Monday, 23 February 2004
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Itza new day !!!
I find in reading these email post I have a deeper understanding of what I am experiencing, and more difinition about it. Which I can use to explain to others about how I am feeling and why.
With understnding more of what is going on, I know others know what is happening, and I feel more at peace about it.
This just came in from the Co-Cure email group.
MAY BE REPOSTED
The 2002 Chief Medical Officer's Report into ME/CFS officially
recognised that a number of serious and unusual neurological symptoms
and signs do sometimes occur in more severely affected people with
ME/CFS. These can include double vision, blackouts, atypical
convulsions/fits, loss of speech, and loss of swallowing
(ref: www.doh.gov.uk/cmo/cfsmereport/ Section 4.2.1.2 ).
When these sort of neurological symptoms and/or signs occur, it is
always important to exclude the possibility of the cause being another
neurological disorder. On such condition is Hashimoto's
encephalopathy - the diagnosis of one particular case I referred to last
year on the message boards. This very interesting case involved a
14-year-old girl whose initial (mis)diagnosis had been severe CFS, along
with neurological features (including hand tremor, jerking leg movements
and blurred vision) and a number of thyroid function test anomalies
consistent with an autoimmune thyroiditis (as occur in Hashimoto's
encephalopathy).
Dr Abhijit Chaudhuri and Professor Peter Behan (University of Glasgow)
have now published a definitive paper on this not uncommon autoimmune
central nervous system disorder affecting both children and adults which
always appears to include a significant degree of central fatigue. The
paper describes the principle clinical features in 18 such patients:
- central fatigue in 100%
- migraine-type headaches in 90%
- seizures (focal/general/myoclonic) in 67%
- stupor in the acute presentation in 67%
- focal neurological deficit in 67%
- psychosis, delusions or hallucinations in 50%
- cognitive impairment in 33%
- alternating hemiparesis (ie loss of use on one side of the body)
in 16%
- cerebellar ataxia (ie severe disturbance with balance/co-ordination)
in 15%
Dr Chaudhuri and Professor Behan conclude that the range of laboratory
investigation abnormalities found in these 18 patients (which include
brain biopsies) indicate that this is an autoimmune disease of the
central nervous system and so encephalomyelitis is a much more
appropriate descriptive term than encephalopathy.
Furthermore, with a prompt diagnosis and appropriate therapy, the
prognosis for complete recovery from Hashimoto's encephalomyelitis is
often excellent.
Reference:
The clinical spectrum, diagnosis, pathogenesis and treatment of
Hashimoto's encephalopathy (recurrent acute disseminated
encephalomyelitis). Current Medicinal Chemistry, 2003, 10, 1945 - 1953.
Dr Charles Shepherd
Medical Adviser, MEA
ENDS
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---------------------------------------------Follow your Passions !
Take care...
Greg Lunger
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