SINGING has proved to be a surprise treatment for a Parkinson’s sufferer who insists songs have helped control her symptoms.

Sandra King astounded doctors by turning down pills in favour of singing with Blackbird Leys Choir in a bid to keep control of her shaking.

Shaking and tremors are key symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, a progressive neurological condition which affects movement such as walking, talking and writing.

Ms King was diagnosed with the disease 14 years ago, aged 48, but stopped taking drugs after six months, when they affected her mobility and left her incontinent.

Instead, she turned to singing after discovering she stopped shaking and felt calmer when her brain was concentrating on a rhythm.

Ms King, 62, who is retired from volunteering with the homeless, said: “I had to decide what would be worse, living like that or without the drugs.

“My specialist was surprised and said if you can manage without the drugs in two years you can come and teach me how.

“I’m doing a rhythm nearly all the time. I was in the kitchen this morning and I was singing a snow song in my head, any little song that goes with the day, silly little songs that come into my head.

“I have made a way of life where rhythm is as important as breathing. It transforms the whole of the body into calmness.”

She added: “I defy anyone to see Parkinson’s in me now.”

Ms King, of Littlemore, who takes no drugs for her disease, has written 300 pages of her second book in longhand, a task which would defeat most Parkinson’s sufferers.

She started singing in 1989 after her son Andrew, 29, was killed in a car crash and joined Blackbird Leys Choir in 2006.

Ms King then appeared in The Singing Estate, a Channel Five TV show which culminated in an appearance at the Royal Albert Hall.

She said: “I always knew singing made me feel better when I sang after my son was killed, but I had it verified by an expert when I was doing the television show that singing can help. It makes the shaking go away.

“I think Blackbird Leys Choir and me are one thing really. I sing to live and I love to sing and being with the choir has been an amazing experience. We help and support one another.”

Parkinson’s expert Prof John Stein, of Oxford University, said singing was known to help many patients.

He added: “This is probably because their symptoms are due to uncontrolled oscillations in the networks of connected nerve cells in the brain that control movement.

“Sometimes singing at the right tempo can lead the networks to oscillate at the song’s frequencies, cancelling out the ‘wrong’ oscillations that cause the symptoms.”