Dumb Bells & Dopamine
A Parkinson's Success Story
by
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1. The tip of the iceberg
“You’re really slapping that foot tonight.” That astute comment came from my running mate and as usual she was right. For the past year or so I had trouble controlling my left foot when running. Tonight it was worse than usual.
It was a summer evening in 1982 and we were in
I had been running for about seventeen years. I had run through shin splints, bone bruises and other assorted aches and pains that plague distance runners. They all hurt and they all took time to heal. This problem seemed to be different in that it was not one of the things that a runner could expect to encounter. Also it was not getting any better.
Other problems were starting to emerge. I had been actively involved in weight training since my late teens, a period of some thirty-two years. For about thirty of those years I had been pumping iron without any significant movement of the unsecured plates that I had stacked on each end of the barbell. The exercises that I used to perform smoothly were now being done in a way that caused some of the plates to rattle. I tried reducing the weights but the rattle was still there. I was now in my fiftieth year and I thought it might be due to aging, but as it continued to worsen I began to wonder.
I was also starting to have problems in everyday life. Controlling a bar of soap while taking a shower was becoming difficult. Using a fork and knife when eating required an increased level of concentration. My handwriting, which at best was marginal, now required increased concentration just to make it readable. I was able to rationalize things away for a while but eventually I had to face reality. I had to accept the fact that I had a problem that was getting worse and was not going to go away.
Mohammed Ali was no longer the heavyweight champion but he still claimed to be the greatest. Michael J. Fox had yet to go “Back to the Future.” In fact it would be about two years before he would make that movie. At that time virtually no one, myself included, had ever heard of Parkinson’s disease.
The problems that I was experiencing in the summer of 1982 were merely the tip of the iceberg. Things were going to get a lot worse. I had Parkinson’s disease, but it would be almost five years before I would be diagnosed as having that debilitating disease. In the interim I was to discover that things do not always turn out as expected. The first step in my battle with Parkinson’s began with…
2. The wrong diagnosis.
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About the Book
This book is about living with Parkinson's, an incurable, debilitating disease caused by the loss of dopamine-producing cells in the brain of the afflicted person. Levodopa is the only drug that replaces some of the dopamine and exercise is the only activity that induces the brain to produce dopamine. The author uses a rigorous exercise program to reduce the dosage of levodopa and extend the useful life of this essential drug. This is the author's dumb bells and dopamine approach to controlling Parkinson's.
The author has also addressed some of the social issues related to the disease. This includes dealing with less than perfect physicians and with the negative situations that exist in the insurance industry and Social Security Administration.
To provide real assistance to people with the disease, the author has included a fully illustrated exercise routine designed for people with Parkinson's.
About the Author
The author is a mechanical engineer. He has had Parkinson's since 1981 and has achieved a significant degree of success in dealing with the disease.
In 1987 he was a participant in the DATATOP study which was the largest and longest running study on Parkinson's disease. It was designed to determine the effectiveness of deprenyl and tocopherol on people in the early stages of the disease.
In 2003, twenty-two years after the onset of the disease, the author was evaluated using the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale. On a scale of 0-199, his disability rating was only 32.