Everyone who is diagnosed with Parkinson’s has a different reaction to the disease. My husband, presents with predominantly physical symptoms, others may face more cognitive challenges. For some people, the disease progresses quickly, for others it may take years for symptoms to develop.  When you add the fact that many of our friends with PD are also battling additional illnesses it makes me wonder, do medications some people take for other ailments make a difference in their journey with Parkinson’s?

We once had a friend in our support group who was being treated for leukemia and swore that his PD symptoms improved based on medications he was taking for this other diagnosis. I am not a medical professional, but wonder whether boosting the immune system in someone’s body to fight one illness could also help with other problems? Did improvement in his leukemia symptoms make him think his Parkinson’s was progressing more slowly, or could the slowing have been an actual side-effect of his leukemia treatments? I don’t have any answers but also don’t see how treating one disease so aggressively couldn’t impact other things happening in the body.

My husband has not been diagnosed with any other chronic illnesses so he only has Parkinson’s to deal with. One of the women in our network says, “you should only have one”, meaning if someone is diagnosed with Parkinson’s that should be enough. Perhaps she is wrong and having multiple diagnoses could lead to better treatment? Maybe working with multiple medications for different problems will help researchers find a cure? We can only hope that something good comes from all of it as our loved ones continue to be guinea pigs in this grand experiment called Parkinson’s Disease.