"Cycling on stationary bikes may provide symptomatic relief for people with Parkinson’s disease, especially if they cycle using what’s described as Forced Exercise, i.e. pedaling at a rate faster than their voluntary cadence. " Parkinson's Cycling Coach website says.
I personally do this 3 times a week with a group of people with No PD and that really helped me a lot.
Please share your ideas, experience about indoor group cycling for PD.
Such kind of exercises will help keep you relatively better with respect to maintaining a good gait etc. However PD is very relentless disease and keeps travelling on its course. Until some good and robust therapy is found, it will continue to rob people of their energy and well-being.
Stem cells gives some hope but the research work in this area is too slow. All the discredit for this goes to ex president Bush, who had put a ban on the research related to embryonic cells.
There are some unapproved clinics who offer stem cell therapies for they have very little success with PD. There is a chain of clinics named "Swiss Medica" who have success with it, but the improvements fade away after 3 to 6 months of therapy and the cost involved touched sky!!
Poor Fox foundation has been able to raise and consume only 600 Million dollars so far since its establishment in 2000, which are a mere peanuts as compared to the costs of even small energy projects
Lets pray to GOD to send some miraculous cure from His own hospital
Regarding your prayer, something like that is available, but it requires major commitment and there are no guarantees. Be that as it may, I am taking one third the levodopa that I was taking a year ago, and experiencing slow but steady improvement.
Getting outside your comfort zone is absolutely needed
neurosciencenews.com/high-i...
About to start working out on a stationary exercise bike at home while getting out on my brompton when not raining! Some form of training group via the web would be of interest as keeping motivated on my own will be a challenge! I did look at Psycle London but that is too advanced a fitness level at the moment!
I think the link is broken.
Kevin, do we have 3 things in common? PD, AF and a Brompton?
Regards,
Martin
How fast do you have to cycle
This is link to NY Tmes article about study of benefits of exercise on PD progression. Says that only high intensity exercise (80-85% of max heart rate) seems to work. I have trouble making myself move fast enough to do that for more than a couple of minutes at a time. Thinking of getting a Theracycle. Anyone have any experience with that?
I was diagnosed in 2008 at age 62 and met Dr. Alberts in 2009. After one month of biking from 1.5-4 hours per day as close to 80-90 rpm as I could sustain, my PD symptoms disappeared to the extent that my. doctor said if he didn't know I had PD, he wouldn't diagnose it. Working with Dr. Alberts, I am now the national coordinator for Pedaling For Parkinson's programs, which follow Dr. Alberts' protocols. As long as I continue cycling about an hour a day (inside) or 20 miles (outside) for four or five days/week, my symptoms are largely kept at bay.
Curiously enough, this past year I had to have two surgeries on my left leg (toe joint replacement and meniscal repair not due to PD or cycling), which meant that I couldn't cycle for six months. My PD symptoms predictably worsened and I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to return to my former strength and fluidity. However, just this past week I was able to get back to my cycling regime and within three days of cycling an hour each day, most of my symptoms have again disappeared.
The cycling commitment is not for the faint hearted, but the alternative is not for me. You do not need a Theracycle. You do need willpower and tenacity. Since starting the Pedaling For Parkinson's protocols in 2009 I have cycled across the state of Iowa 6 times (450 miles), climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, climbed to Annapurna Base Camp in Nepal, hiked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, and this last summer, rode a raft through the Grand Canyon for two weeks. Next up is hiking around Mt. Blanc. I'm a 72 year old grandma, btw.
Do you take any medication ,yet?
Yes. I've had PD for 10 years. I started with dopamine agonists. At first I avoided Sinemet, concerned I might develop dyskinesia, but then I realized (with the advice of three research doctors) that it would help. It did. I was able to lower my Sinemet when I entered the Stanford Young Plasma study, then had to raise it when I couldn't cycle due to the surgeries, and now I have lowered it again. PD and medicines perform a sensitive dance I find.
And no dykinesia after 10 years of Sinemet?
Barely perceptible, generally in the evening 4 or 5 hours after my 3 p.m. dose. I've been taking Sinemet since May 2014.
I just read this post after I posted regarding the benefits of cycling. I think it's worth repeating...high intensity exercise seems to be the only universally accepted way of delaying the progression of pd. As always, you are way ahead of me, Kia17, but I'm eager to keep learning!
Young Onset PD Support Group ... in the making!!!
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PD Awareness & Advocacy Campaign 
