The closest thing yet to a real understanding of PD
 

http://52418618.es.strato-hosting.eu...enterforum.htm

I have carried a paper by this man (Mark Hurni) on my hard disk for several years meaning to read it but not getting around to it. I am now motivated to do so having visited his website above. I urge all to visit the site and read the summaries there. This guy is everything that other researchers are not. He is a PWP with doctorates in Law and Psychology and thus is both intelligent and a generalist. He was Dx in 1990 so is no johnny-come-lately. And he isn't selling anything, just trying to get the powers that be to pay attention.

Note that this is not an easy read. I find that as I plod along, from time to time the clouds part for a moment and an "ah ha!" sensation passes over me. I suggest that you skim first and return later for details.

From his site-
In addition, it has been observed that Parkinson’s patients exhibit a comparatively greater number of traumatic life incidents in childhood and that a shock or psychological trauma is more often reported in connection with the onset of the disease.
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In animals three possible reactions can be observed in threatening situations: fight or flight and when motor behavior is not successful anymore as a defense strategy, motionlessness (freezing). If in an overwhelming event there is no room anymore for fight or flight motor energy is completely blocked. Such tremendous defense energy remains blocked as long as the danger is not over and balancing of energies is not possible.
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The stress response of the major parasympathetic nerve, the vagus, comes about with a most primitive reaction. In the absence of cortical and emotional mechanisms there is basically only one bodily response, again and again the blocking of motor capacities.
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I have written some papers about my hypothesis of and experience with Parkinson's disease. The basics have remained the same although some concepts and conclusions may have changed as new insights deepened the understanding of the complex subject.

There is no cure yet for the disease and I doubt that people who have "fully recovered from Parkinson's disease" are symptom-free. Or, at least I am convinced that in a long run they are not. However, there is no doubt whatsoever that the treatment by trauma therapy and energetic body work is highly beneficial. Therefore it is valuable to look for the most effective way to improve the effect of such treatment. And there is still hope that a cure may be found.
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Irreversible damage
 

Irreversible damage
I am afraid that childhood psychological trauma is the cause of many illnesses including PD and I believe that the damage is not reversible by drugs or forced interference. Our bodies and soles will choose the optimum route for self-salvage and healing. :(

Coincidence or common sense?
 

Rick and imark
How strangely coincidental that I just wrote to another researcher today about this very topic. Only his qurestion was why do animal models which are highly successful in pretrials often go so badly in Phases I and II and are stopped? You have hit upon it right here.

Animals have similar body functions, and even some haave emotions (grief, fear, etc.), but non-human animals don't reason or have psychosis, depression and other emotional factors, especially animals lesioned with poisons like MTPT. Traumatic pasts are literally the catalysts that cause several neurological illnesses. The psychiatrists and geriactric pstchologists know t his, but it's never tested in trials too find if a therapy improves movement. Bu t they are inseparable, in my opinion (and several others).

Read this: "The researchers examined Department of Veterans Affairs patient records from fiscal year 2008, comparing the rates of antipsychotic drug prescriptions among two groups: 2,597 patients with Parkinson's disease and psychosis with and without dementia and 6,907 patients with dementia and psychosis but without Parkinson's disease; 97.3% of the patients studied were men.

"More men are diagnosed with Parkinson's, and men are more likely to develop dementia," says Weintraub.

An estimated 60% of Parkinson's patients will experience some form of psychosis during their illness, according to the study. Weintraub and colleagues found that half of all patients with Parkinson's and psychosis were treated with antipsychotic medications.
. . .
"This study is very important because it highlights the problem that clinicians face," says Fernandez. "The problem is it's not very easy to treat, and few patients will be completely treated"
-Source: http://www.webmd.com/parkinsons-dise...spite-warnings -

We have a lot of convincing to do to have a trial designed to include such important variables into its outcome measures. And it seemingly would be simple enough. You could do something as obvious as provide psychological counseling to one group, and not to the control to see if intervention makes a difference not just in behaviors, but in mootor slills development.
Peg
Peggy

Too bad they do not mention that the psychoses is most likely Levodopa-induced and that these men may have avoided being subject to these doctors in the first place if they had developed an intestinal pump system here at same time as in Europe and Asia.

Sad, but not at all surprising behavior in doctors.


