Just wondered how many of you have experienced chemical sensitivity. I had a terrible episode with it in 1980 when making salt dough ornaments and painting them when dried with testers model car/ airplane paints and using paint thinner. Horrid muscle weakness, achy all over/ headache, whoosy...and the worse I got, the more I sat and painted because there was no energy to do anything else. Then after the paints were put away in December, I had an amazing recovery and never knew what had been wrong in the first place. Dr thought maybe M. Gravis . Big symptoms were gone, but I couldn't tolerate being near anyone with strong perfume, or walk down the detergent isle of a grocery store, or be anywhere near where someone was painting. The next summer , I started making salt dough crafts again and as soon as the paint thinner smell hit me, I was on the floor! It was only then I knew what had been wrong the previous year.Proceeded to make the crafts, but other people took them home and painted them on trade for keeping some that they had painted...so I was not exposed to the chemicals. I am still chemically sensitive today, but recognize what is causing a problem and am able to get away from things that I react to.Don't know the reason I just shared this, but perhaps someone out there is having the same symptoms and need to look into the possible cause .Have a blessed day. Aunt Bean

I did have a couple of very similar epizodes related to the latex paint. It was a while back when I didn't have PD.
Since the dX in 2008 I have dicovered that I have bad sensitivity to all kinds of chemicals, including sulfites in food as additives. Eating 10 dried apricots increases tremors that feel more like seazures and make generally so sick that that sinemet provides almost no relief. The only way to mitigate this sensitivity is to stay away from the chemicals and consume simple home made meals.

Aunt Bean,

What solvent were you using?

There's a lot of epidemiological evidence linking exposure to some solvents and PD. For instance, in 2010 the BBC reported research showing [1]:

' a "significant association" between TCE exposure and Parkinson's and suggest exposure to the solvent was likely to result in a six-fold increase in the chances of developing the disease.

The study also adjudged exposure to two other solvents, perchloroethylene (PERC) and carbon tetrachloride (CCl4), "tended towards significant risk of developing the disease".

No statistical link was found with the other three solvents examined in the study - toluene, xylene and n-hexane.'

In animal studies, it has been found [2] that:

"oral administration of trichloroethylene induced a significant loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta in a dose-dependent manner, whereas the number of both cholinergic and GABAergic neurons were not decreased in the striatum."

See also the thread from 2012 by Olsen [3].

Reference

[1] "Study links Parkinson's disease to industrial solvent"
Neil Bowdler
BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15639440

[2] "Trichloroethylene induces dopaminergic neurodegeneration in Fisher 344 rats"
Mei Liu,* Dong-Young Choi,* Randy L. Hunter,* Jignesh D. Pandya,† Wayne A. Cass,* Patrick G. Sullivan,*† Hyoung-Chun Kim,‡ Don M. Gash,* and Guoying Bing*
J Neurochem, Feb 2010
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3535262/

[3] http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/sh...chloroethylene

John

Was using testers paint and paint thinner...my husband had poured paint thinner into a plastic cottage cheese container in the garage probably 2 hours before I went out there to paint and it knocked me down flat before took a few breaths. I had BEAN had!

I became chemically sensitive after a significant exposure to toxic mold. They say one can become sensitive after either one large exposure to a chemical or a series of exposures that pushes you beyond your "threshold". MCS is a very real thing, and it is estimated that 15% of the population has it. The symptoms range from mild to debilitating. More people are coming down with it all the time, largely due to the creation of new chemicals and the overuse of them.

I have hereditary form of PD with LRRK2 muted gene. Have had eye symptoms since 4th or 5th grade (slow eye focus). Bad injuries and chemicals , and stressful situations have been the triggers for adding new symptoms and worsening the symptoms thru the rest of my life. I am now in better shape than since high school. ...wish I had had some natural l-dopa back then...it would have changed my whole life. My brother had great balance all his life until about 57 yrs old when developed PD symptoms. He seemed to have no physical problems (other than he shivered at times during the day as I did...that's what we always called it....perhaps that is a myoclonic jerk?? )will have to look up that term. He was a welder/ truck driver/ mechanic and was exposed to different chemicals...he did not show having LRRK2.

My initial PD symptom (handwriting problems) started during a time of intense exposure to chemicals. The organization where I worked occupied one floor of a tall office building. The CEO decided he wanted a major refurbishing job done on the whole floor, and the employees were to continue to work around the refurbishing work. The windows did not open. For about two months, five days a week, I breathed fumes from paint, paint remover, carpet glue, varnish, etc. The odors were intense, and made many of us feel sick; some people temporarily lost their voices. My reaction was intense dizziness, head pounding, and facial flushing so bad that it looked like blood was coming from the pores on my face. After two months of this, I had to take a medical leave of absence, as the project still had another month before completion. It was during these two months that I started experiencing handwriting problems. Over the next few months, the symptoms progressed to neck pain and hand tremor. About nine months after the chemical exposure, I was given the diagnosis of Parkinson's. (No one else in my family has had it.) Who could say if this was what caused my Parkinson's, or if it was just the straw that broke the camel's back.