Month: December 2021

New Year’s Resolutions

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It’s that time of year again! The time when people say to themselves, “DAMMIT, I suck! What, O what can I do to make myself less sucky in the upcoming year?” So, in the spirit of the season, I hereby resolve that in 2022 I will:

Endeavor to become more Muppet-like.

Begin brushing my dog at least once a week.

Legally change my name to “Cedric D’Artagnan DAMMIT!”

Begin brushing my toilets at least once a week.

Learn a new language. Yes, I mean a NEW language – one that won’t exist until I start learning it.

Begin brushing my teeth at least once a week.

Meet someone named “Larry”.

Begin brushing my colon at least once a week.

Write a self-help book for the illiterate.

Lick people.

Become omnipresent.

The Creek

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‘Tis a warm and windy Christmas day here in Charlotte. The kind of day that reminds me of “The Creek.” I use quotes because it wasn’t really a creek, but a simple drainage ditch whose “banks” had become forested over the years. Or what passes as “forested” by central Nebraska standards.

There was a fence running along the east edge of the narrow wooded strip we called “The Creek.” On the other side of this fence was a massive corn field. Like I said: Nebraska. I would walk with my dog, Skipper, along this fence until we reached “The Tree.” Actually, nobody called it “The Tree” but I feel like it needs a name for the purposes of this reminiscence. So I’ll call it Edna.

When we reached Edna, I would always unleash Skipper, and he would immediately vanish into the corn. I would climb Edna with a book in my hand, and spend my afternoon reading in a tree. Every ten or fifteen minutes, Skipper would emerge from the corn, checking to see whether it was time to go home or if his yard ape was still monkeying around in Edna.

I never understood why Skipper so thoroughly enjoyed running around the corn field. In retrospect, I wonder if he was just using the corn as cover, making me think he was playing in the field when he was actually just passing through the corn to get back into town. Maybe he was visiting some female dog(s), or robbing banks, or stealing cable so he could watch MTV.

In any case (except Roe Vs. Wade), I wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Joyous Cedstice, or just a good week. Oh, yeah…and death to COVID-19.

Insomnia: The Final Word (for now)

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I spoke with my Parkinson’s specialist about the possibility of prescription sleep aids. He prescribed Trazodone, telling me to take one (50 mg) pill at bedtime; if after a week this did not produce the desired results, I was to increase to two pills each night. Well, the initial dosage didn’t help, so I went ahead and doubled it as directed. Over the course of ten nights at this dosage (100 mg), I got at least five hours of sleep each night, which is a definite improvement. On five of those ten nights, I slept at least six hours!

In the meantime, a couple of my fellow Parkinson’s patients told me that sleeping under a weighted blanket had helped with their insomnia. So I got one and tried it out. I kind of like the feel of it, and it’s definitely warm, but it did nothing in regard to my insomnia. So it looks like the solution to my problem (for now) is Trazodone.

Merry Christmas, folks!

Adventures with Pramipexole

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While Levodopa is the “gold standard” drug for treating Parkinson’s Disease (PD), it also has a reputation for causing dyskinesia in patients who have been using it for several years. For this reason, many people (both patients and doctors) tend to delay Levodopa therapy as long as possible, using other drugs for the first few years after diagnosis. In my case, that other drug was Pramipexole (generic Mirapex).

I started taking Pramipexole (which I have nicknamed Prami) immediately after being diagnosed with PD. That would mean I started taking it in early 2015. The timing was interesting, as I had already planned a casino trip for the following weekend, and the doctor warned me that Prami sometimes causes impulsive behaviors – specifically in regard to gambling. When I arrived at the casino, I very quickly lost my life savings, my house, my dog, my sense of wonder, and all the hubcaps I managed to steal off cars in the casino parking lot. Not really. I gambled and lost a small amount of money – only the amount I had budgeted to lose. But not all was well. I was experiencing an anxiety that felt different from any anxiety I had previously experienced – definitely drug-induced. I called my doctor’s office to let them know about this awful side effect. (I didn’t mention to them that I was calling from a casino.) They advised that I should cut my daily dose in half for about a week, then return to the “full dose” – in other words, I needed to ease myself onto the stuff.

So ease I did. Once I had stabilized on the prescribed dosage (which took a couple weeks), Prami and I got along just fine…except for the incident where Prami decided to scare the crap outta me. Here’s how that joyousness went down: I was driving my car, in fairly heavy traffic, so not moving fast at all. Suddenly I felt kind of a numbness in the middle of my spine, and I COULD NOT MOVE. Fortunately, this was an instantaneous event, lasting no more than a second. Now I imagine that momentarily feeling paralyzed would be unsettling in just about any situation, but when it occurs while driving, well that’s just plain scary. This actually happened twice during my first year of Pramipexole use. It has now been at least five years since the second such incident; I’ve been on Prami that whole time, and nothing remotely like these two incidents has happened since.

I have more to say about my ongoing experiences with Prami, but I will leave that for a future post.

Hallucinations

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When I was first diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease (PD) nearly seven years ago, I knew virtually nothing about the disease. Like many, I knew that it caused tremors and that’s about it. I was shocked to learn that Parkinson’s can cause a multitude of other problems. From time to time in this blog, I will address some of these lesser-known PD symptoms. Today it will be hallucinations.

When you hear the word hallucination, what comes to mind? An acid trip with groovy patterns and colors everywhere? Or pink elephants, maybe? For many folks with PD, hallucinations are an everyday occurrence, and may be very different from what one might experience with a hallucinogenic drug. PD-induced hallucinations may be utterly convincing – not “trippy” at all – and may be as simple as seeing (very clearly) someone who isn’t actually there. But wait, there’s more! Hallucinations are not limited to “seeing things.” Tactile hallucinations are also quite common with PD, and are the extent of my personal experience with PD-induced hallucinations.

I have had three distinct types of tactile hallucination, each of which I experienced multiple times.

  1. I feel my phone vibrating in my pocket. I go to pull the phone out, only to find there’s nothing in that pocket.
  2. While walking outdoors, I feel a raindrop on my bald head. I look up, but there are no clouds to be seen. I place my hand on top of my head, and my hand finds no water.
  3. I feel a bug crawling on my arm. I look, and there’s nothing there. Well, my arm is there. But no bug.

There is now a drug on the market that is specifically intended to treat Parkinson’s-induced hallucination. However, in my case, the hallucinations stopped as soon as I started taking carbidopa / levodopa. So I started eating peyote again.