It might not be Parkinson's causing all your symptoms

I've expressed my frustrations with my DBS not really having much affect on my gait issues.  I'm still taking my entire regimen of medications and while my tremor disappeared, I've not seen much gain in any other aspects of my symptoms.  This lead me to look at other possibilities, and low and behold, I might have found one.

About 5-6 years ago, my General Physician, found that my Thyroid function was low.  He put me on a steady regimen of Levothyroxine and checked my Thyroid levels once a year when I went in for annual physicals and basically let it go at that.  About two years ago I stopped taking the Levothyroxine.  I can't really say why, just I never really felt different taking it or not taking it, or so I thought.

I went to my GP again last week and he had my blood work done and my thyroid TH level had skyrocketed.  I had done some research before the appointment and asked both him and my neurologist if thyroid function could affect gait.  Both quickly said, "Yes!"   So, there you go, my physician re-prescribed me the Levothyroxine and I am now taking it.

The problem now is that the dosage I was prescribed was what I was taking 2 years ago.  I didn't titrate up and I am actually a mess the past two days.  However, my doctor prescribed me a lower dose today to titrate up to my old dosage and told me to call his office next week.  Why am I confident that this might be a missing link?  Ever since I started the Levothyroxine, my tremor has reappeared right after I take a Sinemet and my walking gets even worse for about 20-40 minutes.  While most folks would say that's bad, to me it says, the Levothyroxine is affecting either the function of the Sinemet or what I thought were PD symptoms but are actually Thyroid ones.  So, I'm going to switch to the titrating dosage and have my programmer readjust my program more for tremor than the gait that she was working on with me (according to her, this usually involves raising the frequency of the electrical stimulation).

My programming appointment is Monday and hopefully I'll be able to function a bit better by then, especially because I've only run twice this week and I have to run twice this weekend to keep up my training schedule.  I'll report back over the next few weeks how this new med regimen is working.