Looking Back - What Were Your Early Warning Signs of Parkinson's?

Posted by Singularity @azsingularity, May 8 6:06pm

I'm 51 and do not (currently) have Parkinson's. However, I've been deemed to be "at high risk of developing PD" due to having something called REM Sleep Behavior disorder (RBD), which I was diagnosed with 2 years ago (after suffering from it for 5 years prior).

I did see a neurologist at Mayo after the RBD diagnosis, who ran me through the battery of PD tests, but she said I wasn't showing any detectable signs of it.

She tried to set my mind at ease by saying there IS a (small) chance I'll never actually develop PD. Yay for that, I guess.

For those of you who have Parkinson's, I'm curious:

Looking back over your "healthy years," knowing what you know now, were there any very early (pre-diagnosis) warning signs that you didn't recognize at the time? Anything you ignored or just wrote-off as "normal"?

What I'm getting at here is: short of the obvious symptoms (tremors, walking issues, etc), is there anything subtle I should be on the lookout for... so I know when to reach out to a neurologist again?

Interested in more discussions like this? Go to the Parkinson's Disease Support Group.

I'm 65 and was just diagnosed with PD the end of this past April.

It was hand tremors and severe fatigue that got me into the neurologist. Prior to that, I had a fall for no good reason, vision problems, and loss of memory and creativity.

Parkinson's Voice Project has a fantastic introductory video (and a great speech therapy program!)
https://parkinsonvoiceproject.org/

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