A conversation with N, a friend of mine and patient of Parkinson

“A conversation with N, a friend of mine and patient of Parkinson

“Nothing in life is to be feared,
it is only to be understood.
Now is the time to understand more,
so that we may fear less”.
Marie Curie

 

A mutual friend explains me by phone and in summary the case of N and she asked me out for coffee home and to talk to her, because she had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease long time ago and she was very worried and depressed.

Shy and retiring, I was greeted rather coldly. We sat and talked about some irrelevant issues to ease the tension. I thought that I must first win her trust.

N. was a retired officer, about 70 years and she was overwhelmed by parkinsonian symptoms. They are beginning to show their true face and also she felt her neurologist didn´t understand nor paid attention, etc.

First of all I made it clear I was not a doctor and that's what was going to tell him it was the result of my experience as a caregiver for the past 10 years of my father's life. I was talking about the trauma of diagnosis, the fear of the future, the fear to lose work, family and friends, lack of empathy with your doctor, etc., and she was nodding almost all these things that I mentioned. She recognized them as her own.

I told her about the case of “healing” of a woman named “Fátima” in a book of the neurologist Dr. Rafael Gonzalez Maldonado (we had taken as a real case, being actually a fictionalized reconstruction from several clinical cases), the case of Dr. Mark Peter Hurni, alleged cases of "self-healing" (Annetta Freeman, Howard Shifke, John Pepper), paradoxical kinesia, the amazing momentary health improvement of my father for a few minutes in 2010, the hope produced by the hundreds of millions of dollars that the Michael J. Fox Foundation collected for research studies, the spectacular videos of doctors Birkmayer and Permultter, the video of the blue glasses to control terrible dyskinesias caused by the medication in a patient, etc.

Once our friend and hostess left the living room to bring us something from the kitchen, I told her that there were many reasons for hope, that I would print her the scientific studies she wanted and I would teach her videos of those famous neurologists with the spectacular results (intravenous glutathione therapy with Dr. Perlmutter and intravenous NADH therapy with Dr. Birkmayer).

She began to mourn.
I imagine that the view of everything, unknown until then, was really difficult emotionally.

I explained her what my father and I were lost and confused so many years, that there was an official orthodox Neurology, which had advanced a lot, but not enough for the patients and their families (my father and I felt it in this way and also many others we talk to), but that there was another Neurology as scientific or more than the previous one, but that it looked for other ways. Sometimes the same neurologist had gone through two phases, such as Walther Birkmayer, firstly one of the “fathers” of levodopa and later one of the greatest "heretics" in the Parkinson world by proposing NADH (a form of vitamin B3) as an alternative and/or complement to the almost sacred "Levodopa". This "other Neurology" remained outside the official channels because, in our opinion, it had not yet been allowed to show its results in the daily clinic.

I recommended her that she buy the first two books of neurologist doctor Gonzalez Maldonado and even she go to his office in Granada (Spain), if possible.

I told her that Genetics, drugs and surgery had limitations, I told her about the importance of "antiparkinsonian" foods, the importance of the Sun and vitamin D, involved in 33 diseases and thousands of genes, the need for a physical activity as intense as possible approved by her neurologist and adapted to her personal circumstances, changing emotions, laughing, crying, getting angry, putting on music throughout the day ... imagining a weighing scale with a positive cymbal and another negative. In the first one she had to accumulate all the factors against Parkinson's disease that she could. In the second, she had to eliminte from her life all the possible factors that are believed to favor the disease. Tens, hundreds. And always consult everything with the neurologist. If it did not hurt you, go ahead. Wisely, but with perseverance.

The farewell was very different from what happened just an hour and a half before. She hugged me and gave me two kisses. She whispered: "Thank you, you've given me the courage to live and fight".

Now N. was much less shaking, his face was more expressive and she smiled.
That was one of the most enriching experiences in recent years.”


