet fever" that can accompany a severe strep throat was a sign that the immune system was attacking other tissues of the host, especially heart valves. The result was often valve damage resulting in fibrosis and compromised cardiac function.

Now the tonsillectomy pendulum is swinging back to the "maybe a good idea" side as the bacteria develop resistance to current antibiotics and there are few new ones in the pipeline. I read an article a couple of days ago advocating tonsilectomy in adults when sore throats are frequent, so that fewer antibiotics are used. For the same reason, in pediatrics these days, it is considered a no-no to give antibiotics to babies with sore ears as a first line approach, since most of them will be able to recover just fine without them in a few days.

I have had what is called a benign heart murmer for my whole life. I recently went through a heart accessment and was told my heart was fine.

Vicky

Vicky, your two-cents worth is always worth a lot. In this case, for instance, it confirms my theory that we can have an underlying heart problem for years that can go undetected by conventional means of diagnosis. The denervation of the cardiac sympathetic nerve and Parkinson's seem to be related, we just have to establish which came first.

The big question is: could some people develop PD as a consequence of heart problems...and could they have developed those heart problems in childhood as a consequence of strep throat or other bacterial infections?

Yep, these medical fashion trends really kill me (in more ways than one ). The problem is that, as of this date, we still don't know what's right. For instance, my father-in-law, who's in his mid 70's, was recently diagnosed with Meniere Syndrome (vertigo) and the doc said it was caused by untreated ear infections during childhood! We had our Civil War going on then and certainly no antibiotics.