I’m pretty sure I have Parkinson’s Disease

Symptoms
#1

I’ll just cut right to the symptoms:
-Twitching in one hand for a week. Usually my right hand, although yesterday it was my left for a bit. It’ll be only in one finger at a time. If it’s not twitching then the finger will feel sore and stiff.
-Only able to sleep for 6 hours. I wake up early and cannot fall back asleep no matter how hard I try or how long I lay with my eyes closed. It’s been bad this week but I’ve been having sleeping difficulties for the past year, just not this bad until recently.
-Muscle fatigue. I woke up this morning to sore, tired arms. It feels like I just finished a workout lifting dumbbells even though I’ve been asleep for 6 hours.
-Gastroparesis. For a while I thought I had Diabetes because I had an episode where I could taste sweetness on my breath. Would feel nauseous after eating, faint, dizzy. Decided to fast for a day and it got better. But I’m wondering if my vagus nerve is damaged from Parkinson’s which could cause a buildup of sugar in my stomach would could lead to a sugar rush.
-Bowel issues. I used to have fast moving bowels that would completely empty for most of my life. My dad is the same. It was sort of a joke in our family. A few years ago, that ended. Now they’re slow moving and I have to push hard to empty, and it still doesn’t feel like I’ve fully emptied.
-Depression. I’ve had it for who knows how long (years?) But it feels different lately. I can’t even cry like I used to. Emotionally flat. Feels like I have no dopamine. Don’t derive the same enjoyment from a video game now as i did only 1.5 years ago. So something has changed.
-Exercise fatigue. I used to be somewhat of an avid weightlifter. Could go for 1.5 hours and feel good. 2 ish years ago, I couldn’t get going. My body felt lethargic. I had to put in say 1.5 times the effort to lift the same amount of weight and do the same routine. My body just couldn’t step it up, or could but with a lot of effort. Eventually I just gave up. However, lately I’ve been running. It started out well but because I can’t sleep well it’s getting harder.
-My body twitches a lot in general. Last night when I was trying to sleep I could feel a twitch somewhere (not all places at once). Left foot, left calf, near my rib, neck, a hand.
-Occasional difficulty swallowing. Have had this for a couple of years, but it’s been worse the past year and more frequent. Feels like food sometimes just slowly slides down. Have to drink some water to help it, but not too much or I’ll feel like I’m suffocating.
-Low libido. Huge loss in sexual activity for the last 6 months. Unusual for me as I’m 26 and seemed to not have sexual sides very bad compared to most users here.
-Weight loss. Los about 10-15 pounds for no obvious reason a few years ago.
-Forgetful. Hmm, what was I going to say? Oh yeah, memory is bad, especially short term. Very unusual for me. Most of my life I had very good memory. Tested 94th percentile on working memory on a WAIS-IV IQ test three years ago. As a teen if I knew I had to wake at a certain time sometimes I would wake up 1-2 minutes before my alarm clock would go off. Now the past year, I’ll sit down at the computer to google something but immediately forget. Very abnormal for me.
-Urinary issues: Frequent urination, can’t hold urine very well, have to get up at night to pee. This was one of the first symptoms I had. Have had it for almost five years. It actually started while I was still on fin. (EDIT #1)
-Acid reflux: I’ve had this as young as 19, as the years have gone by it’s become more frequent and more intense. At this point it occurs weekly, usually after eating and once I get into bed. This could again be related to gastroparesis, whereby my vagus nerve isn’t functioning properly. Also a symptom of Parkinson’s. (EDIT #3).

I’ve probably forgotten a few symptoms so if I think of any more I’ll add them.

Some info about me: 26 year old Caucasian male. 5’8” ~145 pounds. Took finasteride 1.25 mg everyday from start of 2016 until halfway through 2017, 1.5 years total. Been off for almost 4 years.

