The following experience has become repetitive. Often when I am "on", I volunteer to do the grocery shopping for the sort of "comune" of people I have settle to live in after loosing my own family to PD and other dysfuncionalities.

As I no longer drive, I walk to a grocery store some half a mile from the house.

To make sure I remain"on" for the duration of the foray, I go when I know I'm overdosed with levodopa, as demonstrated by the well known dyskinesias and their accompanying mental restlessness, which even though are not a pretty set of conditions to be in public, it still makes me happy to be out and about and to be of help to the "comune".

The empty handed walk to the store, head bobbing and limbs flailing about is otherwise quite nice and I cover the distance quite uneventfully but for the dyskinesias.

I grab a shopping cart and set about to pick up my list of groceries.

And then I begin to get in trouble. What for other people might be gambling, I tend to get carried away, buying more stuff than what was on the list, even though I am fully aware that I will be hauling the load by hand back to the house.

So, I end up with several shopping bags and perhaps 50 lbs hanging from each hand.

A lot for a skinny fellow like me at only 140 lbs.

Such load places a lot of strain on my hands, arms, shoulder and neck structures.

At this point, the effort of hauling such weights hanging from my hands makes my dyskinesias flare up, with particularly my neck tendons and muscles spaming in sync with the dyskies, my face making all kind of grimaces and contortions and my entire body trying to flail about only contained somewhat by the heavy loads acting as a keel and my original mental agitation turns into what feels very much like drunkeness, making me walk slow and like a drunkard.

Now, what I want to highlight from this repeated experience is the strong relevance to symptoms exacerbation in PD of any working up of the shoulder/neck area muscles/tendons.

As a further demonstration of the above, during another "on" and overdosed period, I managed to hang up-side down from wrapping my bent legs at the knees around a horizontal steel tube, like the "catcher" in a circus trapezee's act. Seems pretty simple an exercise but let me tell you, the natural body's reaction is to tighten all muscles and tendonsd involved in holding the head attached to the trunk, as if the unnatural head upside down is interpreted as if the head will detach away from the rest of the body which reacts accordingly by tightening all structures involved in keeping both together.
As I was trying to improve blood flow to the brain, said to improve PD symptoms, I maintained the position for some ten minutes, which resulted in a thorough and very counterproductive tensing and tightening of all musclesw intended to relax, for which I paid dearly. I was forced to remain bedridden for the next 24 hours in which I could never quite turn "on", in spite of taking tablet after tablet of levodopa/carbidopa with only minimal relief but never quite coming out of paralysis of the "off" period.

All of the above was intended to work and research this "neuro-muscular" disorder from the "muscular" end, i.e.: from the outside-in. The relevance of these experiments highlights the importance of a "relaxing, stretching" approach to any muscle work approach in PD, just as "relieving-reducing" psychological stress seems the correct approach on the mental side. I encourage everybody who can do it to take the free trial offer of a type of passive exercise device found in another thread on the subject supported by Dr. Lieberman's studies. Its effectiveness in relieving PD symptoms may surprise many a sophisticated parkie who may think he/she has heard/seen it all. I wish any and all a good shaking.

P.S. "Stress", in its original engineering sense as "the analysis (to the element's rupture, if necessary) of the"efforts" to which a "structural" element (a beam or rafter, for ex.) is subjected to under various "loads", is very fitting.

That makes very good sense. I don't hang upside down completely, but when off, with dystonia [also brought on by just being off first thing in the morning especially, or by movement or straining on the neck and shoulders, now joined by a damaged lower vertebrae and life can be limiting to say the least.

I put my head, top down, on the floor, and bring my arms back ro my sides, body hunched up, knees underneath, sitting on my feet, stretching, seems to get some blood to the upper extremities and head; then do the yoga dog stretch; or I lay across the bed, stomach down, with shoulders, arms and head hanging over the edge. Finally lay on back with legs sharply elevated. It helps after awhile - not immediately. All involve blood circulation, stretching, getting on.

It's a must or freeze right up in total pain. Drug addiction involved too, I'm sure....since we take a few...lol.

paula

Toting grocery bags is good for our muscles to a certain extent, but overburdening them can bring on days of relentless pain. I still drive and still tote groceries every day from the neighbourhood stores, but only one or two bags (I have the monthly grocery supply delivered to my house). I find it's good exercise, even though I do walk a bit like a drunk whenever I carry more weight on one side than the other.
All in all, I try to remain active and lately, since the days are longer, we have added a short evening walk around the neighbourhood, because it really makes a difference in my sleep quality.

...OK, I know I have a certain reputation as a, shall we say, unconventional researcher (see "banding" series).

One thing I have been experimenting with is the psychogenic possibilities of PD. Specifically, crap from childhood affecting the present. I have been experimenting with a sort of self referential analysis. OK, I talk to mysely in free association mode. What of it Daffy?

One feature of my childhood was too much responsibility for one so young. Last night in free associating I spontaneously came up with the concept of needing to "lay my burden down."

Upon reflection, I realize that there are two places where I carry tension and which act up with my PD symptoms. The one that I keyed into here was my shoulders (the other my abdominal wall). Given the common incidence of frozen shoulder and such, I can't help but wonder....