one of the early symptoms of Parkinson's is losing the sense of smell, for me that started at about six or seven years ago. I started noticing that a few years ago after fixing dinner and I couldn't smell the food and it just didn't have much taste.this is a big disappointment for somebody loved to cook and could copy recipes just by smell and taste of the recipe. I was still flying we used to have a layover in Santa Barbara California, one of the favorite places for the crews to go was a restaurant in the marina and Santa Barbara. I am NOT a big seafood person but I was able to copy some very good recipes for both tuna and salmon. not too long ago we had a friend visit who brought some herbs from herb garden for my wife, there was basil, oregano, and several other very pungent herbs, and I could not tell the difference from one to the other. very disappointing for someone who love to use fresh herbs to cook.
it seems that there are other things that I can smell also, one of those being for example when are dogs get a little gassy I can't smell that. telling this to a friend they seem to get a big kick out of that and feel that it was great because now I could no t smell them too, which tells me they have other problems besides that. something that people don't realize it comes along with that is the dangerous situation of not being able to smell propane gas in the house. one day when I was having a particularly bad day I bumped a knob on the stove and turned the gas on.unforrtunately it didn't turn on far enough for the ignitersto kick on take and so it was just Pumping raw gas into the kitchen. I was lucky and just happened to see that the knob was on.
something else that goes very closely with the sense of smell is the sense of taste, and basically if you can't smell you can't taste. this does not include the basic sensation sent you get on your tongue, sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and spicy. those things I still have but they're not very discriminating. what this does is make you tend to want to have things that fit into those categories, for me spicy seems to be what I like the best. there are still a few things I can taste fortunately one is Milky Way candy bars, of which I've become addicted. I used to drink a lot of coffee but I don't drink coffee anymore because now it just tastes like warm water, so instead I drink diet pepsi, but with Diet Pepsi there is at least sensation and a sense of sweet.
at this point the consistency of the food is becoming more more important, things that have no smell, have an uncomfortable consistency to eat I can longer eat, things like mushrooms or something that is kind of slimy I just can't eat. this is again one of the non-motor symptoms for Parkinson's, it is something that many people with Parkinson's suffer from. I continue to mention things like this because Parkinson's is so much more than just a movement disorder. when your brain begins to no longer function you lose many many things that you enjoyed in life.
I will apologize for 1 other thing and that is the lack of capitalization in my writing, trying to type has become very difficult and time-consuming so I tend to speak and use voice recognition software to write my blog. sometimes it does and doesn't get capitalization rate so I apologize. as time goes on for many people with Parkinson's reading gets to be more difficult so to see many of them write in all capitals. this is not shouting its just trying to make it easier to read for other people with Parkinson's.
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