“I feared Parkinson’s most when I least understood it.”
Michael J. Fox
Access a free guide with information about Parkinson’s to help you anticipate and navigate life with the disease.”
Your Parkinson’s questions answered
Dr. Cherian Karunapuzha explains how drinking a glass of water when you take your levodopa helps “flush” the medicine from your stomach to your small intestine, where it is absorbed. Drinking a glass of water and taking your levodopa on an otherwise empty stomach will ensure that more of the medication is absorbed, giving you the full benefit of the levodopa.
This video is ideal for people who have been newly diagnosed with Parkinson’s. Dr. K addresses topics such as:
- – How people “get” Parkinson’s
- – What carbidopa/levodopa is and what it does
- – Why it’s difficult to find the right dose of medication
- – Why people experience so many ON and OFF times throughout the day
- – Non-pharmacological ways to help alleviate/minimize motor symptoms
- – The most common non-motor symptoms
- – Non-medical interventions to preserve quality of life
- – What a Movement Disorder Specialist is and what to do if you don’t have access to one
- – Other types of specialists that could help you
- – What signs to be on the lookout for in terms of progression.
This is David’s doctor speaking on the video above. He is a specialist in DBS. Dr. Ko is so likable and professional. We recommend him to anyone in the WA area.
Deep brain stimulation, in which electrodes implanted in a person’s brain carry electrical pulses from a pacemaker-like unit implanted in the chest, has been used for more than two decades. These systems help improve motor function and decrease the need for medication which reduces the side-effects associated with these medications. The stimulators allow doctors and patients to adjust the energy being sent to the brain to improve patients’ movement and reduce tremor, said Dr. Andrew Ko, a UW Medicine neurosurgeon. While this treatment is safe and effective, the interaction between the device and the brain has been one-way. Major adjustments made to the stimulator must be done by a doctor in clinic, based on trial and error. The manufacturer Medtronic recently received the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval to distribute a new neurostimulator that can simultaneously stimulate and record signals from the brain. “It gives us more information about the effects of stimulation on the patient’s brain. This data can help us refine the treatment,” Ko said. In Seattle, the device saw its first deployment July 8, when Ko implanted one in a man who had to be hospitalized at UW Medicine because of his inability to move or talk. The battery for his previous DBS system had run down, thereby leaving him without therapy for his Parkinson’s disease. After the replacement, he is back at his previous level of function. Medtronic confirmed it was the first such implant on the West Coast.