Worried About Aspiration Pneumonia?
Parking Suns
by Bruce
2w ago
I am.  It’s one of the three most-likely ways you can die from Parkinson’s disease, according to the scary but necessary-to-know-about, recently published The elephant in the room:  critical reflections on mortality rates among individuals with Parkinson’s disease.  (Click here to see my blog post on this article.) Aspiration pneumonia happens when food or drink enter your lungs.  How does it get there?  There are two ways.  It can happen while you are eating or drinking, and when you swallow, some of the food/drink “goes down the wrong pipe,” causing you to coug ..read more
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Let’s Count Backward from 100 by Sevens!
Parking Suns
by Bruce
1M ago
  People with Parkinson’s are often asked by doctors to “count backward from 100 by sevens.”  I’m never sure if the doctors really want to see if you can do this, or is it just a means of distracting you as they watch what your body is doing during the exercise.  However, it turns out that this math problem is also part of one test doctors use to determine if you have Mild Cognitive Impairment. The mental challenge of this activity struck me, and for a few weeks I thought about it intensely after I turned out the lights and tried to fall asleep.  I came up with a method to ..read more
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How Am I Doing? 6th Update
Parking Suns
by Bruce
2M ago
********   The above image says it all.  Before I had Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS), every day I was taking 10.5 pills of carbidopa-levodopa (Sinemet) – the main drug to counter Parkinson’s disease.  It was a hassle, because they had to be taken on an empty stomach – one hour after my previous meal, and 30 minutes before the next.  Also, if I had an “off” time, I was a wreck because it could last for an hour or more.  I still had “off” times after I got DBS, but they weren’t as debilitating. Last Friday, during an online Zoom session with Mount Sinai Hospital, the medi ..read more
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Coastal Flood Warnings! with Photos
Parking Suns
by Bruce
2M ago
Today I got this email message: The National Weather Service has issued a Coastal Flood Warning on Jan 13 for Southern Westchester County. …COASTAL FLOOD WARNING IN EFFECT UNTIL 3 PM EST THIS AFTERNOON… * WHAT…Up to 2 1/2 feet of inundation above ground level in vulnerable areas near the waterfront and shoreline. * WHERE…Southern Westchester, Bronx, Northwest Suffolk, Northern Queens and Northern Nassau Counties. * WHEN…Until 3 PM EST this afternoon. * COASTAL FLOOD IMPACTS…Widespread moderate flooding of vulnerable areas near the waterfront and shoreline this morning, with 2 to 2 1/2 feet of ..read more
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Wearable Robotic Clothing Stops Freezing of Gait
Parking Suns
by Bruce
2M ago
******** My sister just sent me an article from the Harvard Gazette that discusses a new kind of robotic clothing that helps Parkinson’s patients walk without freezing of gait, or falling. I’ll copy-and-paste directly from the article. Be sure to watch the YouTube video below! ********* Freezing is one of the most common and debilitating symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, a neurodegenerative disorder that affects more than 9 million people worldwide. When individuals with Parkinson’s disease freeze, they suddenly lose the ability to move their feet, often mid-stride, resulting in a series of st ..read more
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How Am I Doing? 5th Update
Parking Suns
by Bruce
2M ago
******** That iPod-like thing you see in this picture is actually the gismo my husband uses to modify (usually that means “increase”) the electrical current that my Deep Brain Stimulator gets, which translates to an increased current that it sends out to my brain.  These days we are trying to up the current while I incrementally decrease the number of carbidopa-levodopa pills (the main anti-Parkinson’s drug) I take.  It’s truly a matter of trial and error. For yesterday and today, the game plan was/is:  2 tabs in the morning before breakfast (7:15 a.m.), 1.5 tabs six hours late ..read more
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How Am I Doing? 4th Update
Parking Suns
by Bruce
2M ago
My husband and I started taking daily walks.  Each day we walk longer and longer distances. ******** ******** ******** The post How Am I Doing? 4th Update first appeared on Parking Suns ..read more
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Parkinson’s Disease and Urinary Tract Infections
Parking Suns
by Bruce
2M ago
************** There’s a disconnect between YouTube videos about bladder issues put out by various Parkinson’s organizations (see example below) and documents you can find by Googling “Parkinson’s disease” + “urinary tract infections.”  Basically, the leading Parkinson’s organizations present urinary tract infections and related bladder problems as treatable and bothersome, but not life-threatening.  The video below mentions these problems: Overactive bladder Bladder urgency Needing to wake up often at night to pee (nocturia) Incontinence Inability to pee and/or weak urine stream C ..read more
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Mortality and Parkinson’s
Parking Suns
by Bruce
2M ago
********** People with Parkinson’s disease (PwP) often hear doctors and others say, “You won’t die from Parkinson’s, you’ll die with Parkinson’s.”  According to a recently published article (The elephant in the room:  critical reflections on mortality rates among individuals with Parkinson’s disease), this is misleading.  For example, if you fall and break your hip and later die from the injury, the official cause of death will be the hip fracture, even though you fell because you had freezing of gait due to PD. One of the study’s authors (Bastiaan Bloem) was recently interview ..read more
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How Am I Doing? 2nd Update
Parking Suns
by Bruce
2M ago
********** Almost two weeks have passed since the doctors at Mount Sinai turned on the batteries for my Deep Brain Stimulation setup.  How am I doing? Check it out: I could never have done this before – walk down a flight of stairs with just one hand on the banister.  I always had to keep both hands on the banister, and sometimes I couldn’t even do that – I’d have to ask my husband for help, or I would refuse to even attempt coming down the stairs. These days I’m finding how to live with Parkinson’s and DBS.  I closely monitor when I take my Sinemet, when I eat, and when I wak ..read more
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