We smarty-pants bloggers are quick to nag with ways to make your life with Parkinson’s Disease better. We constantly scan the horizon for the latest about what you can do to enhance your quality of life, despite the fact that a progressive, disabling and incurable disease has you in its coils, slowly but surely squeezing the breath out of you. It’s not easy, but you can learn to deal with this unhappy fact in a way that is meaningful, effective and dignified.
But trying to cope well to make your life better is not the only way to respond to Parkinson’s Disease. Some people seem intent on finding ways to make their condition tougher on themselves, their family and friends. In the interest of fairness it’s time to give these people some advice, too. So, without further ado, allow me to present pro tips on making your PD even worse.
• Tip one, wallow in denial. This used to be good advice for everyone with Parkinson’s Disease. After all, in the earlier days of PD treatment (a time period covering the dim early origins of our species up until almost the present day,) there wasn’t a damn thing we knew of that would change the course of the disease. Back then it was all about managing decline. So denial was a luxury you could afford. But now we know early intervention in the form of exercise and introduction of medicines that control symptoms lessens the grade of your downward path. Your symptoms will remain milder for longer if you practice early intervention. Denial negates the sense of urgency to intervene, so it is clearly the way to go if you want to make your PD worse.
• Tip two, avoid exercise at all costs There are countless good reasons to avoid exercise if you wish to worsen Parkinson’s Disease. Exercise can have dramatic impact on the severity your symptoms, reducing them up to 35% in some well-documented instances. Exercise is relatively cheap, and can take whatever form you find the most enjoyable, (or the least miserable.) Symptomatic improvement, including tremor reduction and improved balance has been shown in a wide range of activities, everything from boxing through gardening. It can’t be any clearer, if you want your case of Parkinson’s to be truly excruciating, take the elevator, not the stairs to worse health.
Tip three: Poor adherence to pill dosage and schedule We who have Parkinson’s have a number of medications, some quite powerful, for relieving our symptoms. Precisely compounded under strict laboratory protocols, they deliver a carefully measured dose of relief to soothe our whacked-out nervous systems. These exquisitely calibrated amounts are customized to our individual stage and severity of disease. Dosages are then married to a schedule worked out between the patient’s experience of their effects and the doctor’s knowledge of the medications efficacy, interactions with other medications, and side effects. The end result is an ongoing routine like a well-oiled bicycle chain meshing in rhythm with a sprocket to drive the entire enterprise smoothly forward. Or not.
With surprisingly little effort you can wreak havoc on this delicate balance. Take too high a dosage or take the medicine too often, and you will become a wriggling mass of uncontrolled jiggling. Take too little, and you will grind to a halt, your stride will shorten, and you will increase your danger of falling. This can be done without any conscious effort at all by merely forgetting to take a scheduled dose.
I could go on, but these should be enough to do serious damage, good luck with that.
