Tag Archives: homeostasis

Jan 11 2026

Living in Excellent Health #117 — Can’t Trust Parkinson’s Meds.

To put it bluntly, I can’t fully trust the meds I take.

Let me explain.

I presently take only levodopa: 200mg at 8:30am and 150mg at 5:30pm. The morning meds kick-in at around 9am and wear-off around noon, while the evening meds kick-in around 6pm and last until 8:15. Generally, while the meds are on, when all goes well, my life is pretty much normal.

Unfortunately, I have learned it doesn’t always go the way it is supposed to for a number of reasons:

  1. The meds are sometimes late kicking in, especially the evening meds, and especially if I am feeling anxious or stressed.
  2. The meds frequently wear off early, especially if I am feeling anxious or stressed.
  3. Occasionally, the meds will kick-in, then kick back out again.
  4. The meds have a troublesome side-effect: loss of balance.
  5. On days when I take extra meds, I frequently don’t feel good.
  6. When I take extra meds, two days later, I tend to crash pretty hard.

The meds are sometimes late kicking in, especially the evening meds, and especially if I am feeling anxious or stressed:

Recently, my dinner-time meds were 45 minutes late kicking in, for no apparent reason. I have found that a little slice of apple or cucumber seems to help the meds kick in.

I did learn a few years ago that if I eat protein or animal fat within four hours of taking meds, it will delay the meds kicking in, so I avoid both. That is to say, I take my morning meds on an empty stomach and I eat a carbohydrate lunch.

The meds frequently wear off early, especially if I am feeling anxious or stressed:

I recently had an appointment with my doctor. It was scheduled for 10am, so I took my morning dose a half an hour early to give myself a little bit of a buffer. The doctor was running late … as usual … but I was prepared. I had an extra dose with me. Around 11am, I started to feel anxious, so I took the extra dose. Before the extra dose could take effect, my first dose wore off … early … and my second dose didn’t kick in after a half hour like it should have. By the time I finally saw the doctor, I was shaking badly, although, strangely enough, I could walk okay. The second dose finally kicked in a half hour after I left the doctor’s office.

Occasionally, the meds will kick-in, then kick back out again:

Every so often, my meds will kick in, then kick back out again. It seems to happen when I get up and move around as soon as my meds kick in. When this happens, I sit back down and focus on my breath until the meds kick back in again. It usually only takes a few minutes. Why this happens, I have no idea.

The meds have a troublesome side-effect: loss of balance:

It’s a different type of loss of balance than what I typically experience with Parkinson’s. I will be standing still, when all of a sudden, I start going sideways, in a circular direction. It feels like I can right myself, but I don’t, and I end up falling. I have hurt myself on a few occasion falling like this. It is very disconcerting because it happens randomly and I don’t know what to do about it.

On days when I take extra meds, I frequently don’t feel good:

I take extra meds once or twice a week when I need more time to get things done … like write a blog. Quite often, I don’t feel good … although, I am free of symptoms. I feel a little nauseous.

When I take extra meds, two days later, I tend to crash pretty hard:

The day after I take an extra dose of meds, I typically feel better during the time of day when I’m off-meds. I attribute this to the residual effect of having additional dopamine in my system. But then the following day, I feel much worse than normal as I go through the wear-off withdrawal as dopamine returns to baseline homeostasis.

The doctor who convinced me to start taking meds told me about none of these complications. It’s quite possible that she wasn’t aware of them.

All this has unfortunately left me distrusting the meds I take and feeling anxious about being out in public and attending functions for fear of the meds wearing off early or not kicking in when they should. I have learned that in certain situations I need to take extra meds or have extra meds on hand just in case. But as I discovered at the doctors office, sometimes a little extra is not quite enough.

I hope you found this information helpful.

Sep 1 2024

Living in Excellent Health #85 — Overcoming Parkinson’s Through the 6 Pillars of Quality Living and the Butterfly Me.

The other morning, I awoke with a stream of thoughts going through my mind. It reminded me of something Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones once said, “The more you immerse yourself in something, the more ideas come to you.”

