For those who care for someone with Parkinson's disease
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I have been reading a lot lately about antibiotics...long story short, there have been several anecdotes about PWP taking an antibiotic for this or that (tooth infection, sinus infection, etc.) and for the duration of the antibiotic, the PD disappears. Neurotalk is one forum where I have read quite a bit about this. Usually the drug is ampicillin (sp?) or equivalent. I have read about the Marshall Protocol which is not commonly used for PD, or anything really, but the underlying theory, that infection drives most modern day chronic illness, is compelling. He is not the only one advocating use of low dose antibiotic for chronic illness (he claims he cured himself of sarcoidosis using the antibiotic/low vitamin D approach)....there are others who opine similarly but just don't get press because no one makes any money if PD is cured or the PD drugs no longer needed. Plus, the old standby antibiotics no longer have patent protection, so are too cheap to spend research $$$ on. Another thing is that there are several autoimmune "diseases" that sound so close to PD: PGA type II, PANDAS (pediatric version of PD, very similar symptoms and is caused by a bacteria, usually strep, that manages to get into the brain and attack the basal ganglia-the heart of modern day thinking of where PD is located), and autoimmune disorders including the endocrine system (lots of PWP have thyroid issues, and a great many were diabetic before being dx'd with PD). The thinking with PANDAS is that there is some stealth bacteria/virus/pathogen which gets into the cytoplasm of the cell and hides, making it impossible for our immune system to find and kill it...it just makes us weaker and weaker and spreads further and further....this is a very simplistic explanation but gives a lot of explanation why antibiotics would make PD symptoms better if it were, in fact, caused by some pathogen lurking in the body. At any rate, I am curious if anyone here has seen any changes, good or bad, while their loved one with PD was on an antibiotic. The anecdotes basically say that PD almost disappears while on the antibiotic, but reappears once you quit taking it. |
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lurking.... my guy has been on several different antibiotics...one for staph, one for pneumonia and one for when he had his teeth pulled....all in a 6 month period. No good reactions here...had troubles with dystonia worsening...tremors increasing....incontinence... these things increased while he was on the antibiotic....was it the disease reacting or was it the antibiotic reacting with the PD drugs..... I truly have come to the place where I almost wish they could test a person on NO PD drugs, who has PD and see of these things really work.... One thing our doc has recently suggested if his withdrawl from requip isn't going well to hospitalize him to step down...take him off everything and start all over.... Now, this would not be for everybody...this is because of the neuro who treated him previously....the treatment was not shall we say "correct" and it would be sheer hell if he had to do this especially due to a stupid doctor.. oops... rambled...sorry..... |
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Interesting research. Like you, Penny, my guy is much worse when taking antibiotics - all the same symptoms you mentioned come up in him also. Did any of you read the new research (was in Northwest Parkinson's newsletter recently) on the protein found in the brain of those with PD? This protein attacks the dendrites at the neuro receptor sites and stops dopamine from traversing the synapse. In the lab animals, when an enzyme specific to that protein was given, and the protein deactivated, all symptoms of PD went away. VERY exciting research, being done in California and China. A cure is coming..... |
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| yeah dk.. I read about the synucleins....they've been using those as keys in breast cancer for years... they have known about these and their relationship to PD for 14years, but are only getting animal studies done...at that rate we won't see any progress for PDers for another 14 years.....sorry to be a party pooper here but I just can't get too excited over things they've known about for such a long time. As they rehash drugs still here that cause such bad side effects. Now they want to push the process faster...but I won't get into my speech on that ... lol |
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My husband does note that he is more alert, can walk better, articulate his words better when on antibiotics. He has been on antibiotics for a couple of weeks twice now and notices the difference. When he has had to take amoxecillin just before going to dentist, he does not get the same benefits. Maybe it is a longer cycle that helps with symptoms of PD. Unfortunately his doctor feels staying on an antibiotic for lengths of time are not good. I'd like to keep this thread going to get others thoughts on this. Who do we talk to about this? Any other thoughts? |
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I'm really nervous about items like this. Usually I support the 'try anything, it can't hurt' mentality, but antibiotic use is outside of what should be explored. Google "drug resistance" or "antimicrobial resistance", and see what comes up. Here's the WHO's take on the subject - http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs194/en/. The human race has just about antibiotic'ed itself into an point where we are going to enter the pre-antibiotic era, where a cut could kill you, because of our tendency to use them in situations and quantities that aren't called for. There are far scarier articles out there on the subject. Educate yourself on them first. The first thing I thought of when I saw this was someone thinking "Oh, we should just go to our doctor and ask for more antibiotics!", or worse, taking someone's leftover scrip in some home experimentation. Remember that there are complications with antibiotic use as well as benefits - my husband had C. difficile after one epic dental procedure as a result of the antibiotics, and it nearly killed him. And they interact with meds... the list goes on. Please let the research finish before anyone jumps on this one. |
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I guess I should have mentioned that my guy, each separate time of being on antibiotic was on them for 2 weeks powerful ones in large doses. Well, except for the teeth extractions, he only had Amoxicillin. I think too we have to take into consideration each persons physiological make-up and where they are in PD. Maybe someone new to PD, might react different then someone more advanced, not in stages but in pain, side effects and multi-symptoms. I know neither myself nor my guy used to take as much as an aspirin for a headache in many, many years. Now he's up to 15 different medications with 25 different doses/day. So is the antibiotic working against all those meds? Could someone new to PD with just maybe Azilect or an agonist in small dosages be better able to handle the antibiotic... ??????? |
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Sounds like from all the responses I've gotten here and other places that antibiotics really help some and don't help others with their PD symptoms. What's new? It might make a difference which antibiotic you use, I have read ampicillin and zithromycin are the two which most often help. And I dont' know about long term use, the procotol I mentioned uses a pulsed-low dose where you take it for a bit, then get off, then get back on, etc. etc. Also, it seems the dose is much lower than you would normally take. Clearly you'd have to have a doc scripting this stuff and monitoring you. I know there are downsides to long-term antibiotic use, but if this were to help my guy's symptoms disappear in whole or part, we would have to do some serious weighing. I was just curious to see what rough percentage of PWP feel better, worse, or no different when on an antibiotic. It honestly seems to be about 50/50 so far! |
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My father has PSP (progressive supra nuclear palsy) - a 'Parkinson's Plus disorder - and during a series of tooth extractions, we saw a significant reversal of his symptoms whilst on antibiotics. It was real and it was repeatable - because he had five different sessions in approximately 6 or 7 months. I had thought I had witnessed improvement when he went on antibiotics previous to that, but it was only a suspicion. The repeatability during the series of tooth extractions confirmed that suspicion. I did some digging, and there is a reported case of a man whose Parkinson's symptoms disappeared after antibiotic treatment. John Gillies is his name. The article in New Scientist also mentions that the doctor performing the treatment on Gillies has noticed improvement in PWP after they have undergone a faecal transplant. This jibes with more recent studies that have found a link to gut bacteria flora and Parkinson's. This goes beyond simple correlation, changing the gut flora in mice would precipitate Parkinsonism or reduce it. My suspicion is it's not just the gut and the brain where the bacterial changes cause problems, i.e. brain to body neurological, but also on a localised basis. I have good reason for this which I'm happy to discuss more directly with anyone that might be interested. |