My theory as to what’s happened: Fin (or the cessation of taking fin) at some point damaged my stomach/bowel muscles through some unknown process (DNA damage? Hormone imbalance?), which cause a buildup of bacteria in my gut. Over time, this bacteria made its way to my brain OR some other area of my body and damaged and killed my Central Nervous System cells, which is what Parkinson’s is. Here’s an article that supports the latter part of my theory:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41531-021-00156-z

Please pray for me if you can. I really fear I’m nearing the end here. I just don’t understand why millions of men have taken Finasteride but don’t have these symptoms. Did I have Parkinson’s all along and fin just exacerbated it? Or did fin really cause it through some unknown process? I’m going to try to fall back asleep now, but I doubt I’ll be able to.

Thanks for reading if you did.

EDIT #2: I’m sure if you read through my post history you’ll think I’m a hypochondriac. I’ve made a fair number of posts before saying I have this or I have that, and I’ve been wrong usually. But, you’ll just have to take me on my word when I list my symptoms, and if you look up Parkinson’s you’ll see a lot of overlap. Even right now, as I sit here typing this, my fingers are jittery. Like, I don’t have the pinpoint accuracy I used to have. I go to hit a certain key but my finger moves a bit and I mistype. If it’s not Parkinson’s then I guess it’s PFS.

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#2

Why dont you just go to a doctor before pulling conclusions? Im pretty sure parkinson easily can be diagnosed.

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#3

i’m trying to wait it out a bit, hoping it’ll go away. i’ve already seen my doctor a couple times this year, i don’t want to bug him again.

#4

You have enough neurological symptoms at a young enough age to justify your concerns and feeling ok about asking your doctor straight out about Parkinson’s. Your not a hypochondriac. Anyone who gets the symptoms you described would be concerned

Once Parkinson’s progress’s to the point of the disease where it starts causing these types of issues it’s usually diagnosable.

I get many of these sides especially the feeling like body no longer moves bowels properly . I do get twitching but minor and not as often as the way you describe and only when I’m falling asleep which is pretty normal. I can also only sleep for 6 hrs at a time. But when I awaken I’m still able to get in and out sleep for another hour or 2.

I believe that there is something wrong with neurotransmitters. Not sure if it’s actual Parkinson’s but i do agree with you that you are thinking along the correct lines

I look at it like if it is early onset Parkinson’s disease I’m guaranteed to get it diagnosed eventually and die from it eventually. Knowing these guarantees that come along with if it ends up being Parkinson’s brings me peace thinking about it. It’s better then “mysteriously” not being completely healthy and having strange PFS type sides until I’m 70 something years old .

I’m 36 and in the next few years I’ll make sure I reside in a death with dignity state so that if I do get diagnosed with Parkinson’s in the coming years I’ll hope that the doc is willing to write me off as a 6 month or less years to live case so I’ll be eligible for assisted ending of life. I have completely come to terms with the possibility of the worst of ending of this chapter for myself. No fear .No regrets. I’ll try to recover and not assume the worst but I’m also mentally prepared for the worst. Prepare for the worst hope for the best

#5

Thank you for the reply. I’m going to try to wait a bit and see if things get worse. If they do, I’ll phone my doctor. How do you prepare for death though? I want to keep living still. I love my parents and I want to try to make something of myself in this life. I don’t want to die yet. How have you mentally prepared yourself?

#6

I got all the same symptoms to include muscles that randomly pop like popcorn, usually when warm or after exercise. The neurologist told me it’s not Parkinson’s or MS disease. Check with a neurologist.

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#7

I have these too as well as other Parkinson like symptoms neurologist performed basic tests and told me I didn’t have Parkinson’s or any other neurological condition. His advice was to stay off on line forums the complete tool.

