Do you have mercury fillings? Would you consider having them removed?

[Bob Hodgson]

I have been slowly replacing the mercury fillings and I only have two more to replace. VERY IMPORTANT that you use a dentist that knows how to safely remove the mercury so you don’t ingest or breathe the mercury during extraction.

[Deleted User]

hi Bob, do you think the removal has helped your symptoms or possibly slowed your progression?Was it expensive?  Was it painful?

[Bob Hodgson]

I have been slowly replacing the mercury fillings and I only have two more to replace. VERY IMPORTANT that you use a dentist that knows how to safely remove the mercury so you don’t ingest or breathe the mercury during extraction.

[Bob Hodgson]

Most of my mercury fillings were replaced when I had dental crowns installed to repair a crack in my tooth. I have one more crown needed and one replacement filling to go.

I’m not adverse to treatment from the dentist and have not found the process any different then having a normal filling. The cost for a porcelain filling is slightly more expensive then a standard amalgam filling.

Fortunately I do so many things to help recover from this disease that its difficult to determine a direct correlation to symptomatic improvements.

[Deleted User]

thanks for your feedback.   you are so right, it is difficult to tell what works for us and what doesnt…  is it a good PD day, is it what I ate or when I ate in conjunction with taking my meds, did i exercise too much  or not enough and on and on….

[Bob Hodgson]

My philosophy is to live a generally healthy active life style, diet, exercise, supplements, etc. My hope is that something that I do will minimize my symptoms. To date the most dramatic improvements occurred after I started running 4-5 times per week. I can’t seem to find much research on the impact of running in reducing PD symptoms.

[Carole]

Hi Bob,

I have just watched a TEDx talk by Neal Barnard (TEDx Bismarck:  “Power Foods For The Brain”) and he convincingly shows that more importantly than genetics,  avoiding certain fats significantly reduces incidence of dementia. Then, at 14.45 minutes into his 17 minute talk, he says that brisk walking for 45 minutes 2 to 3 times a week dramatically improves dementia and actually changes the brain,  He had explained about the build-up of substances in the brain (that sounded similar to those in PD, ie amaloyd plaques or lewy bodies?) His talk does not explain HOW the exercise works but he does have evidence that it works. So that might reinforce your own authentic experience, because if dementia and PD share any similarities ie if they both share amaloyd plaque build up, then it is possible that both conditions might benefit from excercise for the same reasons, whatever the reason is.

I suspect that if PD has progressed to make excercise difficult, it might be a big ask to sugggest exercise but it sounds worth trying if it is still possible, even just to ward off dementia.

Then in a recent newspaper headline one woman had apparently recovered from dementia by eating blueberries, walnuts and exercising, after her son learned that a particular culture did not get dementia.  I remember wondering whether her exercise was simply increasing oxygen to the brain ie maybe helping vascular denentia and whether that culture just didn’t eat processed foods.

Maybe excercise’s increased pulse or blood-flow does something to the brain or maybe builds the nerves/muscles that cures or compensates?

I have read/watched so many articles/books/online talks that all seem related, about potential cures for brain-related conditions:

Cannabid oil stimulating brain repair after TBI (traumatic brain injury)

Sweet bell peppers providing nicotine instead of smoking to protect against PD

Cilantro (coriander) was recently found to remove toxic metals from the body and I think I read that copper iron or zinc might be factors? I’m not sure if it would remove mercury from the brain.

(Would anti-smoking nicotine patches work as a protective strategy?)

I even read of ONE man who had a fecal implant which allegedly reversed his PD symptoms.(I read that in a book so could trace it I hope)

I am new to this site and all of the above is stuff I picked up from various online sites, so would need to trace it for you if necessary. One TED talk about ADHD, dopamine and fruit flies, mentioned the dopamine factor in adhd as well as in PD.  This alarmed me as I was researching ADHD and we had a fatal PD type illness in our family, as well as current ADHD. A quick google seemed to reflect that medicated ADHD sufferers are 8 to 9 times more likely to develop PD. As I now believe both run in my family I am now reading all I can about both.

If you are able to enlighten me on any of the above topics I would be really interested as you have probably researched many similar topics already. I am simply googling and joining dots across the unrelated articles which do seem to echo each other, except for nuts being either good or bad.

[Deleted User]

Excellent approach Bob.   I think any type of exercise that gets your heart rate going or has you move and elongate like yoga and Pilates  (probably both types of exercise) is good for Pd symptoms and slowing its progression.