What was in my mind on this particular morning, was the six pillars of good health and quality living:

  1. Know divine love
  2. Enact self-love
  3. Let go of fear
  4. Change your personality
  5. Think cheerful thoughts
  6. Focus on your breath

What inspired this line of thinking, was my brother’s recent ALS diagnosis; the same disease that claimed our mother eleven years ago. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, also called Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a neurodegenerative disorder that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. It is considered a terminal condition with a life expectancy of two to five years.

So, what do these six pillars mean?

Know divine love: This simply means: know your true nature. Know that you are a divine being of love, living in harmony with the universal-energetic intelligence [God]. You don’t need to do anything; you just need to be aware of it. And this awareness leads to peace of mind by enabling us to feel good about ourselves and love ourselves. It contributes to reduced stress, optimum body chemistry and optimum health.

Enact self-love: Self-love may be the single most important aspect of good health and healthy living. Awareness that a lack of self-love is at the root of the discord in our lives, while practicing self-compassion [treat yourself with kindness, understanding and forgiveness] is the key to restoring self-love. To support this awareness, I also recite positive affirmations, such as: “My awareness of my genuine, ‘divine’ nature, enables me to feel good about myself.” “Imagine this, I am a divine being.” “As an enthusiastic participant in the flow-of-life, all the love this universe has to offer is available to me, including the love I feel towards myself.” “Every experience I have had up to this point in my life, was meant to bring me to the understanding that I am a divine spiritual being and this enables me to love myself.”

Let go of fear: I have wrestled with this aspect of healing, gone back-and-forth with it, thinking that I needed to purge all the fear I’ve been holding on to, but I think I finally understand it. Rather than purge it or transmute it, I think I just need to let it go. Just like a butterfly doesn’t hold on to the caterpillar stage of its existence, or feel the need to purge it … it just lets it go … so too can we let go of that part of our journey; acknowledge it, certainly, but let it go. This also applies to the detrimental emotions, beliefs and self-perceptions we have been holding on to.

Change your personality: Joe Dispenza, neuroscientist, chiropractor, and author of You are the Placebo, says that in order to heal yourself, you cannot be the same personality, with the same thoughts and beliefs, as the person who developed the disease. In my case, it means I can’t be the same self-loathing, uptight, angry, fearful person who developed the symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease. Instead, I need to transform myself into the self-loving, trusting, easy-going, content person that I aspire to be.

Think Cheerful Thoughts: Unhappy thoughts create stress. Chronic stress creates disease. Disease then creates more stress. I am constantly thinking about not having the symptoms of Parkinson’s, and this line of thought is paradoxically keeping me in a state of stress. Since learning about my brother’s diagnosis, I have been thinking about little else. As a result, I’ve been feeling quite stressed and so the symptoms I experience have been worse. It takes constant diligence to keep my thoughts cheerful.

Focus on your breath: If all else fails, at the very least, we can focus on our breath. When you are focused on your breath, there is less chance of slipping into detrimental thoughts. Bringing your attention to your breath brings you into a state of bliss. There are two breathing techniques I have found to be very effective: the Physiological Sigh technique, advocated by Andrew Huberman, and the 5-Second breathing technique developed by Mel Robbins. Combining the two techniques has a very powerful effect. See below for a description of the two techniques.

I have also revised my energy healing script to reflect this renewed emphasis on cultivating self-love [see below]. The intention of this script is to call into action, healers in the spiritual realm to activate loving energy in order to facilitate healing on the physical level.

What has been swirling in the back of my mind is that my brother and I can restore our health … we can ‘beat this thing.’ And love, faith and trust is the key to doing so. I think adversity is an integral part of our journey. It gives us a purpose. It is what the flow-of-life is all about.

I believe that no matter what your lot in life … you may be living in a war-torn country or you may be living in poverty or you may be living in a home where there is abuse or you may be experiencing poor health … if you can live by the six pillars, while emulating the butterfly, you may have a chance. You have hope. You can thrive.

