Does anyone have experience with exposure to cold as a therapy?

[aek222]

In researching approaches to enhancing the sympathetic portion of the autonomic nervous system, I came across the concept of cold shock as a neuroprotective activity. Although it doesn't appear to be pleasant, I wonder if it might work. There is a protein under investigation as a therapy for accomplishing the same effect, but that will take many years and going into cold water seems pretty simple. Here is a reference:

clinmedjournals.org/article...

[Hidden]

First thing that comes to my mind is Wim Hof 🙃

[aek222 in reply to Hidden]

Thanks, Nedim!

[JayPwP]

scienceofparkinsons.com/202...

[aek222 in reply to JayPwP]

Thanks, JayPwP

[JustJeff]

healthunlocked.com/cure-par...

[aek222 in reply to JustJeff]

Thanks, JJ--I just found a paper that shows data for ten healthy young men immersed in 14 degree water. While their adrenaline spikes up, dopamine increases only slightly--demonstrating that cold exposure really does activate the sympathetic nervous system.

here is reference: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/107...

[AaronS]

You need to do activities that engage the Parasympathetic nervous system to assist the PD symptoms that lock the body in flight or fight mode, which is controlled by the sympathetic nervous system. This helps me greatly

[Manypony in reply to AaronS]

What activities?

[AaronS in reply to Manypony]

You can do the following:- meditation

- Praying if you are a religious person

- Tai Chi, Qigong, yoga

- Exercise

- Breathing techniques

- massage

- light aerobic exercise eg:cycling

- sleep, however this and PD do not go together very well for obvious reasons

- stress reduction

- practising mindfulness

- nutrition, caffeine and sugar reduction stops the fight or flight response.

I decided to go down this path after reading Dr Haddocks book and Dr James Parkinsons book, his book was of particular interest because it speaks about a poorly working vague nerve, not anything about dopamine cells dying. He literally found this out by cutting open dead people with PD symptoms. Dr Haddocks book talks about a body thats trapped in Fight or flight mode.

I'm happy to share more if you want but this alone helped me quite a fair bit. I have also bought a massage gun as I had a close mate try it on me one day and bloody heck, the tension I released in my body also had for me, a big improvement.

Reduction of stress and identifying what caused me to stress helped me as well. Eg physical tension, mental stress, my own brain punishing me, letting go to what I can't control and addressing things like this also helped.

Sleeping at least 5 unbroken hours each night is also key, I still have a dose of pills for this. Getting that REM sleep is critical to allowing your nervous system to rest.

What have I gained out of this I have reduced stiffness by almost 90%, I still get a little bit stiff but it's situational eg. Getting out of a chair.

I can get our of a chair generally in one or at most 2 goes, this includes my recliner and work office chairs.

If I go to the ground general strength is improving, so I can now get up unaided.

Gait is Improving, and when I feel bent over I have the strength to correct it.

I now drive with left hand using left controls and right hand tending to right controls.

I'm slowly getting more movement in my affected right hand.

I feel my overall nervous system is slowly and I do mean slowly starting to respond better...I emphasise slowly.

I can go for longer times in 'off' mode between pills

I pee standing up

Slow and gradual but I do believe that understanding 'your' version of PD and not just do as your told to do by 'specialists' who study people and don't actually know what it's like to have this dreadful affliction running thru our bodies.

There will be people who disagree with what I'm saying...from their keyboard...and that's cool to, I just don't want to end up with a 50 pill a day addiction and a dbs unit controlling my head. We need to have an open mind, understand what triggers flare ups in your symptoms, change what causes this in our environment and listen to our own bodies, they are trying to talk to us its up to us to decipher what it's trying to say

[pgodefroy in reply to AaronS]

Can I get the full reference of the Dr James Parkinsons book ?

Interesting post !

[LondonPD in reply to AaronS]

Interested to know more please

[AaronS in reply to LondonPD]

Hi, please see my response above

[Fumaniron]

Ice baths do help, as part of the Wim Hot Method