My Parkinson's Experience with a Gluten-Free Diet - part 2

My Low/No-Gluten Diet for PD

Two weeks ago I started a low/no-gluten diet with the intention of testing it for at least 3 months to provide enough time to see if it helped relieve Parkinson's symptoms or not. Already I'm seeing changes. And I'm not the only one who has noticed some improvement, both my wife and my massage therapist have also seen changes.

Even though it hasn't been very long, I am happy to report that I've noticed a decrease in urinary frequency. Although it was being partly controlled by the saw palmetto and pumpkin seed oil blend and nettles I was taking, I still had issues and felt limited in places I could visit and things I could do. Now I take less when I get up in the mornings and get better results. I also think I can feel when I need to go better.

Sexually there has been a slight improvement in my response. I can feel more. There's a lot to be said for being in contact with those nerve endings.

My body is not as stiff and rigid which means that I can get in and out of the tub shower more easily, since my leg has relaxed a bit. The massage therapist noticed a greater range of motion, less overall rigidity and the ability to get muscles to release, . something which has been a real problem in my neck, shoulders and leg.

I've been sleeping better since I started the low/no-gluten diet. Last night I went to bed at midnight, slept till 5:30 am, back to sleep easily until 7:30 am when I got up for the day. That was better than I have done for a long time. My wife insists that I need to take an occasional nap which is something that I used to do when I first was diagnosed.

Staying on the low-no-gluten diet has been easier than I thought it would be. I've eaten rice, ground chicken as hamburger, buckwheat pancakes, no-gluten pretzels, waffles. I've had plain ground turkey as sausage which my wife seasons and potato chips, cheese, yogurt and ice cream. So there are lots of things to eat. Of course I'm very lucky that my wife likes to cook and is very good at getting me to take my pills and eat the right things. She's just switching out ingredients to try to make the changes feel normal.

We shopped at Whole Foods Market where they have a very big selection of Gluten Free foods. They have shelf tags which identify all the gluten-free products they carry. Saves a lot of time for gluten free customers. Just follow the green tags up and down the aisles. We'll be adding brown rice noodles and pasta which we haven't had in a long time.

I've notice one problem with the diet thus far. We hadn't considered that the primary use of white rice flour could contribute to constipation. As soon as I noticed the issue - not hard to overlook - I explained to my wife who reconsidered what I was eating and realized that it was an easy fix. White rice is low in fiber and white rice flour has almost none. So within an hour we added fruits with high fiber content, brown rice, beans - I especially like refried beans - sweet potatoes, natural applesauce and plenty of drinking water all help to ease the problem.

Understand that I appreciate fruit but never cared to eat it that often. Change of plans and now I do.

We're calling this a low/no-gluten diet because I don't have celiac's disease but I may have some gluten intolerance. Because of that we are being careful but we know that on occasion something will accidentally slip past us and occasionally I might backslide...not yet but we're trying to be realistic.

So I feel this was a positive start for my diet although it will be a few months before I see the results. I'll post again next weekend...by then I will have had the chocolate chip cookies and the bread.

Addendum:
The cookies and bread turned out to be delicious, tasted even better than full-gluten bakery.

Gluten & a Parkinson's Disease Patient - Part I

Gluten Free Me with PD

After 6 years of PD I've come to the point where I realize that if I'm going to make any more progress fighting PD I'm going to need to eliminate or greatly reduce the pain I feel in my knees when I excercise, especially when I walk longer distances. I'm only at a quarter mile, I need to be able to walk a mile or two with little discomfort. Pain is a significant factor in arthritis and, of course, in Parkinson's disease.

Massage takes me part of the way, working out at the gym has taken me where I am now but I have to find a way to make more forward progress and not just hold the status quo. In recent weeks and months I've tried turmeric and nettle but the nettle seems to make me feel dizzy; possibly it lowers my blood pressure. Swimming feels great while I'm doing it, but doesn't seem to have lasting effects although I haven't been in the water as often in the last couple of months.

DynaCirc CR has helped me tremendously but I don't think I can expect it to do more. Getting a forced excercise bike probably could help me but the cost seems out of reach now. My heart condition might prevent me from getting my doctor's approval for forced exercise anyway. On the other hand, my improvement from the process of learning the semi-elliptical recumbent bike is encouraging.

I also have some some urninary tract issues which I wrote about the other day. I've been trying to deal with the UT issues first. I tried saw palmetto and pumpkin seed for my prostate, urinary frequency and sexual problems. That resulted in a slight improvement in my frequency and sexual problems but was not the answer because I had to take more than the doctor had said would be safe to get those results. So I went back to nettle. It gave me better results and I'm still using these supplements but the dizzyness and sense of shaky balance side effect were taking me in the wrong direction.

Marge had been reading about low Gluten diets and sugested I try it for 3 months to see if it helped me. The gluten-free and the low-gluten diets sounded very difficult because you can't eat bread or pasta or any food with just a trace amount of wheat - not even a bagel! But 10 years ago I was a vegetarian and I was able to stick to that diet for a few years until my cardiologist said that my triglycerides had skyrocketed and that I should probably reintroduce some meat protein to my regimen.

