Quick question and update

Question is to any of my Vietnam Vet brothers here with PC. Do any of you have Parkinson's Disease and PC, as I do. Both ailments are on the Agent Orange listing. It's interesting that with me, there is no family history of either ailment, let alone having both at the same time. Any comments welcomed.

Yesterday, August 25, was the 10 year mark of my original PC diagnosis. Hard to believe, and I am still dealing with it despite surgery and salvage radiation. I will see my oncologist in October.

Wednesday, met with my neurologist. More bad news. I am now Stage III, bordering on Stage IV. He said some people can take 5-10 years to move to a new stage. I have gone from I to III in the space of 6 1/2 months. He said that Agent Orange related PD is more aggressive and quicker progressing than the normal variant.

He did the old reflex test with the little hammer. He was shocked. There was no movement in any of my arms and legs, not even a minor twitch. A year ago, wasn't the case. He said I had severe nerve damage in all my limbs.

Just trying to hang in there, as usual.

Purg:

I doubt if there is anything strange going on, RE: having both PD and PC, since PC is so prevalent.

Take the group of PD folks. They are generally older folks. We know a large percentage of the males are likely to have PC.

Mel

David -

As a fellow Vietnam vet, I've had no Parkinson's symptoms, but your question intrigued me. So I did some googling on the topic of having two significant diseases at the same time (likelihood of this, etc.). What I came up with was the term "coinfection." Googling

define coinfection

produces: "... the simultaneous infection of a host by multiple pathogen species."

So of course the next step was to google

coinfection parkinsons prostate

which produces a number of hits. One article in particular which I found and looked at was informative:

"Is There a Link Between Prostate Cancer and Parkinson's?"

From this article:

"There have been studies demonstrating an association between having PD and an increased likelihood of developing prostate cancer." (Although you seem to have gone in the opposite direction?)

"Researchers identified people diagnosed with melanoma or prostate cancer and found that they were also at a significantly increased risk of death from Parkinson’s disease."

And, interestingly, it adds: "PD and cancer seem to have opposite effects on cells. PD degenerates nerve cells and cancer causes cells to grow out of control."

But then it goes on to say that no one understands yet why there may an association, that it may be genetic and/or environmental, and that "further research is needed."

The article:

/prostatecancer.net/clinical/link-prostate-cancer-parkinsons/

So you might like to start with a look at this particular article, then google as I did above, and maybe get more information from the other articles, most of which seem fairly recent.

So apparently some degree of association between PCa and PD has been suggested, and researching this may prove useful.

David,
Sorry to hear of the rate of advance of your Parkinsons, especially on top of everything else. I've had no other AO diseases other than PCa. I had a quarter-sized melanoma removed when I was 39 but that is not known to have an AO connection.
Jim

thanks for the replies

81 - was counting on you to respond, with your vast VA related knowledge....salute

dj - always glad to see my dear old friend from the "old days"

ezhoe - you and I were in the Nam the exact 2 year frame. yes, lots of AO vets with both diabetes and PC, also high on the list of accepted ailments