You undoubtedly experience stiff joints and all kinds of muscle cramps as part of your Parkinson's disease symptoms. Surveys show that most of these pains involve muscle cramps or tightness, typically in the neck, paraspinal or calf muscles. Interestingly, female PD patients tend to report neck pain as the third most common symptom (after the classical motor signs of PD) at the start of the disease. Persistent neck pain in females may therefore be an early warning sign of PD in some women.
How do you know if your neck pain is potentially related to early signs of PD? You cannot know for sure, but you and your doctor can explore the issue by asking whether the neck pain is also associated with any of the other early warning signs of PD such as stiff shoulder, cramped handwriting, hand tremor, reduced arm swing, and shuffling gait.
If you have one or more of these symptoms you should speak to a neurologist about them. Early identification may allow doctors to slow the progression of the disease if in fact you do have the disease.
Sources:
Drake DF, Harkins S, Qutubuddin A (2005) Pain in Parkinson's disease: Pathology to treatment, medication to deep brain stimulation. NeuroReb 20:335 341. Ford, B. and Pfeiffer, R.F. (2005). Pain syndromes and disorders of sensation. In: Parkinson’s Disease and nonmotor dysfunction. R.F. Pfeiffer and I. Bodis-Wollner (Eds). Humana Press, Totowa, New Jersey. Pps. 255-270.
