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How Did I Survive With Parkinson's Disease in the Process of a DBS ?
How Did I Survive With Parkinson's Disease in the Process of a DBS ?

How Did I Survive With Parkinson's Disease in the Process of a DBS ?

papin49Roberto Perez

How Did I Survive With Parkinson’s Disease In The Process Of A Deep Brain Stimulation Operation?

At the age of thirty - eight years old – I started facing problems with Parkinson’s disease. Parkinson’s Disease is a neurodegenerative disease that causes many different living difficulties. Such as Tremor, rigidity, slowness, stiffness, body aches, muscle pain, stress, bad mood, intolerance, depression, etc.

parkinson's disease scholars in the united states, have agreed that the majority of people affected by Parkinson's disease have been involved in farm work or areas where pesticides were used to grow some kinds of vegetables or have fumigated it or have been close where herbicides have been used to kill weeds. that's my case, since I was twelve years old, i started working in vegetable crops, directly fumigating herbicides to kill weeds. i'm sure that this activity was the cause of my misfortune because there is not history of this terrible disease in all my families.

In addition to this fact, is the problem that there are countries where that disease is unknown whatsoever.
At that moment, I started visiting different doctors' offices because I didn’t have the faintest idea about what I was starting to face; I was only facing a mild slowness on my right side which would increase gradually to the extent that medications wouldn’t work...
My first and the only medication I used and I keep using now is Sinemet (Carbidopa/Levodopa.)
This disease acts differently for different people; one of my problems was that at first I didn’t know anything about that, and the doctor didn’t explain it clearly enough to me in the order for I could understand the medication’s side effects. When I took Sinemet for the first time, I stayed in bed a whole day, I was very dizzy and I started throwing up.
The next day I tried It again and the side effects were worse than the first day of taking Sinemet. I decided to quit it immediately because I couldn’t tolerate It – I thought I would die because of that. It was the big mistake I've ever made, the disease kept showing new effects on my right side to the extreme that I couldn't use my right arm or write anymore. That was in 2008. I was not taking any medication by 2010, my body was shaking a lot, and my head was making me crazy with all the wiggling and jerking caused by the medication's side effects.
In 2011, I came to the united states of America; by that time, my stepdaughter, met a friend who was facing the same problem but he was only shaking a little bit. He was almost under control. She set to meet him at a restaurant in the order we meet there and talk about the common problem we have and how he could get so controlled of all the shaking he had faced before.
His first advice was to take the medication on the dosage and the time set out by the Doctor, every day at the same time; it was mandatory in order to get controlled.
After meeting that guy, I started putting into action all that he advised me. And let me tell you, it worked well for a couple of years.
After five years of taking Sinemet in that order, at first I took half a pill, after that, half a pill was not working, then I took one, then two, then three*** Every three hours. By that time my doctor told me: “you are a good candidate for DBS. surgery” because I was taking so many pills and my disease was increasing too fast; I wasn’t feeling the expected effect by that time. In degenerative diseases, the symptoms get worse day after day.
I asked him if it was possible to increase the pill mg. instead of increasing the amount of pill per hour.
His answer was: '' no. '' I was taking four pills of 25/100 mg every five hours.
After agreeing to go through the DEEP BRAIN STIMULATION at the age of 46 – my life changed considerably. It was as if I was born again.
I underwent six incisions on my head and chest; Four on my head and two on my chest. The ones in my chest were only to place the pulse Generator, every Thursday in April 2017, Every week I was ready to go to the surgery room till to the end of that month. Doctors drilled my skull to introduce the lead very deep in my brain to place the two electrodes in the thalamic area, that way they'll control the shaking. They underwent all that process with the patient awake.

It was a very scary situation because of the group of doctors moving around and the noisy drill on my head – almost everything is performed while the patient is aware of everything happening around him. But the worst thing I can say was the placement of a frame In my head – that's the frame where all the operational logistics Are performed; Every Deep Brain Stimulation surgery must be accurate by about 95 percent to be successful. so, everything must be steady without any movement whatsoever.

Now I’m like a new person. Not shaking at all or slowness, stiffness. on my right side.

The doctor decided to work on both sides of my head to prevent the left side started getting problems after we were already done with the right side. I agreed with that, but now – I feel a little slowness and stiffness on the left side – So, what I do is to go to my doctor's office to set the system to a higher level of strength and that‘s it.
On April 19/2019, two years after that big operation, I feel happy to have had the decision and determination of going through that.
Only the almighty God helped my doctor to go so well without any inconvenience in all that process during that operation. I set everything in God's hand and I assure you that I didn’t get High blood pressure during any of the six operations.
I only have to say every day, thank God forever.

Author Notes: Almighty God is the one who makes possible what seems to be impossible.

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papin49
Roberto Perez
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19 Apr, 2019
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