Jane
> G'day folks,
>
> 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.
>
>
> -------Begin Newspaper Clipping -------------
>
> 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.
>
> -----------End Newspaper Clipping --------------
>
> 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
>
>