I just completed a two part nerve conduction test on my PD affected side this morning. I know they have found a problem with a nerve in my leg. Anyone have experience with this to share?

paula

back in the 80's when I was trying to figure out what was wrong with me, my neuro at the time, did some nerve conductivity studies that supposedly found an impingment in my ellbow.
I had surgery on it, an ulner translocation, that was an absolute waste of my time, as it did not help the bradykinesia in my right arm at all!!!!

My suggestion to you is this, get a second opinion before any surgery!

Personally I think conductivity studies are suspect at best.

sorry to hear of your difficulties.

your friend,

Charlie

After two years of increasing burning pain in my right hand, mynuero did a a nerve conduction test on both arms. I had sugery on both wrists this past April and have no pain anymore. The surgeon felt that all the yars with tremor had cause the carpal tunnel to collapse.

yes - before i was dx with PD, i had problems walking and my left foot didn't lift - after ruling out pressure on the nerve from a disk with an MRI, they did this test - actually two different docs did it - one thinking i had ALS and the other thinking maybe some other thing (he never did buy the pd dx)- it was abnormal but wasn't bad enough to be ALS, thank gioodness, so I was sent over to the Parkinson's guy who watched me walk to the end of the hall, pronounced his dx, handed me a booklet, told me to be grateful it wasn't something worse, and left. that was 4 years ago. i had had noticeable symptoms for a year, i think/

sorry about the typing - tryed to ride a bike and broke my arm - anyone have any ecperience with a tricycle///////?

2 out of 3 in surgery.....yikes......thanks for responding. Sasha, sorry to hear about your arm! I haven't been on a tricycle since I was a little kid. Be careful - helmut? lol

paula

Paula,

I'm sorry to hear about your difficulties.

I had a few of the NCVTs with the EMGs performed. Very painful tests as far a I was concerned. These were used to rule out other problems that could cause my symptoms. The first one was to test for muscle weakness because I had very high (300% above normal) CPK levels after taking Lipitor. The other two were by two different neuros to rule out other things before diagnosis.

The good news is the muscle weakness went away, and the other two confirmed that the nerves were normal.

Sasha,

I hope your bike riding accident wasn't my fault. I started riding myself and I mentioned how good it felt, and gave you the riding bug.

John

hi from Cape Cod. So,on this subject: in 1998, a year before my PD diagnosis confirmed what I'd suspected for a while, my internist ordered an EMG to see why my right hand was no longer working. I was thrilled to get a report that I had a pinched nerve, thinking, "Great, it's not PD!" Oddly, I've never had any of the expected symptoms that correlate with pinched nerve, where I should have numbness, etc. But it makes me wonder as I read , whether there is a correlation with PD and pinched nerves due to our styles of walking changing as we begin to drag one foot, and limp, and one side takes over more functioning? Just a thought...Be well, all.
I'm trying to enjoy my vacation, which is in my favorite place, but I have had such a staggeringly steep and progressive decline in my functioning, and such a rise in my "freezing" frequency, that I am actually fairly scared at what lies ahead. And yet, I can still, at odd intervals, walk around completely normally!!! And then, just like that, my med's stop working for 2 or three doses in a row, and with no typically predictable triggers whatsoever, and I'm helpless as an upside-down centipede, so go figure.
At these moments, I seem to be an incredible Scrabble player lately. And by way, what's funnier than 3 people with PD playing Scrabble and being obsessively unable to decide which tiles to use? A great paradigm for a clinical trial, to observe exective functioning in its high's and low's with us!

Sigh. What a mind-game this disease plays with us.
Leonore

Hi Leonore, from Haverhill MA where I live all the time.

You bring up a good point, and I've wondered that myself. For years I've suffered from various pinched nerves in my neck, back, and other jointed places. I think this has to do with the twisting that our body is doing with the bouts of dystonia and the overall stiffness that PD is putting our bodies into.

The mind games are swell aren't they? I was doing quite well until a couple of weeks ago with my medication increase. I spoke with my neuro on Wednesday about some BPV and told her about some dystonia in my arms, hands and feet that was occurring more and more frequent along with more and more stiffness overall.

What seems to work for a while then doesn't work is the most frustrating thing because we begin to feel "normal" again only to have the PD evil gods take that little bit away from us once again. It's as though they know when we're back to normal again and want to keep us under their thumbs.

The Scrabble games must be fun. I haven't played that in years. They're good for the mind as they make us think harder to keep the cells in order and in shape. I can't imagine what the games are like. The one thing that is bothering with the PD thing is the loss of written vocabulary. I seem to be losing my words more and more as I write so that sometimes I come across as a complete twit. It's a good thing there are online dictionaries available because they help me with my spelling and word use. So keeping the brain juices flowing with the Scrabble games is a good thing.

John

I knew for 10+ yrs that I was gradually losing use of left side but it was so slight that doctors didn't register it. My GP who is bril & long-suffering asked if I'd volunteer for a clinical trial on nerve conductivity (maybe to shut me up). The result of the test was that nerve conductivity was OK. When I went to hear the result everything happened very quickly. The neuro looked at my arms & could see some atrophy in the muscles of my left arm. He did the walking thing & gave me a thorough medical examination leading to a diagnosis of PD.
Angela.

More and more I have to think that it is blocked meridians - and interrupted Chi flow - that is the underlying (literally!) culprit in PD. Over time, w/ ever decreasing 'life force' to an area, the nerves and muscles fail to thrive, eventually suffering pathological changes to the tissues.
This is what seems to be happening in my body over this past pd decade.
Anybody out there know what I am trying to say, experiencing something simillar??
For me the big question remains...how to remove the blocks and restore proper chi flow.

Anyone out there w/ acupuncture experience for this?

ibby