I’m not in the same boat as my brother, but we’re in the same boat race; it’s just that his boat is going a lot faster. If I could wish for anything, it would be to slow his boat down, if not take it out of the race altogether.

Physiological Sigh/5-Second breathing technique:

Begin by taking a full, powerful inhale, followed by a short, powerful, top-up inhale, then as you exhale, count from 5 down to 1, then repeat: I am so excited to be the butterfly-me.

Healing Script:

I call on my inner-self to join me in calling upon the healing energy of the universal-energetic-intelligence, to activate my divine birthright to live my life in excellent health with healthy and beneficial thoughts, emotions, beliefs and self-perceptions, in order to live my life with a healthy, strong and vibrant physical body and immune system that are in homeostasis; and with a heart that is open and filled with love; and with a personality that is deeply rooted in self-love, enthusiasm, gratitude, trust and easy-going; and with a central nervous system that is predominantly in the parasympathetic state; and with beliefs that are deeply rooted in divine, spiritual, awareness, understanding and love; for I am divine love; love is within me; love moves throughout me; love surrounds me; love protects me; love emanates from every aspect of my being, and in so doing, love elevates my vibrational frequency to the realm of divinity. Love enables me to be accepting of my past and love enables me to be accepting of my present situation and love enables me to be enthusiastic and optimistic about my future. I am divine love.

Apr 24 2023

Living in Excellent Health #62 — Dopamine boost from birth of grandchild!

neuroplasticity

I was recently blessed with the birth of my fourth grandchild, and first grandson. It was my daughter and son-in-law’s second child.

The day before her due date, I sent my daughter a text message to see how she was doing and she responded a few moments later, saying that the baby had arrived two hours earlier, and mother and son were doing well. I called her immediately and she confirmed the good news.

The baby’s gender was no surprise because my daughter and son-in-law had announced midway through the pregnancy that they were going to have a boy.

When I asked my daughter what his name was, she didn’t answer right away. Instead, she showed me his armband … but I couldn’t read it.

Then she brought the phone closer: Tian Frederick Pinnigar.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was over-the-moon. I had no idea they were planning on giving him my name. It was quite a surprise and a very emotional moment.

Later, when I was out for my daily walk, it occurred to me that I had received a significant dopamine boost. I always do my walk. off-meds, and I was walking more fluidly and my legs didn’t feel like lead posts. Then when I got back home, I was much steadier on my feet and wasn’t experiencing freezing.

I was elated.

As you may know, dopamine is a neurotransmitter [chemical messenger] produced in the substantia nigra which is located in the mid-brain. It is involved in movement, motivation, the pursuit and achievement of goals, celebration, and apparently, when you receive good news. A lack of dopamine is thought to be the primary cause of the symptoms of Parkinson’s.

We all have a baseline level of dopamine that is maintained throughout the day, then when we have an experience, like achieving a goal, we get a temporary spike in dopamine followed by a crash as dopamine levels fall below baseline in order to maintain homeostasis. This maintenance of homeostasis is necessary to prevent a build-up of dopamine which could result in uncontrolled movements [bradykinesia], hallucinations or even schizophrenia. The level of baseline dopamine varies from person-to-person depending on personality and life experiences. The more optimistic we are, and the more positive our life experiences, the higher our baseline dopamine.

And this is my focus: raising baseline dopamine.

The dopamine boost lasted all day until I started stressing over when and how I was going to get to see everyone [trust is something I’m working on] and the inevitable ‘crash’ took place.

As I suspected, what I experienced from the birth of my grandson was a temporary dopamine boost, not a permanent baseline boost, but it was genuine, it lasted all day and it was awesome. It gives me encouragement for the emotional healing work I am doing in order to change my personality and outlook and raise my brain chemistry, especially, baseline dopamine.

