Harvard Women's Health Watch – Other PD Symptoms
This story reports on many of the non-motor symptoms of PD. It reports on symptoms that occur in both men and women. However, it mentions some findings particular to sexual problems in women living with Parkinson’s. (We posted on intimacy in
this blog from February.)
This article reports that, more than 50 percent of PWPs confront depression. It points out that depression is a symptom of PD, rather than just the result of discouragement from it. That certainly makes sense considering the role of dopamine in regulating mood.
Medical Progress from One Miner with Occupational Manganese Parkinsonianism
In the news this week, there are a lot of headlines about a possible cure for a disease closely related to Parkinson’s disease. It is a small and significant piece of encouraging news for people living with occupational manganese Parkinsonism. However, the research paper creating headlines contains the phrase, “In view of the benefit of PAS in treatment of manganism, a double-blind clinical trial with a larger patient population is well warranted.”
The results that we have so far come from case reports from Chinese literature, not double-blinded clinical trials. It's unlikely physicians will start treating their occupational manganese Parkinsonism patients with this medication until they have more assurance it is successful.
There are a number of diseases similar to Parkinson’s disease called “Parkinsonisms” or “Parkinson’s-Plus syndromes.” (We wrote
this blog in March about Parkinsonisms.) For people suffering from Parkinsonisms, there are usually fewer answers than there are for people suffering from true Parkinson’s disease. Many of them participate in Parkinson’s support groups, and follow the news about Parkinson’s disease, because they share many of the same symptoms and challenges in life. There are also a number of people who may have been misdiagnosed with PD, when they actually suffer from occupational manganese Parkinsonism.
Just in case any of our readers actually battle occupational manganese Parkinsonism, we want to share this story of a Chinese mine worker, treated in 1982 for Parkinson-like symptoms. She was diagnosed with manganese poisoning, and treated for a few years with limited, short-term success. In 1987, her medical team treated her with sodium para-aminosalicylic acid (PAS), a tuberculosis therapy. She recovered remarkably. In 2004, 17 years after her treatment, an extensive medical exam revealed she is still in good health.
"There are about 430,000 welders in the United States alone, and even more in China, so manganese intoxication likely affects many people, including workers involved in manganese mining and steel production," said Wei Zheng, a professor at the Purdue University School of Health Sciences. "In Beijing, we found a high percentage of welders have these symptoms."
While the condition's symptoms are similar to those of Parkinson's disease, the standard treatments for Parkinson's disease, including the drug levodopa, are not effective for manganese intoxication.
You might also be interested in an article we wrote about some of the less obvious
Parkinson's symptoms.