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Note in October 2020:
Before publishing this text again, written sometime between 2012 and 2014, I had mixed feelings. On the one hand, sadness and anger for not knowing more then to be able to help her more. And on the other hand, a deep joy, when I realized that the years of effort and the thousands of hours dedicated to searching and reading, sharing and enriching myself in the chat of our community, have borne fruit: we now know a hundred times more than 6 or 7 years ago.
 

Autopsies tell us the secrets of Parkinson's...

The brains of Parkinson's patients tell us the secrets of the disease at autopsy... 

 

"How much truth can a man bear?

Error is not blindness, error is cowardice". 

Friedrich Nietzsche

 

What Parkinson's screams at us in autopsy, once we cross the last border. The same thing prevents the disease, controls the symptoms, slows its progression... It's the same thing! There are hardly any differences, except for nuances. It is the final scene of a drama that lasts a lifetime: oxidation, inflammation... vulnerable points that are not reinforced... 

The panorama, like battlefields or cities destroyed by war... 

 

 

For 50 years we have walked lost through the Parkinsonian maze without knowing where we were or why we were locked up there. But that has changed thanks to the increasingly luminous and enlightening books and studies of dozens, hundreds of brilliant and courageous neurologists, as well as other neuroscience experts (Ahlskog, Coimbra, Shults, Birkmayer, Karobath, Suzuki, Monti, Perlmutter, Sechi, González Maldonado, Marjama Lyons, Mandel, Hurni, Braak, Fahn, etc.) Hundreds of old studies (Jenner, McGeer, Mattson, Coimbra, Powers...) tell us what Parkinson's is and thousands of more recent studies (Alberts, Suzuki, Marashly, Monti, Schaeffner...) show us everything we need to have a fairly clear view of the puzzle solved, although still with our eyes slightly closed. Important details are missing, but the essential is already known. As long as we do not turn our backs on Nature and leave aside our arrogance to recognize that we had entered "the world of Parkinson's" in a block in a dead end or also endless (we could continue on the current path 100 or 200 years without finding anything significant to improve the daily life of patients and family caregivers. I would bet my life on it).

The last frontier to which I refer in the title is death. The autopsies they have done on the brains of deceased Parkinson's patients not only confirm everything we already know, but seem to point us in the same direction. And they have recently been confirmed with brain-scanning techniques when the patients are still alive. The studies that have been carried out "post mortem" tell us that in the brains of Parkinsonians there was (especially in the famous and vulnerable "sustantia nigra") a brutal oxidation and inflammation, as well as an alteration of everything: mitochondria, glutathione, coenzyme Q10, NADH, etc. Multiple factors, multiple deficiencies. A growing chaos over the years because it is not corrected, but rather gasoline is poured into the fire: 

 

1) many traces point to an intense OXIDATION (Jenner already said it since 1992), that's why so many antioxidants prevent the disease and slow down or reduce the severity of the symptoms (folate or vitamin B9 prevents Parkinson's by 49% and regulates the severity of the symptoms by reducing the level of the neurotoxic and still underestimated homocysteine); 

 

 2) very clear signs of NEUROINFLAMATION (as indicated by McGeer, a world-renowned neurologist on Alzheimer's disease) The traces of this inflammation are the activation of microglia and the remains of pro-inflammatory molecules: cytokines, interleukin, etc (Block 2007, McGeer 2008). Those who have taken non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as aspirin prevent Parkinson's by 46%, as well as natural anti-inflammatory drugs such as ginger, curcumin (which crosses the barrier that protects the brain), the polyphenols of green tea, the omega 3 DHA (Yamamoto 2005, 47% less dementia according to Schaeffer 2006), etc. Alpha-synuclein plays an important role in this inflammation (Zhang 2005, Lee 2008, Reynolds 2008, Su 2009). Magnesium and green tea protect the nervous system and prevent the aggregation of both iron- and spontaneously produced alpha-synuclein (Golts 2002); 

 

