Re: Marty Polonsky's Posting w/r "Trunkeal dystonia"

[William Heitman <HEITBILL@xxxxxxx>]

In a message dated 11/15/99 8:31:57 AM Central Standard Time,
dbarthul@xxxxxxxx writes:

<<  induced dystonias and
 dyskinesias, that I've never bothered to classify, but "Trunkeal Dystonia"
 certainly seems appropriate for this one. I must admit, I've never heard of
 it... but I have a visit scheduled with my neuros this week and I'll query
 them about it. >>


Dystonias are uncommanded steady contractions of a muscle or muscle group.
They seem to be connected to L-dopa (sinemet) therapy.  A dystonia of my
right arm used to happen while I was waiting for my first Sinemet dose of the
day to kick in.  I knew that about 15 minutes following my rigid, straight,
right arm "pulling" it's way across my chest, I would start to feel the
slight left wrist dyskinesia that heralded the first serious on period of the
day.

Incidentally, if my CG would grab my hand and proceed to shake my arm until
it shook like a rag doll while I tried to relax it, the dystonia would abate
for a while.

I believe I stopped having torso (what have been called trunkal here
recently) dystonia when I switched from sleeping face down (with my head to
the side and on the corner of a pillow.) to sleeping on my back.

I remember a picture taken at my 25th college reunion.  I was easy to pick
out in the picture- I was leaning to the right while the others were standing
straight.


Regards,

WHH 56/38/37