Symptoms of Parkinson's disease differ from person to person. They also change as the disease progresses. Symptoms that one person gets in the early stages of the disease, another person may not get until later—or not at all.

Symptoms typically begin appearing between the ages of 50 and 60. They develop slowly and often go unnoticed by family, friends, and even the person who has them.

The disease causes motor symptoms and non-motor symptoms. Motor symptoms are those that have to do with how you move. The most common one is tremor.

Tremor
Tremor, or shaking, often in a hand, arm, or leg, occurs when you're awake and sitting or standing still (resting tremor), and it gets better when you move that body part.

Tremor is often the first symptom that people with Parkinson's disease or their family members notice.

At first the tremor may appear in just one arm or leg or only on one side of the body. The tremor also may affect the chin, lips, and tongue.

As the disease progresses, the tremor may spread to both sides of the body. But in some cases the tremor remains on just one side.

Emotional and physical stress tends to make the tremor more noticeable. Sleep, complete relaxation, and intentional movement or action usually reduce or stop the tremor.

Although tremor is one of the most common signs of Parkinson's, not everyone with tremor has Parkinson's. Unlike tremor caused by Parkinson's, tremor caused by other conditions gets better when your arm or hand is not moving and gets worse when you try to move it.

The most common cause of non-Parkinson's tremor is essential tremor. It's a treatable condition that is often wrongly diagnosed as Parkinson's.

Other common symptoms
Besides tremor, the most common symptoms include:

Stiff muscles (rigidity) and aching muscles.One of the most common early signs of Parkinson's is a reduced arm swing on one side when you walk. This is caused by rigid muscles. Rigidity can also affect the muscles of the legs, face, neck, or other parts of the body. It may cause muscles to feel tired and achy.
Slow, limited movement, especially when you try to move from a resting position. For instance, it may be hard to get out of a chair or turn over in bed.

Weakness of face and throat muscles. It may get harder to talk and swallow. You may choke, cough, or drool. Speech becomes softer and monotonous. Loss of movement in the muscles in the face can cause a fixed, vacant facial expression, often called the "Parkinson's mask."

Difficulty with walking and balance. A person with this disease is likely to take small steps and shuffle with his or her feet close together, bend forward slightly at the waist, and have trouble turning around. Balance and posture problems may cause frequent falls. But these problems usually don't happen until later on.
Freezing, a sudden, brief inability to move. It most often affects walking.

I think it varies my husband who has Parkinson’s also coughs when he’s asleep and I sometimes think he’s going to choke, but doesn’t do it for long mainly when he sleeps in the daytime. I think it is one of the symptoms which is awful.. he does sleep a lot mainly daytime and at night can’t rest. He’s had it for 6 and half years now. He hates it thinks why me because you slowly deteriorate and there is no cure. All you can do is take each day as it comes and try to think positive, but I have difficulty in convincing him to do that. Hope you don’t have too many days coughing and try to keep cheerful 😁 think of things you can still do like listening to music 🎵 if you like that and try to exercise a little each day.
Take care xx👍😘

@A MyParkinsonsTeam Member, to strengthen throat muscles try holding high notes, low notes (as low as possible) and medium notes for as long and loud as possible, and sing, even if you don't think you have a good voice. Also do some reading outloud and fairly loudly, especially if your voice has gotten softer. You'll be surprised how much it can help.
Hugs,
Teresa

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A MyParki...

That is as fine a precis on PD symptoms and their progression as I have encountered so far. Thanks for sharing.

I once read that there are over 100 identified symptoms of PD. Of course none of us has all of them. So we might all have different variations. Every time I get a new symptom I try to decide if it is a PD symptom or just because of my age.
Enjoy today and don't forget to look for a reason to smile.