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← Return to Looking Back - What Were Your Early Warning Signs of Parkinson's?
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Looking Back - What Were Your Early Warning Signs of Parkinson's?
Parkinson's Disease | Last Active: 1 day ago | Replies (128)Comment receiving replies
@bmfoster
I think your experience is shared by many others. Parkinson symptoms are misread as symptoms of something else, a more conventional or better known sickness, which becomes the working hypothesis and leads to barking up the wrong tree for years.
My fatigue is from Parkinsons, not my heart, so one more cardiac test is not going to find anything new. I was given a 6 minute walk test by pulmonology. I could not keep walking and had to sit after 1.5 minutes. So imagine my astonishment when I was told I had passed the test??!!
I know age brings changes, but I feel some anger when the provider hits upon "you're getting older" as the first explanation for almost everything, and again progress in understanding my symptoms is not made.
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@southwest
The 6 min walk test by pulmonary medicine is primarily to assess your ability to maintain a safe oxygen saturation while exerting yourself. If it drops below 88% it suggests a possible problem with your lungs - thankfully passing the test should give you some comfort. I agree though - it doesn't explain the profound fatigue - like hitting a wall - after exertion noted with neurodegenerative disease. Physicians should rule out other potential causes of fatigue before settling on a particular diagnosis - especially when the symptoms CAN have so many potential causes. My cardiologist ruled out any serious cardiac causes for my fatigue and air hunger with exertion - it now looks related to the effects of my Primary Autonomic Nervous System Failure and early PD. Ongoing monitoring by my cadre of physicians will continue in order to identify problems while they are small rather than debilitating. Good luck to you and know you are not alone in this.