3) neurotoxic accumulations of IRON (Antonini 1993) and ALUMINIUM (Yasui 1992). Possibly the lack of essential vitamins to correctly metabolize iron - such as riboflavin - produce these accumulations. Green tea and alpha lipoic acid are chelators (antidotes, eliminators) of iron (Koonyosying 2018, Tai 2020). Autopsies or laser analyzers detect accumulations of iron in the brain, especially in the basal ganglia and substantia nigra (Dexter 1991, 1992, Good 1992, Linert 2000). The iron produces a greater oxidation that feeds back and enters a vicious circle that would explain the progressive worsening of the disease (Linert 2000). In parkinsonian autopsies there are aluminum deposits in the basal ganglia and gray substance (Perl 1982, Yasui 1991, 1992). Its "antidote" or chelator is magnesium, so deficient in the current average westernized diet and so worn out by the stress of modern life (magnesium is the anti-stress mineral that regulates the necessary and dangerous cortisol), that aluminum and other heavy metals ravage the brain. Turmeric is also a lethal enemy of aluminum (Laabdar 2016). 

 

4) an almost total lack of GLUTATHION (Perry 1982, 1986, Pearce 1997, Sian 1994, Arakawa 2007), the main antioxidant of "sustantia nigra". It is not rare, since in the advanced stages of the disease there is only 2% left (Adams 1991). Vitamin C is the most important external antioxidant to protect the neurons of the hydroxyl groups, so linked to Parkinson's. To cross the blood-brain barrier as if it were glucose, the membrane of the neuron and that of the mitochondria is converted into dehydroascorbic acid (the oxidized form of the prodigious vitamin C) that would have to be brought back to life - reduced - by glutathione. But there is a serious problem: there is hardly any left. In autopsies, no trace of glutathione has been found in the substantiantia nigra; 

 

5) And pathologists see the brain of Parkinson's patients as an old battlefield: damage to mitochondria in complex I of cellular respiration (Parker 2008); Lewy bodies and alterations of alpha-synuclein (Zhang 2005, Lee 2008, Reynolds 2008, Su 2009), etc. 

 

The "father" of modern medicine, Dr. William Osler referred to Parkinson's more than a century ago as an accelerated aging of the brain. In another powerful image, someone spoke as if the brain was on fire and had to be "put out" with antioxidants and anti-inflammatories (Wang 2006, Sanders 2013), liver protectors (Lombard, Marjama Lyons), probiotics for the "second brain" (Gershon, Bercik, Tillish, Scheperjans)... 

 

I recommend watching the documentary "The Mystery of Alzheimer's", available in Spanish on Youtube. And read a lot between the lines or watch between the frames... because the world around Alzheimer's and Parkinson's is very similar. 

 

The brains of Parkinson's patients in autopsies are destroyed like an old battlefield, like a ravaged city. But as the scientific police, as detectives, we are reconstructing what has happened... so we will know how to avoid it. But with the "weapons" of Nature (EGCG, allicin, quercetin, resveratrol, curcumin, magnesium, melatonin...). 

 

NOTE: This is a draft I am working on now for the book. I am sharing it with you because I am touching the target with my fingers. This is what I mean when I ask for your help so as not to postpone it now for material reasons or not to go all the way because of lack of books and sufficient medical journal studies. You see how everything in the world of Parkinson's screams out to us: it's the vitamins, minerals and trace elements, phytochemicals, fats, etc.! I hope to be able to convey the passion with which I live what I am looking for and finding. Not only do we see on the floor of the labyrinth the clues that the wise men left us (Karobath, Sacks, Birkmayer, Riederer, Jenner, Mattson...), but the labyrinth itself speaks to us of the same thing: when everyone is silent, the child shouts: But the emperor is naked! As it happened to me in 2015, I already have "the whole book in my head". There's no going back until it's out, written and laid out. 

"Some things from the past are gone 

but others open a gap to the future 

 and they are the ones I want to rescue." 

 Mario Benedetti