Parkinson's Disease Support Group
Parkinson's disease is a movement disorder often characterized by muscle rigidity, tremor, a slowing of physical movement, and in extreme cases, a loss of physical movement. The primary symptoms of Parkinsons are due to excessive muscle contraction, normally caused by the insufficient formation and action of dopamine, which is produced in the dopaminergic neurons of the...
I have been told by 3 different doctors now that the tremors are often the least responsive to meds, ie. agoinists and sinemet. This is frustrating to me as the tremors are the most noticeable part of having Parkinsons for me right now. My neuro said that the tremors do respond well to DBS. Well since that is many years away for me (hopefully), that piece of info is not helpful to me today. So my questions to those of you that have tremors:
1. Did your tremors respond to any of the meds you tried?
2. If so how well did the respond - mild decrease in tremors, mod decrease in tremors, major decrease, or completely stopped the tremors?
3. Which meds, if any had the greatest effect of decreasing your tremors?
4. And one kind of unrelated question - Those of you that have tremors in your arms or hands - do you also experience painful cramping in your arms or shoulders or neck area on the side that has the tremors?
1. Did your tremors respond to any of the meds you tried?
2. If so how well did the respond - mild decrease in tremors, mod decrease in tremors, major decrease, or completely stopped the tremors?
3. Which meds, if any had the greatest effect of decreasing your tremors?
4. And one kind of unrelated question - Those of you that have tremors in your arms or hands - do you also experience painful cramping in your arms or shoulders or neck area on the side that has the tremors?
In answer to your last question, I get cramping in my forearm on the same side as my tremors.
I think the Patch dampens my symptoms down... but I think the timing of taking meds is very important, I forgot to take one of my Sinemets yesterday at 4.30pm, is was 6.00pm before I realised, so with my next dose due at 7.30pm I took that dose on time... thinking that I'd gotten off lightly was soon to prove otherwise.. at around 9.00pm I got a bout of the full body tremours..... where my jaw,hands,arms & legs try to out-dance each other, those lasted for 45 mins and left me totally pooped..
I get cramp on both sides & stiffness + rigidity too.... though is slightly worse on my right side.
Dirky ~ ?;O))xx
With the dopermine neuro transmitters bombardng the receptors in irregular strengths and patterns, tremors can occur. It is thought that this (in theory)can cause the the receptors to become damaged, thus after prolonged use of dopermine replacements, dyskinesia can show.
I have often wondered as to what meds can reduce tremors, in my own case it was the reduction of meds that reduced the tremors, yet that only allowed the other symptoms to increase.It was only last month, at a seminar
that my Parkinson's Nurse Specialist gave this explination.
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1-2 and 3. I take 1 Azilect in morning and sinemet 1 25/100 4x a day. The Sinemet stops my tremors. I can tell if it is time for me to take my meds because my hand tremors startup again. But if I am stressed I will start tremoring whether I just took my meds or not. If nor stressed, I get a total decrease in tremoring.
4. Yes I get painful cramping in my arm, shoulder and neck on the side I tremor on. I also get painful cramping in my toes and forearm all on my left side - my tremor side. Sinemet relieves me of all the cramping and pain. When my meds start to wear off I first get the tremors, then cramping in toes and headache and then cramping in neck and then shoulder.
I think DBS is when it comes a time that the meds do not work any longer and dyskinesias becomes a problem. People have the DBS done then they can either reduce the sinemet or stop it completely. Although I heard the DBS only has time limit and then something happens - I can't remember you either have it done again or you start taking sinemet again. There are quite a few posts about DBS on this site. Good luck!
So far I only display tremors when I'm in a physically or emotionally stressful situation. But I do get some muscle spasms. I work hard at preventing them in the first place by doing a lot of stretching exercising several times a day (you don't have to change your clothes or get sweaty!) And when a Charley horse does come on, I do deep breathing and try counter-stretches. I also get massages as often as I can - usually 2x a month.My spasms are mostly in my RT leg & foot & I can often massage them out myself in about 20 minutes. Saw my neuro/MDS yesterday & he reminded me to keep taking calcium, and maybe even magnesium. So I unburied my calcium yesterday afternoon and Shazam! no nighttime leg cramps! Maybe just a coincidence - I'll know better after a few days. (And where along the line did I start forgetting about the calcium in the first palace?)
Good luck to you -
Bari
Can't help you with the drug aspect, I've also been told that tremors don't respond very well to drugs. The thing I've been given (and works brilliantly) is a DMO splint. I wear it on my left arm, although I have a severe bilateral tremor if the left arm stops then the echo passes to the right one too. I can completely recommend it.
As for cramps and stiffness in the shoulders ...... I have these too, I think it goes with the territory of arm tremors. The only thing I've found to work is an osteo to free up the shoulder girdle and pilates exercises.
Best of Luck
Julie
I guess thats why my doctor keeps using ambiguous terms like might, could, sometimes, not always, for some people, etc, etc. I told him I was going to quit asking him questions because I don't like his answers. He laughed but I think he was really thinking "Please, please quit asking me so many questions!!!"