Laura

Something that I have wondered about
 

In looking at reactions to both acute trauma and chronic stress it is easy to get in so deep that you just throw your hands up and quit. True of both PWP and scientists. So where possible I try to think simple at first.

In this case, consider "yours truly" as a child. Abusive drunk for a dad. Milk toast Mama. Two younger siblings. Somehow I had gotten the idea that it was my job to protect everybody. Thus a constant tension in the air. Walking on eggshells. Daddy late? Gonna be trouble! etc etc

So, looking at this as a Skinner box (simple conditioning), I quickly learned that strong emotions meant trouble. So avoid them. I learned that adrenaline linked to something unpleasant. So stuff it down. I learned that things could go all to hell real quick. So be alert/hypervigilant. I learned that the only one in my immediate family with any damn sense was me. So if it is important I had better do it. Chronic stress meant stability and no one in pain. So cortisol is good. Acute trauma meant chaos and someone I cared about hurting. So adrenaline is bad.

We know that PWP have high cortisol levels. We know that adrenaline, *once we progress beyond a certain point and lose control,* quickly destroys us. But up until we reach that point, adrenaline is what we run on.

I feel like Ronald Reagan looking at the dirty stable- "There must be a pony in here somewhere." :D

I think it is interesting that there is a high level of PD among vets. It may be politically incorrect to say this, but people serving in the military undergo stresses over and beyond anything that we experience in normal life, and are expected to get on with it, no matter how traumatic or shocking the experience, and sometimes only get treatment for mental/emotional stress way after the event. They also often also return to civilian life once the political need for military action has ceased, to a world that is no longer interested in the events that have played such a personal part in their individual lives, and had a profound impact on them. These things can be difficult to share with people who have not gone through them, and therefore they bottle things up, especially if they never receive any counselling. Seems like these are exactly the things to act as precursors to PD.......... it is not just about the chemicals, and the visible injuries.....

Yes!
 

Rick - Since we can't just think our way better through such traumatiic instances, I think we should have heavy counseling along with PT, L-dopa pills, nutritional training, voice and swallowing therapy, and whatever other treatment is prescribed. To compare how those who had such counseling against those who do not would make for an interesting study anyway.

Lindy - so well said! Both of my older kids work at a VA facility, andn I worked in the Director's office for 6 years. Most vets get service-connected for PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder). It's such a shame there isn't some way to better protect our soldiers.

Here's something else to make you weep:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/...-dysfunctional

peg

Lindy: As you know, I am "in residence" with approximately 150 veterans from several wars, police actions,nation building etc etc A white rat study of this group would reveal a plethora of possible traumas capable of inducing parkinson-kike symptoms.

I find it very interesting that stress seems to lead, through various mechanisms, to conditions that will allow Parkinson's to develop. Yet, in both animals and humans (better demonstrated in animals) vigerous exercise has been demonstrated to prevent, slow the progression of, or possibly even reverse some aspects of Parkinson's. Would this be a result of the anti-stress effects - biochemical - of exercising?

Sasha

An idea only, that when people withdraw into themselves in stressed situations their whole being becomes less flowing, they become more rigid, tense, inflexible in body and mind, could this also extend to our tissues too. For instance posture is known to be affected, tightened jaw, head slightly lowered, jaw jutting just a little, hunched shoulders, tight spine, chest tightened, breathing shallower..... you get the picture...... in long strong stressed situations this becomes the way we are.........

exercise undoes this, as does meditation, dancing, singing, and a whole host of things where we feel freer and our attention is taken away from fighting with the uncontrollable things in our lives.....

We know that stress can cause high blood pressure and heart attacks, and if we have a genetic predisposition towards a particular disorder that is where it comes through. Or even environmental damage....

not saying this is a theory of Pd but a theory of disease, of which Pd is one of many..........

there is stress and stress........ not insignificant that where communities live with severe stress life expectancy plummets...... it is the chronic ongoing stress that does it. On the other hand where communities have a healthy attitude to life, and low expectations of what life ought to offer them often people deal with stress a lot better, have fewer stress related disorders, and maintain mental health better, on a fraction of what is accepted as normal in developed societies....... these are the places that are reputed to have low incidences of PD, though undeniably they also have very low life expectancy as a result of the prevalence of infectious disease, and lack of basic health care.......