12 years ago my younger sister was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. She had a constant relentless tremble so bad she could hardly use eating utensils. Last week she changed Dr’s and the new Dr. discovered she was taking lithium. He took her off the lithium and within 2 or 3 days the shaking stopped. My sister has a slight mental disability so tends not to question medications she is getting. I feel bad now that one of us ( Brothers and sisters) didn’t act as more of an advocate and check out her medications and side effects.
That’s awful! I think the big problem is that Parkinson’s isn’t a disease where you can do a blood test or something; it’s more of a set of symptoms that may be caused by multiple things. For example, a small number of people have a genetic disposition, and others end up with it as a result of chemical exposure. But others just end up with it without any real indicator why.
What is questionable to me is that the first doctor seemingly just equated tremor with Parkinson’s- it’s typically diagnosed mainly through examining patient history, symptoms and the results of a neurological exam.
Nothing to add, except several years ago my father (probably aged 80 at the time) went through pretty much the same thing: diagnosed with Parkinson’s, given meds, then ~1 year later another doctor said “you don’t have Parkinson’s” and took him off that med, and he was symptom-free.
I would like to know why her other doctor didn’t notice the lithium … tremors are a common side effect of it.
My ex wife who has Alzheimer disease was given a medication to help with frequent urination. The warning label said do not give to anyone over 60 or with high blood pressure or any forms of dementia. She had all 3 and within two weeks ended up in a hospital not knowing who she was or anyone else. Once the meds were removed she went back to her stage 1 level dementia which wasn’t really all that bad, just some memory issues.
Interesting name there, Miss Diagnosis…
I was using voice text and didn’t notice that.
So sorry this happened to your family. Don’t blame yourself. Some medical or pharmaceutical person shoulda caught that. But stuff happens. I hope she’s feeling better.
it happens to everyone i just read a story about a girl who was told she had a gene for breast cancer apparently her family had carried this gene since the 1860s and most of the women in the family died from breast cancer and the family was used for research … and they tested her as a child but couldn’t tell her until she was of age and the test came back positive
so she had both voluntarily removed and was about to get another procedure done 12 years later when she was told they got it wrong the first time … she was one of the few women in the family who didn’t have it
here’s the story: MSN
Lewy body dementia gets misdiagnosed as Parkinsons all the time too.
Which sucks as the Parkinsons therapies can make Lewy body symptoms worse.