[johnt]

It's now 10.5 years since I was diagnosed with PD. About a year before being diagnosed I noticed that it was taking me longer to dry myself after having a shower or a bath. It felt as though the skin was more porous, or rather that the skin held onto the moisture longer. About the same time my wife described me as having a fungal smell. I didn't follow this up at the time. But, once I was diagnosed with PD, I put it down to the difficulty of using a towel. This symptom continues to this day.

Within five years of being diagnosed I had developed fungal infections on both feet and seborrhea on the head and face.

In a group of me and four people I know with PD and their spouses it turns out that all five PwP have fungal infections on their feet, but none of their spouses. Admittedly a very small sample.

I'd be grateful to hear from others, both with and without Parkinson's and with and without fungal infections.

John

[badboy99]

John this would be a great question for a poll. It would likely get more responses.

[Niggs]

Originally Posted by johnt

It's now 10.5 years since I was diagnosed with PD. About a year before being diagnosed I noticed that it was taking me longer to dry myself after having a shower or a bath. It felt as though the skin was more porous, or rather that the skin held onto the moisture longer. About the same time my wife described me as having a fungal smell. I didn't follow this up at the time. But, once I was diagnosed with PD, I put it down to the difficulty of using a towel. This symptom continues to this day.

Within five years of being diagnosed I had developed fungal infections on both feet and seborrhea on the head and face.

In a group of me and four people I know with PD and their spouses it turns out that all five PwP have fungal infections on their feet, but none of their spouses. Admittedly a very small sample.

I'd be grateful to hear from others, both with and without Parkinson's and with and without fungal infections.

John

I have fungal nail (toes) which appeared post diagnosis. I put it down to difficulty washing/drying and constant rubbing against footwear due to a compromised gait.

Nigel

[Jazziecat]

I get fungal infections too but always have. I have hyperhidrosis (excessive sweating) and always thought that was why I got the infections. Athlete's foot creams work well for me. I don't need it on my feet. I have some sagging skin and that's where I get the rashes.

[johnt]

I have made a number of posts over the years pointing out apparent associations between environmental factors and variations in the prevalence of PD across the US.

The most notable of these concerned the fungal infection histoplasmosis.

This post links PD to fungal infections in general through relative humidity.

Compare the map produced by Willis et al. of the prevalence of PD in the US:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...395/figure/F1/

With the map showing the mean annual relative humidity across the US:

http://www.eldoradocountyweather.com...-humidity.html

The match is far from perfect, but both maps show a high zone running north and east from southern Texas, and a smaller high zone in the Pacific North West.

A causal mechanism for the apparent association is given by Arundel et al. [1]:

"Most species of fungi cannot grow unless the relative humidity exceeds 60%."

Although not conclusive in itself, it adds weight to the argument that fungal infections play a role in the pathogenesis of PD.

Reference

[1] "Indirect health effects of relative humidity in indoor environments."
A V Arundel, E M Sterling, J H Biggin, and T D Sterling
Environ Health Perspect. 1986 Mar; 65: 351–361.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1474709/

John

[Bergamotte]

John, in October 2015 you posted about this study regarding Alzheimer's disease having a fungal association:

http://www.nature.com/articles/srep15015

Several weeks ago I contacted the corresponding author and asked whether there was any interest in doing a similar study on PD. He replied that, in fact, this is already taking place. Their study is not finished, and it will require more than a year to finish the research and publish their findings. But it's in the works.

[Bergamotte]

P.S. In response to your call for information from fellow PD patients, my husband is slightly more prone to skin infections than before he was diagnosed with PD. No foot infections, no nail infections; just the occasional small boil in random locations around the body which subsides and disappears after we treat it with a commercial manuka honey foot and heel cream for a few days. I know of only one such cream; the company's initials are D.O. Another effective preparation we have used is epsom salt paste; it caused the lesions to drain and then to heal. However, it was more drying to the skin than the manuka honey cream, so we prefer the latter.

In my husband's case, an indirect indication that the etiology is fungal is his response to (15-minute) sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) foot baths. We add about 1/4 cup of baking soda to a small tub of warm water of a suitable size for soaking the feet. He feels better the day after a soda foot bath. And, if we continue these daily for a week, he feels fantastic, clearer in mind and more coordinated physically. Bicarb is an excellent antifungal, as I'm sure you know. In my husband's recent lab work, his bicarbonate was a smidge low, just below the bottom of the normal range. If his PD is fungal, I would expect that his body is drawing on its bicarb supply to fight the fungus. The pancreas secretes less bicarbonate after age 45, so his low bicarb level doesn't surprise me. It's just another reason to continue the foot baths. I call them "spa treatments," and he feels extremely pampered by them.