Parkinson’s disease is an illness that is associated with a number of symptoms ranging from mild to severe. These symptoms include things like tremors, slow and jolty movements, some stiffness, as well as significant balance problems. But the symptom known as dyskinesia is linked to a certain type of medication that is commonly used to treat Parkinson’s.
Dyskinesia otherwise referred to as involuntary and uncontrolled movement, can range in how severe it is from person to person. It may appear as nothing more than fidgeting or swaying. For a lot of people, living with dyskinesia is a lot easier to manage than dealing with the other symptoms of Parkinson’s and so it is worth tolerating for the benefits that the medication has towards some of the other symptoms of the terrible disease.
This list identifies 8 things that a person living with dyskinesia should know, and is also a useful resource for the friends and family of a sufferer.
1. Tweak the timing
Another tweak that a person with dyskinesia might look to make to their use of medication is to do with the timing of when they take it. This careful consideration of the timing of medication is important to make because of the wearing-off effect or phenomenon, which sees some patients feel that the effects of the medication end at different times after a dose has been taken.
A doctor may then decide to split the daily medication into smaller, or more frequent doses, so as to prevent wearing off period from being an issue at all.
Again, this is something that people with dyskinesia need to know about, as they may have been unaware of the options regarding tweaks and changes to the medication they take to manage their condition, and indeed any possible tweaks and changes to the timings of taking their medication. With a condition like dyskinesia, knowledge is definitely power.