#8

Well I think odds are in my opinion if it is neurotransmitter and neurotransmitter receptor related it’s probable just more of a generalized imbalance and not the early stages of Parkinson’s. So first I would not live every day thinking that there is a 70 percent chance you have early on set Parkinson’s and will be getting diagnosed with Parkinson’s. Realistically it’s probable the other way around and there is a 70 percent chance you don’t have Parkinson’s. So first things first understand that

Secondly, if it is the case that we were pre disposed to it if messing with neurosteriods sped up the progression of the disease there is very little we can do about it. At that point death is better then suffering. Because it would only get worse for us then better. Again odds are we probably don’t have it and I’m basing the theory off of a few dots I’m connecting

Thread on this forum from wife of guy in his late forties who took fin, sounds as if he got PFS to a certain degree and then got diagnosed with Parkinson’s

Thread on this forum from guy who had some kind of neurologist/functional health doctor tell him that based on his symptoms that his neurotransmitters were imbalanced. Then doctor put him on this kinda sketchy sounding neurotransmitter balancing protocol which never cured him but substantially impacted his condition

My own experience with trying to adjust neurotransmitters based off the amount of neurotransmitters in my urine. I mean all I’m doing is taking naturally occurring amino acids that make neurotransmitters in the body and I’m just seeing insanely crazy things happen. Like one time I take amino acids and crash into crazy PFS onset level insomnia.

I take different amino acids and recover from a majority of the relapse insomnia

I go on specific amino acids and cure my 7 years worth of Saw P induced constipation. Three times now going on fourth time of reintroducing specific amino acids and my constipation goes away like 90 percent of it. Just so you know I got the constipation so bad that I had to push and strain so bad that I herniated a disk in my lower back and ended up in years of pain from that. I recovered from that with injections, PT and surgery. So most of that pain is gone and as long as I don’t re herniate the disk again I’m good. Just two days ago I was off the constipation amino acids I will call them for about 20 days and I could start to feel the constipation discomfort in my gut again. It got to the point two days ago that I had a painful bowel movement that I could feel from the straining that it put a lot of pressure on my damaged l4/l5 disk in my lower back. So I went back on the specific amino acids and 12 hrs later yesterday I had a perfect bowel movement with no straining. The aminos I’m
taking may take 10- twelve hours to convert to their target neurotransmitter. Prior to this time the last time same thing. Started to feel constipated that time after 14 days of being off the constipation amino acids reintroduced and 10 hrs later complete relief of the constipation

But every time I fix one area with specific aminos another area seems to worsen. So this all seems like to me that yea my neurotransmitters are messed up and they can’t be balanced. So not conclusive evidence here . But connecting these bits of info the available info that we have it does sound like a failure of neurotransmitters. Parkinson’s appears to be based off what’s currently known an issue with dopamine receptors. But with neurotransmitters one impacts the other. So I guess my point is that an imbalance of neurotransmitters which I think I’m suffering from not involving Parkinson’s in theory could cause similar symptoms of early on set Parkinson’s . And with Parkinson’s like I said before we won’t have to guess for ever because eventually it will get bad enough to the point that you get diagnosed with it and guessing is no longer required. In other words it’s either Parkinson’s or it’s not

How to deal with the prospect of Parkinson’s and the horrible prognosis from it. With the amount of pain I have already been through because of this if it ends up being Parkinson’s it would be a relief in the regard that the sooner the better. Overall I feel pretty good right now . healthy actually minus the sexual sides. But if it ends up being Parkinson’s I just want it to be as fast and painless as possible. Don’t want to suffer anymore . So death is a much much better option then more pain and suffering

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#9

Forgive me if I sound stupid for saying this, but I just don’t understand why our bodies cannot just fix this issue itself by making necessary adjustments. I mean I’ve read stories where people have had heart attacks and their bodies created new veins around the blockages. It’s not like the body is stupid, it knows how to heal itself. I understand having side effects from a drug for some time after cessation, but years after? It just makes no sense to me. Only thing I can think of is that whatever drug(s) we’ve taken, it’s clearly caused a permanent change to some part of our body, probably DNA. It’s like our bodies have been re-coded. Or we already had a problem before and taking whatever drug we took exacerbated it.

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