Sep 21 2022

Living in Excellent Health #47 — We Have a Choice … Go for Recovery or Manage Symptoms!

neuroplasticity

After receiving a PD diagnosis, we are immediately faced with a decision, do we take medication or not: do we go for recovery or do we do our best to manage symptoms with medication? Actually, the decision is more likely to be, which medication do I take? You see, the medical community is convinced that the symptoms of PD are incurable, so they tend to advocate a medication-based, symptom management approach. But I’m guessing [based on my experience] that most people diagnosed with the symptoms of PD, are far too ill-informed to make a proper decision: We don’t know how dopamine works and we don’t know about the wear-off, withdrawal effect from the medication, among other things.

Because the medical community believes the symptoms of Parkinson’s are incurable, most people diagnosed with the condition tend to subscribe to the same belief. This is understandable. We put a lot of faith in the medical community. We trust them implicitly. We believe they are looking out for our best interests.

Once you decide to go down the medication path, turning back, is extremely difficult, if not impossible. Once your brain becomes reliant on the medication to produce dopamine … once you become addicted to the artificial approach … it is really difficult to retrain your brain to do it naturally. It certainly has been for me.

Another way to look at this medication versus no-medication decision, is to ask yourself, do you want to take responsibility for your own health and learn what you can about the condition in order to optimize your recovery potential, or do you want to give that responsibility to a system that knows only one approach.

The allopathic medical community knows very little about the effects of attitude, beliefs, diet, exercise, spiritual practice, dissolving fear, emotional healing, energy work and bodywork. Instead, their approach is to manage ever-worsening symptoms with ever-increasing amounts and types of medication … including medications to help minimize the side-effects of these medications … until such point as they become completely ineffective. In which case, you are then faced with a decision to opt for a nonconventional approach, such as, deep brain stimulation, focused ultrasound or stem cell therapy, all of which are very expensive, not guaranteed and with their own complications and side-effects.

A natural approach is no cakewalk either. Living with the myriad of symptoms is extremely challenging, particularly when you are also involved in emotional healing and the intense effect it has on these symptoms. Certainly, this has been my experience. My life has been a constant roller coaster of intense symptoms followed by an emotional healing or epiphany, followed by a brief improvement in symptoms, followed by a sudden intensification of symptoms as new emotional stuff comes up. And I don’t quite know how people with limited or no experience are going to cope with the ups and downs of emotional healing. I’ve been at it for almost 30 years, and I still don’t fully understand it.

Even though I chose to go on medication in 2018, I have still approached this health challenge, naturally. I exercise daily, eat healthy, meditate, see a chiropractor, practice qigong and continue to do emotional healing, pretty much on a daily basis, anticipating that at some point I am going to heal the issues that are at the root of my condition and that will lead to a break-through in my recovery.

Attempting to accomplish this, while also attempting to wean off medication has been extremely challenging. I have become dependent on, if not addicted to, levodopa and the few hours a day I am free of symptoms. I need and enjoy this time and I am reluctant to give it up.

And this brings me back to my original point. Do we go for recovery and the challenges this entails or do we focus on minimizing symptoms with medication? In my experience, medication interferes with recovery, so if recovery is the goal it is best to avoid medication. Otherwise, it is a personal choice. My choice was … and still is … to focus on recovery. My current challenge is to figure out how to get off the meds and still remain somewhat functional and productive. Presently, I have difficulty performing many tasks, including preparing a meal, when I’m off meds. Now that I understand dopamine homeostasis and dopamine wear-off withdrawal effect, I believe that in order to achieve recovery, I must wean-off the levodopa meds, first. But I’m still uncertain if I can accomplish this without first raising my baseline dopamine. It’s a conundrum and there is no playbook I can reference, so I’m gonna have to figure it out for myself.

It’s a challenge alright, but one that keeps me positively motivated and focused on recovery. This is a good thing!

Wishing you contentment!

Apr 21 2022

Living in Excellent Health #36 — Gratitude Manifesting and Positive Self-Image!

My recovery protocol is constantly evolving. My diet, supplements, exercise regimen, spiritual practice and healing focus, are ever changing, depending on what I feel is most important for restoring my health at a given point in time.

