These factors can make your MG symptoms temporarily worse: stress, lack of sleep, illness, overexertion, pain, extreme hot or cold including outdoor temperatures, hot showers or baths, saunas, hot tubs, hot foods or beverages , and some chemicals for instance, in insecticides and lawn treatments.
You should avoid drugs known to make MG symptoms worse, including certain antibiotics, beta blockers, calcium channel blockers, muscle relaxants and magnesium. Be sure to check with your primary MG doctor before taking any new medication, even over-the-counter drugs. If you live in another state, see if your state has its own MG chapter. They may have a list of neurologists who treat MG.
Yes, however your ability to work depends on the severity of your MG and your job requirements. If your MG is active, you may need to talk to your employer to see if you can make temporary adjustments in workload, activities or hours. Some myasthenia patients apply for and receive Social Security disability benefits. The short answer is this: Exercise within your limits is absolutely recommended if you are able.
Short sessions with breaks are better tolerated than longer sessions. Start slow with walking or using an elliptical machine, and build gradually as you become stronger. Stop and rest as soon as you feel tired. Have another person with you or bring a cell phone, in case you run into trouble. Together you can set up guidelines on how much exercise is healthy for you and under what circumstances you should attempt it.
Together you can discuss if pregnancy is an option, medications that need to be changed, and risks to the fetus and newborn. Visit our YouTube channel for a December presentation in which neurologist David Randall provides a detailed discussion about how MG impacts pregnancy, labor and delivery, breastfeeding, and the postpartum period. Treatment for MG includes self-care: getting plenty of sleep, resting your body and eyes during the day, and pacing your activities. It involves good nutrition, stress management, and exercise, too.
Myasthenia patients, like everyone, should eat a healthy diet and maintain a healthy weight. Extra pounds make it harder to get around and aggravate other diseases. Avoid magnesium supplements unless prescribed and monitored by your doctor, since magnesium can worsen MG symptoms. Check with your neurologist before taking any supplements or alternative medications, including over-the-counter drugs, because they can affect your MG and interact in a bad way with other medications.
Many myasthenia patients make a personal decision to wear medical alert jewelry such as a bracelet or necklace. Life with MG — offers tips on nutrition, exercise, travel, wallet cards and vision aids.
This is most often caused by antibodies to the acetylcholine receptor itself, but antibodies to other proteins, such as MuSK Muscle-Specific Kinase protein, also can impair transmission at the neuromuscular junction. The thymus gland controls immune function and may be associated with myasthenia gravis. It grows gradually until puberty, and then gets smaller and is replaced by fat. Throughout childhood, the thymus plays an important role in the development of the immune system because it is responsible for producing T-lymphocytes or T cells, a specific type of white blood cell that protects the body from viruses and infections.
In many adults with myasthenia gravis, the thymus gland remains large. People with the disease typically have clusters of immune cells in their thymus gland and may develop thymomas tumors of the thymus gland. Thymomas are most often harmless, but they can become cancerous. Scientists believe the thymus gland may give incorrect instructions to developing immune cells, ultimately causing the immune system to attack its own cells and tissues and produce acetylcholine receptor antibodies—setting the stage for the attack on neuromuscular transmission.
Myasthenia gravis affects both men and women and occurs across all racial and ethnic groups. It most commonly impacts young adult women under 40 and older men over 60 , but it can occur at any age, including childhood.
Myasthenia gravis is not inherited nor is it contagious. Occasionally, the disease may occur in more than one member of the same family.. Although myasthenia gravis is rarely seen in infants, the fetus may acquire antibodies from a mother affected with myasthenia gravis—a condition called neonatal myasthenia. Rarely, children of a healthy mother may develop congenital myasthenia. This is not an autoimmune disorder but is caused by defective genes that produce abnormal proteins in the neuromuscular junction and can cause similar symptoms to myasthenia gravis.
Because weakness is a common symptom of many other disorders, the diagnosis of myasthenia gravis is often missed or delayed sometimes up to two years in people who experience mild weakness or in those individuals whose weakness is restricted to only a few muscles.
Today, myasthenia gravis can generally be controlled. There are several therapies available to help reduce and improve muscle weakness. With treatment, most individuals with myasthenia can significantly improve their muscle weakness and lead normal or nearly normal lives.
Some cases of myasthenia gravis may go into remission—either temporarily or permanently— and muscle weakness may disappear completely so that medications can be discontinued.
Stable, long-lasting complete remissions are the goal of thymectomy and may occur in about 50 percent of individuals who undergo this procedure. The mission of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke NINDS is to seek fundamental knowledge about the brain and nervous system and to use that knowledge to reduce the burden of neurological disease.
Although there is no cure for myasthenia gravis, management of the disorder has improved over the past 30 years. There is a greater understanding about the causes, structure and function of the neuromuscular junction, the fundamental aspects of the thymus gland and of autoimmunity. However, 20 percent of people only see the effects of MG in the eyes.
Some people can experience a fatal case of MG, but these are rare. Most individuals with MG do not see a change in life expectancy. MG is an autoimmune disorder.
The immune system is designed to find and destroy any unwanted invaders, such as bacteria, toxins, or viruses. In a person with an autoimmune disease, antibodies circulate in the blood and attack healthy cells and tissues by mistake. In the case of MG, the antibodies block or destroy muscle receptor cells, resulting in fewer available muscle fibers. As a result, the muscles cannot contract properly, and they easily become tired and weak.
Exactly why this happens is unknown, but the thymus gland, located in the upper chest beneath the breastbone, appears to play a key role. The thymus gland is large during infancy and continues to grow until puberty. After this, it gets smaller and eventually is replaced with fat. A significant number of adult patients with MG have an abnormally large thymus gland, and about 1 in 10 patients with MG have a benign tumor in the thymus gland.
Some medications or viruses may trigger the onset of MG. Drugs that may cause a worsening of symptoms in susceptible patients include beta blockers , calcium channel blockers, quinine, and some antibiotics. Neonatal myasthenia affects newborns if they acquire antibodies from a mother who has MG. The symptoms usually disappear in 2 to 3 months, and MG in infants and children is rare. A physician may suspect MG if a patient has drooping eyelids but no problem feeling things, and if they are prone to muscle weakness that improves after rest.
Diagnosis can be difficult, however, because MG shares symptoms with other conditions. A neurologist may need to confirm the diagnosis. People whose muscles are weak because of MG respond well when ice is applied to the affected area. Some doctors try this initially as they gather data to help them make a diagnosis. An edrophonium test involves injecting a substance into a vein and monitoring the reaction of the patient.
The muscle weakness may be temporarily relieved. Repetitive nerve stimulation involves attaching electrodes to the skin over the affected muscles and sending small electrical pulses through the electrodes to measure how well the nerves transmit the signal to the muscle. If a person has MG, the signals will get weaker as the muscle tires. Single-fiber electromyography EMG measures the electrical activity that flows between the brain and the muscle.
It involves inserting a very fine wire electrode through the skin, into the muscle. A pulmonary function test, or spirometry, assesses how well the patient can breathe by measuring the maximum amount of air a person can expel from the lungs after breathing in deeply. Performed regularly, this test can help to monitor any gradual worsening of muscular weakness in the lungs.
This is especially important for patients with severe symptoms, to avoid severe breathing problems.
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