Sydney mum Christine's shoe hid the sinister truth about her Parkinson's disease diagnosis
By April Glover|
Christine Jeyachandran once mistakenly believed the debilitating illness she was diagnosed with in 2014 was a condition reserved for the elderly.
The Sydney mother-of-three was a free-spirited traveller and humanitarian living in Peru when her world came crashing down after a doctor uttered 10 devastating words.
Jeyachandran, 46, had noticed a few subtle yet sinister symptoms lurking in her body and it all came to a head when she tried to pour a jug of water into a glass.
"It felt like my hand was pouring the water for me, as if I didn't have the control or the strength to hold it up," she explains to 9Honey.
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"It didn't feel like a 'shake' or anything, it wasn't until I went to a doctor and he said, 'Have you experienced any shaking?' and I realised what it was."
That strange muscular fatigue was a sure sign of Parkinson's disease – and Jeyachandran's doctor in Peru didn't mince his words when he gave her his diagnosis.
He told the young mum: "The moment you walked in, I knew you had Parkinson's".
Jeyachandran says the doctor noticed the way her foot "slapped" the ground as she walked, something she hadn't even picked up on herself.
You can even see on my shoe where I had been dragging it, there was a mark on my shoe.
"A lot of people with Parkinson's experience this thing where your foot loses control, so when you walk instead of the foot going down slowly it goes 'slap, slap, slap'," she says.
"I would walk up behind someone in the street and they could hear me coming from my foot."
Jeyachandran got a second opinion and was officially diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, which she was unsurprisingly floored by.
She says even her doctor was shocked that she would be diagnosed in her 30s.
"He thought I was too young to have Parkinson's. You think it is an old person's disease," Jeyachandran reveals.
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"But in Australia, around 20 per cent of people with Parkinson's are actually under the age of 50.
She adds: "So you can get it quite young – and often it sits in the body unnoticed, so by the time you realise you have it, it's already done a lot of damage to your body."
The "damage" Jeyachandran is referring to includes a gradual stiffening of muscles and a loss of motor skills such as balance and coordination.
It can also slowly impact a person's ability to walk or talk as time goes on.
"For someone with Parkinson's you have to really think about walking – every step you take," she says.
"You lose that sense of control, you lose all coordination and you do things you shouldn't do, like drag your foot. You can even see on my shoe where I had been dragging it, there was a mark on my shoe."
There are very few therapies Parkinson's patients can receive to help slow the on-set of the disease, however Jeyachandran has embraced a different kind of treatment: exercise.
Regular muscle training can help control the symptoms of Parkinson's. For Jeyachandran – who never counted herself as a "sporty person" – her exercise of choice was gymnastics.
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"It works on balance, coordination and strength and those are all the areas you need specifically to manage Parkinson's disease," she says.
"I worked hard, I was frightened at first when I started exercising – but my coach, who was my daughters' coach, he went easy on me at first."
After a while, Jeyachandran was able to do handstands, the splits and even started climbing.
It was a huge achievement for someone diagnosed with one of the most debilitating and intense diseases known to man.
"Thankfully, I haven't experienced a lot of pain," she says. "When I'm exercising, I get pain like a normal person but it's not a symptom I've really had.
"I still struggle sometimes, a lot of the time I struggle just getting dressed in the morning if I'm not medicated."
Nine years on from that first doctor's visit, Jeyachandran has managed to keep her Parkinson's symptoms at bay. She's now back home in Australia, juggling raising her children and working as an advocate for other patients.
Keeping busy has also helped Jeyachandran come to terms with her life-long diagnosis.
"At some point, I came to the conclusion there was no point asking, 'Why?' as it's too late," she says.
"I try not to worry about the future. I just think, if I exercise today then I can make my tomorrow better. And I think that's something we need to keep encouraging people with Parkinson's to do."
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Jeyachandran is doing just that with her blog Handstands for Parkinson's and participation in charity Shake It Up's annual Pause 4 Parkinson's campaign.
The campaign, which takes place in the month of April, encourages people to pledge or donate for Parkinson's research.
"If my medication doesn't work randomly, which it sometimes does, I struggle to walk, so we definitely need a cure," Jeyachandran says.
"Exercise can only get you so far, it will still degenerate with time. I do wonder whether I'll be able to dance at my kids' weddings, or if I'll be able to carry my grandchildren.
"I would love to have this taken away completely with a cure."
Christine is an ambassador for Shake It Up Australia's Pause 4 Parkinson's campaign, which encourages people to participate in fundraising events/clinical trials or make a pledge to donate.
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