stress, cortisol and PD
 

Back around the time of my diagnosis my life extension doctor thought I was suffering from adrenal fatigue brought on by severe stress. She measured my cortisol level and found it to be so low I should have almost had Addison's Disease. Yet my symptoms were, in retrospect, more Parkinsonian than Addisonian. She thought my adrenals were burned out. The low cortisol apparently followed an extended bout of excess brain damaging cortisol.

Sometime later I read in a PD blog that someone else had the same experience with low cortisol about the time of diagnosis and lack of cortisol deficiency symptoms. I wonder how common this is. Does anyone else here have this experience?

Here is an article about how stress affects PD.

http://www.dopadoc.com/2011/06/10/di...ts-parkinsons/

Hi Gerry,
I had the same issue. It was thought that I was adrenal deficient, and when I had two cortisol test done they both showed extremely low cortisol. I did the tests where the cortisol was measured through out the day - it was all super low. I too, was coming off a period of extreme stress, I had suffered a trauma and was in a constant state of fight or flight.
I was having severe insomnia and anxiety, and that is when I was doing the testing - then the motor symptoms began.
Going through stress and having these high/low cortisol and adrenaline fluctuations cannot be good for our brains!

You might want to search for "aldosterone" as well. Another stress hormone.

A poll on PDs and stress from a few years back...
 

....but interesting none-the-less. I used the folks over at PLM as subjects with their full knowledge. I asked a simple series of questions designed to get a picture of their lifetime stress load and how it compared to others. I divided the time axis into 1) in the womb, 2) birth to five years, 3) five years to puberty, 4) puberty to 40, and 5) 40 to present. (Or something sinilar, it has been awhile.) Then I asked them to rate the stress load for each of the periods as it compared to that of those around him.

The results were astounding. We are one sick bunch of puppies! Life has kicked so many of us in the head over the years that it is a wonder that we can stand up. Or at least that iis so for those of us who answer polls. :-)

I will attach the "final" report. Actually these 52 were eventually matched by another 47 which drifted in over the following couple of years. And of those 100, everyone had been through Hell - drunken parents, Adolph Hitler, molestation, ...those were just part of it.

I am no scientist, just a poor old parkie lurching toward Jeruselum. I have no lab, no funding, etc. But, even I can see that there is something there. Take a look and see what you think. :-)

Stressed over the darned attachment
 

I am required to use a minimum number of letters....But there are only 26 in the alphabet. Oh, the stress, the stress...:)