A few weeks ago there was news of rats with PD getting relief by means of electrically stimulating their spines, similar to the effects of DBS.

The details were scanty, but enough to get me wondering, so I tried it today. I have an electrical muscle stimulator that I bought on Ebay a year or so ago. PTs often use them for rehab. I got mine for $50.

This morning I had meds at 8 AM and 10 AM and expected to continue the two hour repeat the rest of the day. I felt myself going off about 11 AM and muttered under my breath because I knew it was going to be one of THOSE days and that I'd be spending the afternoon froze up in a chair when I'd rather be doing something else.

So, I thought "what the heck!" and with great effort drug the stimulator out and hooked up to it for fifteen minutes. I had tried it a couple of times already. In the absence of any guidelines I had kept my experimental levels down to "barely detectable" but this time I upped it to "just becoming uncomfortable." One pad went on my occiput and the other on my tail bone. The stim shut down after the 15 minutes were up and I sat quietly for another 15. At 11:30 I stood up and, after limbering up a little, I found that I could walk when I should have been freezing.

Not only that, but I skipped meds at noon and 2 PM and finally took them at about 3 PM. Not only had I been functional, but I was engaged in moving some heavy furniture around or two of those hours.

I took meds again at 6 PM but found myself beginning to go off and freeze as 8 PM approached. I decided to extend my experiment and 8 PM I again drug the little zapper out and put in 15 minutes. After a ten minute wait, I again stod up and found myself back to functioning without any meds since 6 PM!

It is now 11 PM and I am going to bed fully fiunctional!

This is cool!!!

Thid sounds like serious stuff !!?

Slept very well. Awoke 6 AM with much less brain fog than usual. Functionally improved by 25% over normal. Now 7 AM and just finished 15 min session. No meds yet (usually the first order of business). Typing better than I would expect but one handed. Will take some sinemet now and report later.Cheers!

I saw this too and wondered why they didn't give more details...but it's a blessing, actually, because they used our friend the rodent and ultimately would have had to try it on people, but you beat them to it! Thanks very much for trying it, and for sharing with others. I am very happy for you that you are feeling better, and it seems, significantly so.

Perhaps OT, perhaps not....I read last night of a little boy whose autism has mysteriously improved, significantly, after riding horses in Mongolia. His family watched in amazement as an encounter with a horse here in the USA (the family is from Texas, where we are), which could have left him dead or badly hurt, seemed to calm him and improve his condition. The astute parents followed their son's cue, and traveled to Mongolia and immersed their son amongst the locals and their horses. They returned, with three cardinal autism symptoms gone (one being incontinence, so this was a huge improvement).

Turns out, the motion of the horse is recognized as beneficial to those with autism...as little as 18-25 minutes once a week, for 8 weeks, has been found to improve those with autism! It's called hippotherapy, who knew? The father has written a book, his name is Isaacson, I believe, about their experience. You can google it if you want to read more, but I see a connection between the physical stimulation of riding a horse for those with autism and the spinal stimulation for PD.

I agree that this sounds like a Big Thing. I don't have one of those machines.
I plan to investigate further. Whenever I have dystonia, I can feel it entering through my tailbone and proceeding up my spine.

Lurking, I think that's a very cool story about the horses. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if it's not just movement of the spine, but something about the relationship with the animal that is healing. Horses have been used as healers in a number of ways, I think. I believe there are animals who can sense things about us intuitively that we can't, and have enuf... well, love..to try to guide us somehow, or somehow reach into our energetic systems. No big news I guess, studies have shown for a while that having pets can prolong the life of the elderly.

Rick, I will look into getting one of them spine machine things. Can you be specific about what kind of thing to get?

Rick,

Calling you from the United Kingdom. I have a unit from a company called Physio-Med which describes the unit as follows. Is yours similar?

Digi-stim Multi Stimulation

Product Code: EMS 9000D

The Digi-stim is a new 2 Channel Muscle Stimulation Unit using digital technology to ensure a much more accurate and efficient output.
Large LCD screen makes selection of treatment parameters much easier.

The Digi-stim is ideal for
• The re-education and strengthening of weak muscles
• Reducing muscle spasm
• Increasing range of motion
• Stimulating circulation
Features Include:
• Adjustable frequency range 1-150Hz
• Adjustable pulse width 30 - 260µs
• Adjustable ramp up/ramp down times 1 - 6 seconds
• Adjustable interval (relaxation) time 1 - 30 seconds
• Treatment time up to 60 minutes

You improvements seem nothing short of a miracle

First, what I am using is a "Aukewel 2000" which seems to be a Chinese knockoff of some sort. I don't particularly endorse it but who knows. The default sequence I am using is a sort of pulse effect. Hard to describe.

Keep in mind that I don't know what I am doing. Strictly flying blind at this point. But definitely something to it.

It is now 1:15 and I have been working hard installing a forty-pound LCD television. Lot of lifting and straining and so on. I started out cutting back on meds which pobably wasn't real smart but whatcha gonna doo? Have gone off twice but turnaround was markedly faster than it has been in recent weeks. In fact, the second wave is coming on strong as I type this. A lot of improvement in just two paragraphs.

I have done a stim session twice. The latest ended about fifteen minutes ago. It is early but I suspect that there is about a fifteen minute delay for the effect which could mean several things. Maybe triggering dopamine release? Or making the meds more effective?

Bottom line at this early point is that where I would have expected offs of two to three hours a week ago today and yesterday have either been non-existent or limited to fifteen minutes or so.

I did some searching and it looks like a unit comparable to mine can be found for $100 or so. If you know a PT you might get him to let you try out his equipment a few times. Heck, get him to document it some way.

Well, I must away. The TV is installed but the mess remains.

-Rick

Rick, I am very interested in this, it seems to appeal to my sense of logic! Maybe it is facilitating neurotransmission itself, I mean throughout the body rather than the brain, or making the nervous system more sensitive to messages..... sorry I know this is not medical lingo, but I guess we work on electrical signalling??

Please let us know more, and thank you for being a white rat.....

Fiona, you describe exactly one of the ways dystonia affects me, this has recently become more frequent. When I try to describe it to my neuro he looks puzzled and starts relating it to a MS symptom, but I know people with MS and know that what they get is different. That base of spine travelling upwards thing is very painful and unpleasant. My son says it is very visible that I am experiencing it. But of course its not reproducible in the neuro's clinic Thank you for revealing another aspect of this thing... I know that I go on about it, but this is exactly the kind of thing that we need a database for, to document the lesser known or undescribed symptoms that do not appear in the PD literature.

Lindy

Yesterday afternoon I messed up my experiment with an MSG hit thanks to a local restaurant. Was off for a couple of hours although even that was less than usual. Never really got it back solid and so went to bed.

Slept very well, though, and was up about 6:30 and was on within about thirty minutes, which is fast for me. It has been two hours now and doing well.

Except for my lower back which is objecting to my juggling large televisions around yesterday. I am cautious of the effect of doing a session this morning and so will be a good boy as long as I can stand it. Still very encouraged. Will post as appropriate.

Rick, I"m just now seeing your post. This is great - I've had a lot of PT with elec stim on shoulder - arm etc. Your experiences on the spine are most note-worthy!!

thanks!