I brought my laptop out onto the back patio, for some peaceful writing time. And as soon as I sat down, some hoser across the pond fires up his leafblower. I think I now understand how dogs feel about vacuum cleaners. The dude is blowing leaves off his roof – which my new roof’s warranty says I’m supposed to do. Life is like a box of liquid shits. Sorry. I shouldn’t mention liquid shits on a blog about Parkinson’s. Some of you would probably give your left arm just to experience diarrhea again.

Speaking of which, I haven’t addressed mannitol in this blog yet. Two or three years ago, I kept seeing links to a news story about a study in Israel where mannitol was found to help reduce Parkinson’s symptoms. So I did a little research. I learned that mannitol is an “alcohol sugar” (whatever that means) and that it is used to reduce swelling of the brain in cases of head trauma. I also found that it’s available without a prescription and can easily be found on Amazon. So I ordered some, and the results have been excellent! For some things. It did NOT help with motor symptoms, fatigue, or sleep issues. But I (temporarily) got my sense of smell back, my speech became louder and clearer, and (most important in my case) it all but eliminated the “urinary urgency” that I had been dealing with! But the very first thing I learned after trying mannitol was that it is a potent laxative. So I highly recommend mannitol to all my fellow Parkies, with the caveat that it should be taken in small doses throughout the day rather than all at once.

I stopped drinking when I started my latest medication (GoCovri). If you read the fine print that comes with medicines, you’ll find that an awful lot of them say you should avoid alcohol while taking the drug. Usually, this is just a generic warning – a Mr. Mackey “alcohol is bad, mmkay” kind of thing. But in the case of my latest meds, I found documentation that specifically explains what could happen, with enough detail to where it’s actually believable. So I stopped.

This got me to thinking: how many people are there who aren’t drinking (or aren’t drinking as much) simply because of the medications they’re on? There’s gotta be millions of us! Now what if, instead of just coming up with drugs to perpetually treat the symptoms, someone were to discover an actual cure for diabetes, Parkinson’s, etc.? Millions of newly cured people could come off their meds, which would allow them to start boozing it up again, leading to BILLIONS of dollars of additional profits for the alcohol industry. So, to the big bucks boys of the booze business (the likes of @AnheuserBusch, @BACARDI, and others), please invest in medical research aimed at finding actual cures…you WILL reap the benefits!