Donna Marshall was shocked to be diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease at the early age of 44 – and one of her more bizarre symptoms was an intolerance to beer.
Marshall, now 54, began to notice she had lost her taste and smell around the age of 26 – and later learned that those were all symptoms of the brain disorder.
Parkinson’s can cause those diagnosed to have “uncontrollable movements” and even a loss of balance, according to the National Institute on Aging.
It usually gets worse over time, and typically affects those over the age of 60 – except for a small portion of people, such as Marshall, who have an early onset case.
“The sense of smell went first of all, I was about 26,” she told South West News Service. ”I didn’t think very much of it, and with that you get a lack of taste in food.”
She continued to live with these mysterious symptoms until 16 years later, when she was walking along the beach on New Year’s Eve and realized that her hands were shaking.
The businesswoman was soon diagnosed with the debilitating disease, something that her late mother, Margaret Marshall, also suffered from for years before passing away at 80, after living in a vegetative state for six years.
She had to be fed through a feeding tube toward the end of her life.
Now, Marshall is going through some of the same ailments. She explained that one of the many Parkinson’s symptoms she now suffers from is an intolerance to caffeine and sugar — including beer.
“Any stimulant is no good for me, so any caffeine, sugar, obviously that’s in beer and I love my beer,” she said. “Anything like that will stimulate and heighten Parkinson’s.”
She also said that she has developed a severe case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder as a side effect of one of the many medicines that she takes. Marshall explained that she’s not the only Parkinson’s patient who has had the same struggle with the mental illness as she has.
The mom said that her OCD came out when during Halloween last year, when she decided to transform her own garden into a full haunted attraction.
Marshall said it ended up costing her thousands of dollars, as she hired professional dancers, and set up an entire fake graveyard, just for show.
“It was fantastic, all the kids loved it, but I didn’t need to go that far and that’s what it [OCD] does unfortunately,” Marshall said.
But perhaps one of the worst parts of Parkinson’s disease is the dystonia that Marshall has to deal with on an everyday basis.
Dystonia is a painful disorder that causes the muscles in your body to move without your control, according to the Mayo Clinic. It can cause uncomfortable muscle spasms.
Marshall said that dystonia affects her feet and back.
“I can’t walk at all, I can’t even put one foot in front of the other,” she said. “The hardest thing for me is not being able to follow a normal lifestyle. So just a normal everyday things that you would normally do is is difficult for someone with Parkinson’s.”
Recently, she had a procedure done called deep brain stimulation, which will hopefully be able to ease some of her pain, as it places a device in your brain to stimulate certain areas of it.
But through all of these challenges, Marshall’s No. 1 focus is on her nine-year-old daughter, Beau. She wants to make sure that she doesn’t have to see any of the difficult parts of the chronic disease.
“I wake up early and take my pills on the sofa watching TV until I’m ready for business as normal,” Marshall said.
As someone who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s at such a young age, Marshall is urging others who have the same diagnosis to seek out support from the community.
“I think the best thing I did was connecting with people like me, who have young onset Parkinson’s, because it’s a different animal to when you’re older, it manifests itself in a different way.”