Lately I have been focusing on living with a positive, cheerful state of mind. I have also been focusing more so on manifesting what I want rather than healing what I have … what I don’t want. I have been doing so through daily expressions of gratitude.

That said, here are my daily gratitude expressions:

  1. Thank you so much for enabling me to live in excellent health
  2. Thank you so much for enabling me to return my body to homeostasis
  3. Thank you so much for enabling me to emanate divine love from every aspect of my being
  4. Thank you so much for enabling me to live my life in cheerful enthusiasm and awe
  5. Thank you so much for enabling me to live my life in divine trust
  6. Thank you so much for enabling me to trust and believe in myself
  7. Thank you so much for enabling me to live each moment of my life in a state of joy, simply for being and doing

I have also been focusing on developing a positive self-image through a technique I have been practicing after reading Wayne Dyer’s, Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life. I look in the mirror and repeat, “You are beautiful.” “You are a beautiful soul.” “You are a beautiful aspect of the Universal-Energetic-Intelligence.” “You are a beautiful participant in the flow of life.”

I believe this practice helps to stimulate the release of dopamine, serotonin, GABA and oxytocin, which is intended to raise my baseline dopamine levels.

Jun 23 2021

Living in Excellent Health #15 — Gut Health!

diet

I recently watched a video with Dr David Perlmutter, an American neurologist who is a prominent advocate for maintaining gut health in order to facilitate brain health. According to Perlmutter, there is a direct connection between gut biome health and the production of neurotransmitters in the brain.

Perlmutter’s assertion in regards to the direct connection between gut biome health and neurotransmitter health, re-enforces the need for those of us experiencing the symptoms of PD to eat healthy foods in order to live in excellent health.

While the medical community is still learning about the microbiome-gut-brain relationship, they do know that the gut is controlled by the Enteric Nervous System, which, like the brain, is made up of millions of neurons, and which is connected directly to the brain via the vagus nerve. Therefore, it is imperative that a healthy diet is part of our regimen to live in excellent health.

Whether your preference is a vegetarian, vegan, ketogenic, mediterranean, paleo or fruit diet, depends on your individual preference, but it is essential to eliminate junk food, fast food, refined sugar and artificial sweeteners, while minimizing processed foods, dairy, grains and alcohol, as they adversely affect gut health.

I have had to completely eliminate all forms of sugar [including fresh fruit] and alcohol. because even a small amount will result in me waking up the next morning feeling like I’ve got a bad hangover and worsened symptoms. Apparently, this happens because when you have PD, your body is coursing with cortisol, the stress hormone. Cortisol is an insulin suppressor. {Insulin is the enzyme that breaks down sugar. For this reason, I prefer the ketogenic diet. If you’re interested, check out my post on Diet, as part of the series on the 18 Things I’ve Learned from Living with the Symptoms of PD.

In addition to purifying our diet, it is essential that we eat fermented foods such as sauerkraut and kimchi. These foods are loaded with healthy bacteria. You might also wish to consider a good quality probiotic, but be careful because many of these products actually provide no nutritional value. I have no direct experience with probiotics … I prefer fermented foods … so I’m not able to make any recommendations on the best products.

I have written extensively on the need to restore gut health … along with strengthening the immune system, unclogging lymphatic system, eliminating inflammation and alkalining the body … in order to return the body to homeostasis. But a healthy, probiotic-rich diet goes beyond simply restoring homeostasis. It contributes directly to a healthy brain.

Jan 6 2021

Healing Parkinson’s Disease Naturally – A Journey of Love #82 – What I wish I had been told!

When I received my diagnosis in the fall of 2008, I knew very little and I was told very little about Parkinson’s disease. I was told that there were medications I could take and that exercise had proven to be beneficial. When I told the neurologist about my exercise regimen, he admitted that it was far superior to anything his clinic had to offer.

I wasn’t told that PD is a progressive, degenerative disease that is considered incurable. Nor was I told that it would affect me in forty different ways. I wasn’t told that it would take over my life and that it would be ever present, twenty-four hours a day. I wasn’t advised to take it seriously and to focus all my energy on everything I could do to slow its progress.

