Question about Freezing

[TheresaCurley]

Tell me what it feels like to you when you have a Freezing episode. Are you thinking or does your mind go blank? Are you not capable of moving or are you just not moving.

This is what happens to me occasionally (at least once a day) but I don't think it is 'Freezing'. I often stop dead in my tracks and just stand there and my mind wanders and I totally forget what I am doing and get lost in my thoughts. If someone were to get my attention I continue what I was doing. I don't feel like I can't move during these episodes, I just don't move.

I never thought these episodes are freezing but then this morning when it happened as I was holding some milk to pour in my coffee it occurred to me maybe this is what they call freezing.

[parkie13]

If you freeze you can't move you have to make a conscious effort to move. When I took azilect for two and a half months I thought I was losing my mind. I could not remember what I got up for to do.

[TheresaCurley in reply to parkie13]

But if you make a conscious effort you can move right? So in my mind it is just that a person is not moving but when he wakes up from his thoughts he can move. It's sort of like not being able to do two things at once....move and think at the same time. That's what it is like for me but I never thought it was freezing because I knew just as soon as I thought about moving I could.

[TheresaCurley in reply to parkie13]

Please tell me your thoughts when you freeze. Are you thinking...hey I can't move...or is your mind in a different place and you just don't move until it comes back.

[parkie13 in reply to TheresaCurley]

So I'm thinking I can't move, and I am thinking raise your knee up. That is kind of my command to start moving again

[TheresaCurley in reply to parkie13]

I guess what I experience is not Freezing. I have never had the feeling that cold not move if I wanted.

But I have had the experience that I could not move my right eye lid and had to concentrate on doing it. I guess that is a freezing eye lid.

[parkie13 in reply to TheresaCurley]

that was my very first symptom of Parkinson's. many years before my other symptoms cropped up. Not being able to open my eyes or heavy like a delayed reaction with my eyelid. I asked my GP quite a few times about it and he has no idea. I don't get it all the time but at times it's like a very bad cramp and it hurts my eyelids like a spasm. I don't think it's very common in Parkinsons people

[Serenity_finaly-1]

My first sign is that my legs feel like I have cement blocks on my feet. There is to much stimulus around I find a corner and put my back to it so I am not having to focus on 360 degrees of information. For me its to much stimulus. Lets see how to explain it. For me its like driving during rush hour and every driver around you is texting and you just start to panic and cant move.

[TheresaCurley in reply to Serenity_finaly-1]

Now that is interesting Hal. From your description of Freezing it definitely is not what I experience. Thanks.

[tmjennings]

I think there is a physical freezing and a mental freezing, at least for me. The physical one is like this morning I'm trying to add a spoonful of yogurt to the blender (to make a smoothie) and my arm holding the spoon just stops half way to the top of the blender and I have to will it to move the rest of the way, it's a struggle. And I get so frustrated at this B.S. I almost want to cry. Cutting up canned dog food for the dogs, freezing up mid-chop, like a movie put on pause.

My mental freeze-ups are like a deep daydream that I'm not aware of until I un-freeze. Yesterday sitting on the patio not thinking anything, just gone for 5-10 minutes until I sorta wake up. To the casual observer it would look like I'm in a trance. Probably early dementia or Depression which I'm falling back into because of the seasonal change.

Damn PD.

[TheresaCurley in reply to tmjennings]

I'm beginning to understand now tmjennings. I think my episodes are mental freezing because it is like I am in a trance and my mind is off somewhere else. I'm also beginning to understand what the physical freezing is because I remember that sometimes when I reach for something from a shelf I have trouble getting my arm up to get it. It's not that my arm hurts or I don't have that range of motion it is just like I do it in a slow labored motion.

[tmjennings in reply to TheresaCurley]

Precisely. Theresa, I think you and I have similar difficulties, including the depresssion. My only cure-all is late at night (after 9 pm) when everyone is in bed, and my Yorkie dogs are dozing around me, I am alone with a glass of wine, and I finally feel "solid". I love the late night quiet.

[Beckey in reply to tmjennings]

Like a movie put on pause is a great way to put it, tm.

[Enidah]

It was brought home to me recently how completely I cannot multitask anymore. I was going quickly up the stairs while also drinking from my water bottle when suddenly my legs forgot how to go up stairs and I ended up on my hands with water all over. Not hurt, but a good lesson in doing one thing at a time. Such a strange sensation to have my legs completely retire from the action.

[Serenity_finaly-1 in reply to Enidah]

I have a pd buddy that freezes if he can't focus on a point. The inability to multitask seems to be the common thread. My wife came up with a good comparison, it's like plate spinning and every plate that you try to keep from falling just adds to a point where your brain blows a circuit breaker.

[TheresaCurley in reply to Enidah]

OMG, I hope you weren't hurt Enidah.

[Enidah in reply to TheresaCurley]

No, I was fine. Fortunately I was going up stairs, not down.

[BillDavid]

Recommend a DVD called MOVE IT! Shows actual freezing an strategies to deal with it. Has to do with Gait. Google the DVD, available

BillDavi