When did your first symptoms emerge?

[Limpmaster]

Hi all I just wanted to discuss when your first symptoms emerged. For me, I recall that my right foot wasn't right when running at least as far back as high school. Initially, the foot would sort of not move quite right and would instead sort of flop around. Of course, I ignored it. My symptoms very slowly spread and worsened until I was officially diagnosed at 38 years old. Is it normal to recall symptoms from over 20 years pre-diagnosis?

[Xenos]

Hi Limpmaster, I lost my sense of smell in 1997 - diagnosed in 2016 i.e. 19 years later.

[johntPM]

Diagnosed at 49. Tremor in my right hand little finger from about 44. Masked face from about 10 - even when I was happy people would comment that I looked miserable. I can't remember when I lost my sense of smell.

[Limpmaster in reply to johntPM]

I also have had the mask face since a kid.

[Juliegrace]

Internal tremor in my left leg started at 47, no left arm swing the same year. Official diagnosis at 49.

[Livin_MY_life in reply to Juliegrace]

Similar here Juliegrace. No rt arm swing and internal tremor. Oh! And micrographia....that was the big one

[LostinHeadSpace]

My husband remembers not being able to smell as well as others way back in high school.

[ddmagee1]

I had very mild symptoms, Starting with odd taste and smell, and then muscle spasms of jaw, back, and legs, for nearly 10 years, before I was diagnosed.

[JohnPepper]

My first symptom occurred in 1963 at the age of 29. I found that I could not throw a ball properly.

[bbc680]

I'm 61, diagnosed last year. Have had hand tremors since 14 or so, always diagnosed as essential tremor. Now they say I have both PD and essential tremor. Lost sense of smell close to 30 years ago. Now that I've been thinking about warning signs I realize that I've been self regulating what I get involved in. For instance, I was taking flying lessons back around 2003 and found I didn't trust myself to have enough executive functioning to handle everything required, so I bailed (I crack me up). Same thing with driving cars on the racetrack, I subconsciously backed out of that a few years ago. So I think think this has been brewing for decades. I will say that Rock Steady seems to be helping.

[Limpmaster in reply to bbc680]

I too have looked at certain experiences in the past where I struggled with coordination/executive functioning and wondered if it was signs of Pd. Glad that RSB is helping you.

[alaynedellow]

Bad hand writing took me to gp and diagnosis. I have had odd falls over my life where i dont remember tripping but just being on my butt. Hence the lifetime dedication to handrails!!

[faridaro]

Started having numbness in my fingers and toes in 2013 which were diagnosed as peripheral neuropathy. Then in 2016 gradually started develop increasing tremors in my left hand and was diagnosed with PD in 2017.

[jeffreyn]

Hi Limpmaster,

From what you've written, the following one-page article could be of interest:

"Kinesigenic foot dystonia as a presenting feature of Parkinson's disease"

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

My own experience is similar to one of the cases described in the article. About 5 years before diagnoses, my jogging became affected by an "imaginary" turning in of my right foot (whenever I looked down at the foot, it wasn't turning in at all). If I slowed down to a walk for say 50 metres, I could then jog again for another 5 minutes before it happened again.

[Limpmaster in reply to jeffreyn]

Interesting read thanks. Sounds like I"m not the only one to experience the dystonia preceding diagnosis. In my case, perhaps because I was so young when it started It was quite a long time before I was diagnosed. I was just so stubborn and in denial that I had a problem. In fact, I was quite disabled by the time I was finally diagnosed at 38 years old. I could barely hobble along with a cane and had great difficulty driving.

[Limpmaster]

I did break the pinkie toe on that foot when I was an early teen. I also had a weird injury to that foot playing basketball a little before that even. That foot seems to have just never been quite right.

[Limpmaster]

That's interesting but hard to believe that stress and emotional duress caused the disease...seems the other way around to me. If stress was the cause of Parkinson's there would be a lot more people with Parkinson's. I do agree that minimizing stress makes the symptoms far less but isn't that the case with most if not all ailments?