This is Andy, an early retired anaesthetic manager, who is discussing his personal encounter with Parkinson's disease.
He discusses a range of symptoms that he has experienced, naming the one he has found hardest to live with.
Transcript (auto-generated)
This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors.
What sort of symptoms have you had? Um I don't see the problem is there's some there's something a lot of people a lot of people with Parkinson's get it's called like the honeymoon period and you kind of get you kind of think you have it but you don't really know what's coming and also the symptoms are very very slight you know and and also when you when you start taking low dose cinema and unfortunately and Also, fortunately for me, the low-dose cinema I could tolerate, a lot of people can't tolerate Parkinson's drugs because they make you feel very sick, but a lot of people lose lots of weight very quickly because they can't, because of the medication. So for me it was actually all right, and then with the cinema, the low-dose cinema, and being in this sort of honeymoon period, I was pretty normal, about normal as I ever was, but you know I was fairly okay, I wasn't too bad at all. And it was only about a year after that that I started noticing little subtle changes. So like for instance, I would fall for no reason. My balance would sort of, but it wasn't sort of, you know, I'm not like I'm walking on ice. I just suddenly just for no reason I just I just fall over and then it would be but again thanks for once every once every other month that kind of thing it wasn't sort of a you know a regular pattern so I lost my sense of smell which I didn't really you know but trying to think about that was you know if you lose if you lose bless you if you lose your sense of smell if you use any any of your senses, it's immediate. Now, if you get blind or you can't hear, you also only know it, but if you lose your sense of smell, it's quite difficult to know you've lost your sense of smell. And so that sort of dawned on me, that was happening. But then again, you know, you don't really, I never really put that down to Parkinson's, but it is, it's a common sense apparently. And then, as sort of years went on, and it was more difficult, more difficult to work. You know, I stopped, I wasn't able to work clinically because I just, I didn't think I was safe. Not from a knowledge point of view, but from a point of view that if I, you know, if something happened, I had to be quick. Without medication, I wouldn't have been. So, as you know, I became acting manager and stuff like that and then left in April, two years ago now, actually. April, two years ago. But even in those two years, you know, my symptoms have gotten worse. Speech is a big one. The thing with Parkinson's is not everybody gets everything. you get like a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and you know, it mixes it up. Now, some people's speech is absolutely fine, but they, you know, but they can't walk. Whereas, you know, with medication, my walking's not too bad. And also, a lot of the sort of the movement that you see now is because the medication I took about a half an hour ago is now starting to work. And so, this isn't the result of the Parkinson's, this is a result of the medication and that's that that the speech the speech is because the speech was particularly difficult for me and probably is if if you have to have a top three worst symptoms and of course being a man everyone has to have a top three in everything uh speech would be up there probably slap banging number one And the rest of it isn't, the rest of it is, it's livable with, it's not, it's not sort of a, you know, it's not something that at the minute, it upsets me. I'm quite used to it.
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