I had help with that diet and while I depended quite a bit on frozen items so that I wouldn't have a long wait for a meal, I also learned to make a mean vegetarian chilli. That success makes me think I'll be able to stick to this plan too. So far I've been on the diet for 10 days and I'm getting some positive results. I'll start reporting how I'm doing this weekend.

Follow up reports:

Gluten Free Part 2

Gluten Free 2 months later

Along the Parkinson's Disease G-I Tract

Who put the pee in PD?

Many Parkinson's patients have problems along the gastro-intestinal tract because of the affects of losing some control of their autonomic nervous systems (aka: visceral nervous system) part of the central nervous system. I'm no exception. I have swallowing issues, some digestion and constipation problems, sleeping disruption and sexual function disorders to greater or lessor extents.

In the past winter when I had difficult sleeping problems, I eventually overcame them without using more PD medications or supplements. But the urinary problems that made the sleep disorder more problematic continued.

The last couple weeks I have started suffering from increased urinary frequency, which has caused me to have "accidents" with no warning at all. There are prescription drugs to treat this, but the side effects for PWPs can be daunting. If I were still employed I would have to use those meds but since I'm not, I have the luxury of time to try alternative treatments.

Although my usage is not constant, I've been taking pumpkin seed and saw palmetto as often as possible to cut down on the number of times I wake up during the night because I have to urinate. I have felt the need to look for another herbal treatment to use in addition and have been trying stinging nettle with good results in combating urinary frequency.

In the past with my doctor's blessing I've used Viagra to treat my parkinson's related ED problem. The results were very exciting. The results have produced no side affects. However my wife who is my carer and lover feels that Viagra could be harmful for me and asked me to stop using it, which I have done.

Meanwhile I started on the nettle and after a couple of nights she asked me if I was using Viagra again to which I told her no. She replied that "it sure felt like I was!" I am trying to determine if this is a direct result of the nettle or possibly the pumpkin seed.

In favor of stinging nettle is its medical history for hundreds of years. In medieval times it was used as a diuretic and as an arthritic joint pain treatment. It is still used to alone or with NSAIDs to reduce inflammation and sore muscles. My wife used to use it regularly to prepare for allergy seasons.

The Roman soldiers in more northerly campaigns used it to create body heat through its skin irritation properties. It is still used to treat enlarged prostate. Coupled with saw palmetto and pumpkin seed it is used for a variety of urinary issues in men: reduced flow, incomplete bladder emptying, dripping after urination and feeling a constant need to urinate. It may slow the growth of prostate cells. Chemical components affect both testosterone and estrogen.

Just as with any medication, when taking supplements one has to check for food, drug, condition interactions. Stinging nettle is no different. For some people it is contraindicated. Because I am taking both Atenolol, a beta blocker for my heart condition and Dynacirc CR for its benefit as a calcium channel blocker for PD, I have to be aware that nettle can increase the effects of both medications, meaning that my blood pressure can drop...

which may not be so bad except that I may need to be careful about the nettle dosage because I also have Parkinson's and stinging nettles contain the following phytochemicals most of which are helpful but we're not so sure about some: histamine, acetylcholine, serotonin, flavonol glycosides, sitosterol, lectin, coumarins, hydroxysitosterol, scopoletin, tannins and lignans.

So I won't overdo it but it's time for a positive change.

additional reading:Stinging Nettle

I'm Sleeping with Parkinson's

I have had pretty good results in my struggle to be able to go to sleep and stay asleep every night.

I have started going to sleep alone in a guest bedroom with a firm mattress. I don't use this room for anything except sleeping.

Even through the heat is turned down in my house in deference to the high gas prices, I keep an electric heater going next to my bed to keep the room warm. That, I have found helps me sleep the night through. Now that we are in the middle of winter where it seems to me that we have a tiny day and a very long night, I try to get exposure to sunlight or a SAD light for at least 20 minutes per day.

I take 2 slippery elm capsules and 2 aspirin just before bed so I can breath better while I'm asleep. Right around 10:15 pm I'm in bed and after 15 minutes I'm asleep. At some point my wife pops by to spray a relaxing mist of eucalyptus, tea tree oil, spirits of camphor, witch hazel and distilled water. That spray helps my breathing. It claims to remove toxins from the air as well. Then she closes the door to keep the heat and the mist in the room and the cats out.

I stay asleep until 1 or 1:30 am for a road trip down the hall. Sometimes I sleep straight through till 3 am, remembering dreams along the way. My next sleep period takes me to 5 am and then another till I wake up for the night around 7:00 am.

I've been able to eliminate my afternoon nap which frees up some non-sleepy work and research time. I'm still having trouble when I wake up to pee after my first sleep period. I find it hard to get back to sleep then. Sometimes. It can take one half to a full hour. I've read where this is the worst time of the night for people with sleeping problems. The rest of the night I awaken two or three times but go back to sleep quickly. My need to urinate has lessened since I have been getting my insomnia under control, perhaps it is the saw palmetto and nettles I take twice a day.

It certainly helps not to have cats sleeping on my legs and a dog battling for more space on the bed.