A new start after 60: I spent eight years thinking I had Parkinson’s. Then doctors ‘de-diagnosed’ me

Mike Bell was 53 when he got the diagnosis that changed his life – and 61 when he learned it was wrong. He felt relieved, but also totally adriftWhen he was 61, Mike Bell, who had spent eight years living with a Parkinson’s diagnosis, saw a new consultant. Though he still had pains, tingling, tremors and skin problems, Bell had stopped taking his prescribed medication and his symptoms had not worsened. Further brain scans were arranged – “everything, in every possible position” – after which Bell was “de-diagnosed”.He still felt unwell, with unexplained pains, but he didn’t have Parkinson’s. In that moment, he says, he “lost his roadmap”, his sense of community with other people he had met with the same illness and his work campaigning for better understanding of the condition. Continue reading...