In 2018, when I found myself in a situation where I really had no choice but to go on medication, I wasn’t told about the various medications that are available, how they are used and how they work. I was simply put on Sinemet. I was briefed on its potential side-effects but I wasn’t told about the wear-off effect or the more challenging wear-off rebound effect.

It would’ve been very helpful if, when I had received my diagnosis that I had been given a booklet or a link to a website that contained all the information I would need to know about what to expect and what people were doing to manage and overcome the symptoms of Parkinson’s.

Instead, I’ve had to learn all this myself, mostly through direct experience, and it is taken me a long time to do so. In fact, twelve years after diagnosis, I’m still learning.

Don’t get me wrong, I love learning and I love sharing what I’ve learned. It’s why I blog and it’s why I created the document on My Protocol and the document on the 18 Things I’ve Learned Living with the Symptoms of PD.

I also love that we now have Facebook and YouTube where people all over the world can conduct research, connect with others and share experiences.

I understand that the medical community doesn’t believe recovery is possible and that the best way to manage the symptoms is with medication. I also understand that they believe those who claim to have recovered their health were misdiagnosed or haven’t actually fully recovered. As the neurologist I used to see once said to me, that’s how I’ve been trained.

Still, it would be nice if the medical community would get on board and be more open and helpful in ensuring their patients are well informed on all allopathic and non-allopathic treatment protocols. Judging by the questions and comments I see, particularly on Facebook, people could benefit from more information on diet, homeostasis, exercise, bodywork, meditation, qigong, de-stressing, the role of unresolved emotional trauma, cbd oil, etc. They could also use more information on the role of attitude and beliefs, particularly in regards to overcoming anxiety and depression.

One of the challenges we face is that there is no one-size-fits-all particularly in regards to the symptoms and severity of symptoms people experience and their response to various therapies. Also, what works for one person may not work for the next. For example, a lot of people, including me, prefer a high fat diet, whereas many others do better with a vegetarian diet. As well, what any one person needs may not be the same as others. For example, I benefit enormously from chiropractic treatments, but not everyone needs to see a chiropractor. At least though, people could have easier access to information so they would know what is available in order to make a more informed decision.

As I said at the outset, it would have been extremely beneficial if I had received a booklet or direction to a website with all the pertinent information that would have helped me circumvent twelve years of research, experience and trial and error. In the meantime, hopefully the experience I’ve gained and the documents I’ve compiled are helpful to you.

May you be healthy and content!

Aug 5 2020

Healing Parkinson’s Disease Naturally – A Journey of Love #61 … 18 Things You Need to Know About Living with the Symptoms of PD — Detoxification!

detoxThis post is the tenth of the 18 things you need to know about living with the symptoms of PD.

It is believed that chemical toxicity is a leading factor in the development of the symptoms of PD and therefore, detoxification is an essential element of any recovery protocol. There are four levels of detoxification that must be addressed to promote full recovery. They include detoxing our:

  1. Physical body
  2. Thoughts
  3. Emotions
  4. Chi

Continue reading →

Jul 27 2020

Healing Parkinson’s Disease Naturally – A Journey of Love #60 … 18 Things You Need to Know About Living with the Symptoms of PD — Healthy Diet!

dietThis post is the ninth of the 18 things you need to know about living with the symptoms of PD.

I have written extensively about my diet because it is really important and it has been a bit of a moving target. As a whole, my diet has been comparatively healthy for over 30 years due to food intolerances and migraine headaches.

Continue reading →

Jun 21 2020

Healing Parkinson’s Disease Naturally – A Journey of Love #55 … 18 Things You Need to Know About Living with the Symptoms of PD — Homeostasis!

thermometerHomeostasis is item #4 of the 18 things you need to know about living with the symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease.

Although this post is mainly about returning the body to homeostasis, I’m also going to touch on raising our vibrational frequency and weaning off medication, because they are intrinsincly linked.

Continue reading →