Although Parkinson's affects each person who has it in a different way, there are some commonalities:
- Medicine should be taken the same time each day.
- Medicine is best taken with water on an empty stomach.
- Protein decreases the effectiveness, the absorption rate, of Sinemet, the "gold standard" of the PD medicines.
Your daily medication journal should be organized in a way that is easiest for you to complete. It should also include all the information that you need to benefit from this additional tool to keep PD at bay.
For example, you should include the following:
- The medicine you took and the time. This is very important. Your brain expects to receive the medicine at the same time every day.
- How long it took for the medicine to work. How long until you felt 100% mobility or as close as you usually get.
- Times when the medicine wore off. This would include times when it wore off before the next dose was due to be taken.
- Side effects you experienced throughout the day.
If you like, you can go a step further and include other factors that affect PD. These include the following:
- Food you eat. I now watch my protein intake especially after what I call the "bowling alley incident." I ate dinner before going bowling and included in that dinner were two pork chops.
You may have noticed how some bowlers seem very deliberative in the lanes. They take their time until they roll the ball. They are sizing up the positions of the pins. I was not doing any of that when I found my feet frozen to the lane. Although, I must admit I tried to make it seem that way. Those were the hiding Parkinson's days. - Getting proper amount of restful sleep. Fatigue is a consequence of Parkinson's. Sometimes that is beyond your control. But fight back by going to sleep the same time each night.
- Exercise but do not over exercise. A few years ago I had outpatient physical and occupational therapy. I was given exercises to do at home. I tried doing all of them in the same day! It was quite impossible and a tad tiring as well. I had gone from one extreme to another. My reason for going to therapy was to become disciplined. As we all know, exercise can be a drag at times. I found myself saying to myself that I would do double the exercises tomorrow, and then triple the exercises the day after tomorrow . . . The answer for me is to alternate strengthening and aerobic exercises but to stretch every day. Stretching is not only good for a warm up. It is good to do throughout the day every day to loosen muscles that become rigid from Parkinson's.
So there you have it. You can have a daily medication journal with five columns:
- MEDS
- TIME TAKEN
- WEARING OFF
- SIDE EFFECTS
- A MISCELLANEOUS COLUMN ON FOOD, REST, AND EXERCISE.
One more thing, perhaps journals are not for you. A graph would do just as well literally showing the ups and downs of PD on any given day.
Websites that have medicine journals follow:
http://www.stalevo.com/info/living/keeping_track.jsp
http://www.parkinsonshealth.com/ContentRoot/Efficacy5.pdf