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When it’s Parkinson’s
For anyone living with Parkinson’s disease, anyone worried about a tremor, stiffness or slowness, and the people beside them. This page passes on, by name, what two parts of the National Institutes of Health say: the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). The signs, what changes besides movement, how a diagnosis is made, the medicines and their side effects, deep brain stimulation, what helps day to day, and who to call. It builds the questions to ask at a visit and prints a card. Take only what you need today.
A word with a dotted line under it, like this, opens its official definition, quoted from a U.S. government glossary.
Before anything else
- Never stop levodopa suddenly. NIA says people living with Parkinson’s disease should never stop taking levodopa without telling their doctor. Suddenly stopping the drug may have serious side effects, like being unable to move or having difficulty breathing.
- Not diagnosed yet? Get it looked at. NIA says many other diseases have similar features but require different treatments, so it is important to get an accurate diagnosis as soon as possible.
- The two pages we read give no list of emergency signs. That is not a promise that there are none. In an emergency, call 911.
- Thinking about ending your life? Call or text 988, at any hour.
More help
- Keeping track: My medicines, the Symptom diary and the Sleep diary.
- Before a visit: Get ready for your appointment.
- Days with little energy: Energy budget and One step at a time.
- At work, and if work stops: Ask for what helps you work and Applying for disability benefits.
- Getting older, and memory: Help as you get older and When memory starts to slip.
- How you feel: When the heaviness won’t lift and When the worry won’t switch off.
- If you are the one caring: When you’re caring for someone.
- No insurance, or a bill you can’t pay: When you need a doctor and can’t pay and When a medical bill is too much.
- All our free tools.
Other guides on this site that go with this page
Free to read. We chose these ourselves; no professional did. Each guide was written with AI and has not been reviewed by a professional. They are general information, not advice.
- Living on your own terms with a disability: Centers for Independent Living, leaving an institution, your right to live in the community, work, and savings: living on your own terms with a disability: the local Centers for Independent Living, the law against unnecessary segregation, who to ask about leaving an institution, the advocates who do not charge, the two work programs, and ABLE savings accounts.
- Urinary retention: when you cannot pee, or cannot empty your bladder: urinary retention (suddenly unable to pee, or a bladder that never empties): acute and chronic, the signs and how common, the causes (medicines and surgery included), the visit and the tests, the treatment, and what helps.
- Blepharospasm: eyelid twitching you can’t control, what causes it, the eye exam, and the treatment: blepharospasm: eyelid twitching you can’t control, when to see your eye doctor, what causes it, and the treatment.
This page and its wording were written with AI (Claude) for Scarlet Beast (our AI policy). No doctor, nurse, pharmacist or neurologist has reviewed it. The facts were read on October 7, 2026 on two government pages and one helpline page: the National Institute on Aging’s “Parkinson’s Disease: Causes, Symptoms, and Treatments” (nia.nih.gov; content reviewed April 14, 2022, and its Spanish version, reviewed November 8, 2023); the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke’s “Parkinson’s Disease” page (ninds.nih.gov; we found no review date on it, and we found no Spanish version); and the Parkinson’s Foundation’s own Helpline page (parkinson.org). The page says which one it is passing on, and what is marked “ours” is our own. Where the two institutes differ, on tests, the page gives both and says so. What we left out or did not read: amounts of any medicine; brand names, and most of the individual medicine names NINDS gives; how long anyone lives with Parkinson’s, and stages; statistics; what anything costs or what insurance, Medicaid or Medicare pays; the risks of surgery, which neither page lists; the genes NINDS describes; NINDS’s research programs; the other organizations NIA lists, whose pages we did not open; and any list of signs that mean go to an emergency room, because the pages we read give none. We called no number. It saves nothing and loads no tracking.