Question:

I have been diagnosed with tardive dyskinesia, however referred always to movement disorder clinics that specialize in Parkinson Disease. I was on temporarily antispcyhotics for sleep, Reglan, Levsin, other monomini inhibitors, once had a “dystonic reaction”, what is the difference between Parkinson Disease and Tardive Dyskinesia, have dyskenesias of the fingers, tongue, and muscle stiffness and what my Dr. termed “rippling of muscles” How also do you treat this disorder, is similar?

Answer:

Parkinson’s disease is a progressive condition that is characterized by loss of brain cells that produce a chemical dopamine. With this loss, a person can have symptoms of tremor, slowness of movement and stiffness (rigidity).

Medication treatment for Parkinson’s disease focuses on increasing dopamine in the brain. There are also numerous drugs that can block the chemical dopamine, and result in a reversible syndrome that mimics Parkinson’s disease. We commonly refer to this as drug induced parkinsonism, and treatment for this is reducing and weaning the medication causing this problem.

The most common class of medications that can cause this is antipsychotic medication, and next common is metaclopramide. In addition, these same drugs that block dopamine can result in symptoms of excessive involuntary abnormal movements and this is called tardive dyskinesia. Similar to the drug induced parkinsonism, treatment for tardive dyskinesia is weaning the medications that are blocking dopamine.

For more information:

Go to the Parkinson’s Disease health topic.