I’m Not Like Your Parkinson’s 

One of the reasons it took so long for me to get diagnosed correctly (approximately 20 years and 13 doctors), is that Parkinson’s, like the unique differences between most snowflakes and Bad Kitties, never acts the same from individual to individual. 

If you’re a fellow Parkie, you know what I’m talking about. We can talk for hours and find striking differences between each other’s symptomatic profiles. It’s not like a lot of diseases out there where “one size fits all.” 

My Example 

Resting tremor, while often a tell-tale sign of Parkinson’s disease, is not as outstanding in my case as the average person who has Parkinson’s disease. For me it is bradykinesia and rigidity that stand out more.

Don’t misunderstand me. I do have a resting limb tremor but it is mild by comparison, and almost invisible under my meds. What is really affected by the PD tremor is my jaw and tongue, but people often overlook this or fail to look for tremor anywhere else but in the arms and hands. To confuse the matter I also have kinetic tremor or tremor with action, and it is often very pronounced. 

Here is where a specialist in movement disorders is important to consult in addition to one’s regular neurologist or primary physician. Not everyone with PD has tremor, in fact up to 25% of those with Parkinson’s disease do not have tremor. 

And though action tremor is generally diagnosed as “essential tremor” or ET (often called “benign tremor” even though it can be very disabling itself, so I see very little about this cousin of PD that warrants the description of “benign”), action tremor also occurs in some persons with Parkinson’s. Many people are often misdiagnosed as having ET because doctors fail to take into consideration the other symptoms of Parkinson’s in making their evaluation or worse, as in my case, they look at the age of the patient and mistake “unlikely” to mean “impossible” in younger persons. 

So it’s good to take a review of the symptoms of PD from time to time. Don’t expect everyone with PD to have the same problems or to have all their symptoms acting up all the time. It’s unpredictable, and it’s equally challenging to diagnose because it doesn’t always follow the book or look like what it seems to be from the outside or at first blush. 

Don’t let Bad Kitty fool you. He may look sweet at first glance, but when you turn your head and least expect him to, he’ll pounce.