My grandmother sent this over to me a while ago, and the other night I
bumped into someone on the chat room from England who was having problems
getting a diagnosis. Maybe this will help someone else over there.
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Dr. Paul Lyons, consultant neurologist at the Royal United Hospital, Bath
says:
Transverse Myelitis arises from an injury across the spinal cord. It is
usually an inflammatory injury produced after exposure to a virus such as
the one responsible for glandular fever.
We do not know why some viruses can attack the spinal cord in this was, but
they attack the myelin sheath surrounding the nerves directly, or trigger
an anti-immune response which tricks the body's own immune system into
attacking itself.
It usually starts with a sensory disturbance in the feet and paralysis sets
in over a period of 12-14 hours, which is very frightening.
If the injury is very severe and near the top of the spine, the patient may
need ventilation in order to breathe. In this situation, they can die
without appropriate medical care.
in recent years, the drug immuno-globulin has been administered to
manipulate the immune system into doing what it is supposed to. Before that
steroids were used. Apart from that physiotherapy is the main treatment.
Fortunately about 70 pc of patients make a near full recovery. Around 5 to
10 pc will not recover at all. The myelin tissue around the nerve can be
regenerated, although it is a slow process.
The prognosis depends on the severity and site of the injury- although I've
seen complete paraplegia make a full recovery and believe that willpower
plays an important role in a patient's recovery.
In some patients, the injury can occur again.
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Unfortunately my grandmother forgot to tell me which paper she reads. Maybe
the doctors name will help others in England, although the rest of the
information is pretty much basic knowledge to those of us who have the
disease.
Calishar
P.S. I'm not suffering from the disease, I have survived it