Tremr

One of the drugs that is prescribed for me to help manage my Parkinson's disease is Rotigotine. Since the causes of Parkinson's are not well defined, all currently approved Parkinson's medication, including Rotigotine, are limited to treating the symptoms. Rotigotine is a dopamine agonist. Wikipedia describes an agonist as: a chemical that binds to a receptor and activates the receptor to produce a biological response. Rotigotine is supplied as transdermal patches, in other words, sticky patches which you stick to your skin so that the drug may be gradually absorbed. Nicotine patches are another type of transdermal patch that you might be more familiar with. If I have understood it correctly, the Rotigotine molecules have a similar shape to dopamine which means that, once they enter the blood supply, they can bind to the same receptors as dopamine (i.e. the dopamine receptors). I think their shape also means that our brains ...

This year the theme for the Parkinson's Art poetry competition was 'empowerment'. I haven't ever really tried poetry but after reading about it, I found myself thinking about empowerment and imagining how that could be expressed in a poem. My step-dad has discovered an amazing talent for poetry during lockdown and some of the rhythms and ideas of his poems inspired me to give it a try. I also found myself borrowing ideas from an old friend, football team-mate and colleague who writes a birthday verse for each of our group at work every year. Thanks to both those lovely people. The poem itself probably sounds quite angry which is not like either of the people who inspired me. Specifically, I think I was annoyed about a YouTube advert featuring Nigel Farage earnestly asking "have you noticed how everything is becoming more expensive?" One might reply that, in a lot of ways, it is exactly what exper...