Parkinson’s, a Reflection
A bit more than a year ago when my Parkinson’s symptoms re-appeared, I googled the topic. As I mentioned in the introduction how I found in contrast to my English query, which on the first page only showed sites that describe Parkinson’s as an incurable disease, the first page in German showed nine sites that talked about slowing down or reversing symptoms. A few even talked about healing Parkinson’s. The latter I did not even bother consulting, because I was skeptical.
A few weeks ago, my wife Joan found this site:
N.B. for people who are on Parkinson’s medication it is important to at least view the whole video talk (about 83 min.)
It appears that I chose a good approach to tackle my situation as these 17 posts on my blog demonstrate. The above site pdrecovery.org confirms this. Nevertheless, being completely free from symptoms caught me by surprise and awakened the skeptic in me. Questions like did I fool myself, was it really as bad as I thought etc surfaced in my mind. However, Joan confirmed that her observations were clear. During the first months of acupuncture treatment the first few days after treatment my playing noticeably improved. The next question followed: was this maybe not a bit too easily achieved?
The answer is no. Besides changing my diet, daily habits etc, I actually worked a minimum of three hours per day (with very few exceptions) on clearly focussed music therapy. Another factor in my recovery is because I recognized the symptoms early and acted immediately and intensively. What also helped is that I enjoyed my treatment plan of playing music I like, in a relaxed fashion without any ballast. If I would have had to keep a job instead of being retired the challenge would have probably been more complex.
In conclusion I am happy with the outcome and hope that my experience encourages the readers not to give in to the myth that Parkinson’s is incurable. At some point I will go back to explore those websites I avoided reading because of my skepticism and might even comment on them. In the meantime I continue with my maintenance program of monitoring my music making and general lifestyle to keep it “Parkinson compatible”.
Reflections 