Does anyone else out there connect the onset of their PD symptoms to a period of significant stress or trauma, pain or injury?

[rtag]

My husband's tremor first appeared 8 months following an extremely difficult time in his life when he was dealing with a painful recovery from a surgery, on top of chronic pain from an injury, plus a death in the family. Others I know, have had their symptoms first appear following the loss of a loved one.

[maryalice]

My tremor started after the death of my mother and father about a year apart from cancer. It was avery stressful time fur me.

[JohnPepper]

Yes! My Pd symptoms started soon after I got married, when my workload became very heavy and my responsibilities became even heavier. I also had eight fillings done to my teeth, at that stage, and the fillings were done with 'amalgam, which contains mercury. I have always thought that the mercury was the cause of my Pd, but the stress related to my work and a back injury, at that time, were the cause of my Pd. Has anybody else had a lot of amalgam fillings done to their teeth, not long before their Pd Started?

[hilarypeta]

Mine was due to unhappy childhood, living in belgium, toomany xrays,dental mercury removal unsafely....basically too much adrenalin and toxic things in my body. Followed by death of my brother..last person in famiily.

It does also follow from physical injury...i had frozen shoulder ..

[Barb1968]

I most certainly do. I have asked but seeing as there is no "proof" they has disregarded but I feel strongly I got PD because of being under anesthesia too many times. I had surgery on my stomach due to crohns disease 10 times and 7 of them hernia repairs or moving my stoma and those 7 were done in an 8 year stretch. It had to affect my brain being under all those times. None of my symptoms appeared until after my last surgery but all the neurologists I have seen sad there is no case studies on this. Well who in their right mind would have surgery that many times you may ask....most were emergencies and the others should not have been approved by primary care doctor at the time. I never saw or spoke to doctor, his office just kept sending the referrels through. No one told be it was dangerous. Can't sue anyone because no proof that is what caused it. so I agree....I believe you can get it from any of the above things mentioned but no one in the medical field believes so,,

[Lindylanka in reply to Barb1968]

Suggest that you ask your doctor to have you tested for B12 and if the result are very low normal or below normal that you supplement. Some anaesthetic can lock up B12 stores, this is quite well documented. I mention this because of what you say about anaesthesia. It is not medical advice, I cannot give that, or tell you more, but it is worth doing in your case as you have this history. It is just a blood test.

[Barb1968 in reply to Lindylanka]

thanks for the info. I will look into it

[sherrywolz]

I have had essential tremor for as long as I can remember. In May 2007 I underwent a procedure to manipulate and loosen a frozen shoulder (as it appears hilarypeta suffered from as well.). That only made my situation worse, and in June 2007 underwent rotator cuff surgery . Was supposed to be an orthoscopic surgery, but damage was more severe than anticipated and more intensive surgery was needed. Many unfortunate issues arose from this surgery (ex. more severe pain, tremor increase, swelling, nerve testing and block, LOTS of physical therapy and RSD). December 2007 was terminated from my employer of 8 years due to amount of time off from surgery. Finally saw a sports medicine specialist in Fall of 2008, who highly recommended seeing my movement disorder specialist. THAT visit determined that PD was the factor, brought on by the stresses my body underwent with the surgery/procedures.

[PatV]

Yes, in 2001 I had 2 thyroid operations one a thyroidectomy for thyroid cancer. Right after that 9/11 here in NYC. My son died of accidental drug interaction in April of 2002 and my symptoms appeared within a few months of that. My neuro says definitely a link. I may have manifested my symptoms later in life since in hindsight I could identify several like a left arm that did not swing when walking, constipation, etc.

[rtag in reply to PatV]

I am so sorry to hear of your struggles. Thank you for sharing.

[PatV in reply to rtag]

thank you

[rtag]

Thank you for your responses. In the early days following the initial onset of his tremor, when my husband would massage his hip (the area where he was injured and experiencing chronic pain) his tremor would go wild. The second he removed his hand from the pain the shaking would completely stop! Bizarre. We thought for certain that the tremor and injury were related.

Shortly after I posted this question, I came across this article in the Huffington Post titled "What Triggers Parkinson's?" huffingtonpost.co.uk/elaine...

Just another anecdotal account.

There is an alternative theory on PD (Janice Walton Hadlock) that suggests that PD is triggered by the body being stuck in adrenaline mode, overriding dopamine production, as a result of some kind of injury or stress. Interesting idea but, yet again, no hard scientific study to back it up.

[judam9]

i firmly believe it was do to the stress from taking care of my mom, when she was i her late 80" before and after. taking care of everything that needed to be taken care of . it wasn't just when i was with her, but when i wasn't my mind was always taken filled with the little things that had to be done. mostly dealing with SSI and that she had what she needed, without giving her her money. and that hurt too. i watched her go down . and it was so hard to watch. and could do nothing. she didn't want to live. and i had to try to thinking of reasons why it was a good thing she was still with us. it just really hit me in the gut , even before she died. before she died i was diagnosed with graves disease. which also can be brought on by stress. she deserved everything that i could do for her. she had done so much for me. well you know the rest of the story. thanks for understanding. judam 9.

[Susie01]

I had tremors in my hands many years before diagnosis. Ten years ago I started a very difficult divorce process that went took several years to complete. During that time I had 2 major surgeries, and a car accident that left me in pain for a couple of years. I also had a bought of pneumonia. It was after the pneumonia that my energy level decreased dramatically and I saw an increase in the tremors. It was still several years before I was diagnosed with PD.

[rtag in reply to Susie01]

I am so sorry to hear of your struggles. That is a lot of trauma to endure. Thank you for sharing.

[Susie01]

Welcome, wish that was all that happened, did not want to go into all the detail...

[madamebee]

I really do think that my husband's diagnosis was linked to a very stressful time where we had significant problems in a legal battle with his sister over her hijacking of a family agreement involving money. He is not a money oriented person at all and only entered into this lawsuit after much prodding by friends and family since she was clearly hiding the bank accounts and taking trips, etc because of her access to the money in them. Also he discovered his mother was complicit in the situation. ...where she may have been coerced, but in any case was not forthcoming. Since, she herself was up in age and my husband was in his 70's already, he decided to proceed. Very stressful on him, very little assistance with legal fees and a very long, protracted case ....he was always the go-to older brother, who was very attached to his siblings,so, this took an emotional toll on him. I really think that that is the cause of the PD showing it's ugly head, but to be honest, I also think there has to be a propensity, i.e., a weakness for the disease to begin with. There is also M.S and autism in the family so that, I believe tends to prove my conclusion.

[Syncletica]

Yes! the traumatic death of three of my family members--all of which occurred in a brief period of time.