Symptom Management
Parkinson's does not affect every patient in the same way. Parkinson's symptoms, their severity, the order in which the symptoms emerge, and the speed with which the symptoms advance vary from individual to individual.
It is important to remember that with Parkinson's disease, not everyone will experience every potential symptom. Don't let this list of potential symptoms overwhelm you or dishearten you that you will automatically face each one. Everyone's journey with Parkinson's is unique and different.
While some symptoms are common to the depletion of dopamine in the brain, others are common due to medication side effects. Understanding each symptom helps you to prioritize which ones may be impacting your quality of life. By rating which ones may be impacting you the most, you can clearly communicate your treatment and therapy needs to your medical professional and best advocate for your care.
In this section, we provide an overview of each potential symptom so that you can better understand them. We then discuss some management strategies that might help with each symptom. In some cases, there may be tips and best practices that you can naturally incorporate into your lifestyle to better manage and control your symptoms, especially earlier in your diagnosis.
Only you can determine when symptoms are aggravating enough to warrant further treatment and therapy options. Our goal is to provide you with an understanding of these potential symptoms you may experience, provide any non-medical tips to help with symptom management, and give you insight to have clear conversations with your medical professionals so that you can advocate for the best path to treatment and therapy for yourself.
Once you understand the overall symptoms, you may choose to explore the various treatment and therapy options in this section of the website to determine if exercise, therapy, medication, or surgery could further increase your quality of life while living with Parkinson's.
Begin your journey into exploring only the symptoms you are currently impacted with by clicking on each red box to learn more about it and see tips for managing it. As new symptoms arise, come back to this site as a resource to help with symptom management.
Remember, just as you take one day at a time with Parkinson's - take it one symptom at a time.