[Deleted User]

carole, thanks for documenting your findings.  i think we are all searching for the holy grail to cure this disease. Our symptoms are all so different and remedies may work for some and not others. My thoughts are that the holy grail for those of us with PD is diet and exercise. Eating well; plant based meaning no dairy, no meat, no processed foods, no or minimal added sugar and gluten free are important.  A balanced exercise program  that includes cardio, flexibility and strength training is critical.  A good diet and exercise program cannot hurt.

 

[Carole]

Hello Jean,
Thank-you so much for your kind reply. I bought several books about brain health when 3 elderly relatives were each in hospital in the same year for different brain related reasons (vascular dementia, PD type illness (MSA; it is like PD but was on both sides of the body) and brain injury). Then I recently researched various autism spectrum conditions so I only have a rough overview but noticed many over-lapping themes. I noticed that many of the interesting posts on here I read were from you and after reading the one about gluten, I later read in a brain-food book how much damage gluten and inflammation does, which mirrored your article. I wanted to tell you how huge this topic was generally although the book was about gluten on the brain, not about PD.
There has been so much in the last few years about good bacteria and the link between the gut and the brain and also gluten and the brain as well as info about migration of irritants/toxins through a leaky gut, leaky blood/brain barrier, root canal fillings, or the vegus nerve, and using coconut oil flax seed and turmeric. Pleasingly, most of this stuff all fits together harmoniously and each theory seems to support the others. All this reading was so far about dementia and more recently about ADHD and not necessatily about PD, except the research I did about it when trying to help the relative with MSA and found out about bell peppers/nicotine.
Last night, after reading your gluten article I read in a book about how the gut produces the signal for other cells to die contrary to previous belief and therefore inflammation or good bacteria in the gut can indeed logically have dramatic bad or protective effects respectively on distant organs via angered gut cells or calmed ones. This was suddenly the explanation that made everything make sense, ie each theory seeming equally convincing but now they fit together! I even read a newspaper advert once advertising a new gut bacteria pill that claimed to cure IBS by coating the gut with a protective film. I guess that would also explain how a fecal transplant in theory would work, by presumably introducing the right, curative bacteria. Even the doctors from The Twinstitute tv show did a stage show in which they said that it actually takes 2 months to heal a gut damaged by alcohol. Again, the idea of gut damage causing leakage into the body.
I have just read some online articles speculating about some form of PD being possibly linked to tainted batches of drugs or to viruses or lack of sleep and how it clustered around professions that have contact with others (ie exposure to viruses) ie teachers, rather than people who stay home a lot. This is yet another interesting angle. The books I bought have probably been superceded by now (for instance, I am now wondering what telomeres do if a gut can kill distant cells; I will need to compare articles) but there is plenty about treating dementia by eliminating all the same things ie toxins,and all dementia’s contributory factors (over 30), so it might be that googling other conditions might throw something new up that interests you that was not initially intended to relate to PD. I think I even read last year that the shingles virus might be a factor in PD, especially interesting if both affect one side of the body. Is this a known factor?
If anything I have mentioned is useful I will try to find the source for you and I will let you know if I discover anything I got wrong.I am trying to remember everything without access right now to my books. Thank-you Jean. I hope I haven’t mis-understood and mis-reported anything as I realise how misleading that would be.

[Deleted User]

hi carole, once again, thank you for all this information.  I do believe some people can be helped more than others by by some of these remedies, whether it is zandopa, red pepper, gluten free, butyric acid. our makeups are so different and the human body is so complex.  . Dr. Mischley has done a lot of work (naturopathic doctor) with PD patients and she found some commonalities with us…  She also believes there may be a gut connection. here is an article i wrote about my experience at her PD summer school.  https://parkinsonsnewstoday.com/2019/09/03/top-six-parkinsons-summer-school/

 

Feel free to post your findings, I do believe some of us can benefit and we all have our own unique PD journeys.

[Carole]

Hi Jean, very quickly, I keep reading about pomegranate juice cleansing build up in arteries etc. So I was wondering if that can break down deposits before they build up? Amyloid build-up is still something I don’t fully understand; I had read that removing it made things worse but I think that was regarding drugs that might have had side effects. Also a really good site you may already be familiar with for peer reviews of nutritional medical papers with a team who answer nutrition queries is nutritionfacts.org
It is a wonderful source of fact checked research!