Yesterday, 10th October, the Community Physiotherapist, Alan, visited to see what help could be arranged for me. He asked lots of questions and observed me walking and going up and down the stairs at home.
Talking everything through with him was very helpful and my wife thought the visit was worthwhile too. He even offered to provide me with a walking stick in “case of wobbles” I DON’T THINK SO!
He gave me a set of exercises to follow to strengthen my muscles plus an exercise DVD from the Parkinson’s Society and lots of useful information to read through.
My Parkinson’s and Driving
The Consultant Neurologist had told me that I needed to inform the DVLA and car insurance as there is a mandatory requirement to do so. Having been in touch both of them, my car insurer said they had no concerns as long as the DVLA placed no restrictions on my driving.
The DVLA sent me a form to fill in about my condition and giving them permission to access my medical records. Needless to say, if I didn’t respond and send my licence to them within 21 days they threatened to cancel my licence altogether. I returned the form quickly and got a response saying it could be six weeks before they could finalise their investigation.However, as expected it happened a bit quicker and my licence was returned with a 3 year restriction placed on it, which of course means going through it again in 3 years – fair enough though.
My wife and I felt like we needed a holiday, so we rented a detached house near Weymouth for a week and had a relaxing break. We switched off and enjoyed walking by the coast and some good meals out. We walked around 5 miles each day on average and the scenery is beautiful so we did not think about my results until the journey home.
Although we were quite active, my gait had no showed any signs of improvement, and we both thought that the pramipexole was doing absolutely nothing for me so I decided to cut back on.the dose again. Partly because I forgot the middle one on the way home, on Saturday, I’m now taking 2 a day, one in the morning and one at night and feeling no difference.