Saturday, November 21, 2009

Foot Dystonia; more surprises from PD

I have recently developed foot dystonia. This is not fun; it's like my toes suddenly decide that they can't stand each other's company and are trying to leave. What happens is this: my big toe forces itself up and the other toes force themselves down until it hurts. I can't control it; I can sometimes force the toes to relax for a few seconds, but then they go right back to trying to twist themselves off of my foot. It's quite painful, and it's not something I expected. I've had muscle cramps before, but this is a whole new category of pain. Fortunately, it only happens in the morning and sometimes at night after my meds have worn off, and it seems to only affect the left foot so far.

The doctor has increased my Requip dosage, which puzzled me a little until I did some reading about Dystonia and Parkinson's on the net. It turns out that foot dystonia is one of the hallmarks of Young-Onset Parkinson's, and they think it's caused by levadopa therapy, just as dyskinesia is. Therefore, increasing the levadopa (Stalevo, in my case) would be a bad idea.

I hope this works!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is very interesting for me to read this article. Thanx for it. I like such themes and anything connected to them. I definitely want to read a bit more soon.

Sherri said...

Hi Marion! Loved the post - now I know what my toes are doing and I can now tell them no more of that! How are you?

Marian said...

Thanks, Sherri! If you figure out a way to get your toes to behave, let me know :-)

Bob Kuhn said...

Marion;

While not as young (57), my right big toe is subject to the dystonia dance sometimes as well. Thanks for the blog.

Bob

www.positivelyparkinsons.ca

Anonymous said...

Try Botox shots. Worked for me. I get them every 3 months.

Marian said...

Thanks, Anonymous! If you don't mind my asking, where (on your body) do get the shots?

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About Me

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I'm a lucky lady. I have a wonderful husband of 27 years, a fantastic 25 year old son (I'm so proud of him!) a loving and supportive family, the best friends in the world, a job that I love, and... Parkinson's Disease. I was diagnosed in September 2006. That was a jolt, but I'm learning to deal with it.