Diagnosis · 2015
2015: My Father's Diagnosis
My father was diagnosed at Square Hospital in Dhaka in 2015. We remember him starting medication around January 2016. At first, the shaking stopped.
By an anonymous caregiver · 2 min read
Personal experience, not medical advice. I share our family's experience here. Talk to your doctor before starting, stopping or changing any medicine. New or worsening speech trouble, facial drooping or sudden weakness can be an emergency. Seek urgent medical help immediately. Full disclaimer
In 2015 my father was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease at Square Hospital in Dhaka. After that, our family talked about the tremor differently. We had a name for it, but we also had many questions about what would happen next.
What the diagnosis meant to us
After years of guessing, having an explanation was a relief. It was also hard to hear. Parkinson's affects the nervous system and gets worse over time. We did not yet understand much about it, but we understood that.
Around January 2016: starting medication
Our family recalls Parkinson's medication beginning around January 2016. We do not have reliable records of exactly which medicine or dose he started on. What our family remembers is that the shaking initially stopped. Father separately recalls starting Syndopa 125 during treatment in India before ~2021, but its exact start date is unknown; we cannot say that Syndopa began in January 2016.
Daily life became easier for a while. Many people with Parkinson's describe an early improvement with medicine. That improvement does not mean the condition has gone away.
What we did not yet understand
We did not yet know about OFF periods, when symptoms return or become harder to manage, or wearing-off, when a dose stops helping before the next one is due. Later, dose times would become a big part of our day.
Looking back, I wish we had started a simple notebook from day one: medicine name, dose, time, and how he felt a few hours later. Those notes would have been invaluable years later, when we sat in front of new doctors trying to reconstruct his history from memory.