Hello everyone today I'm sharing about what is Neuromuscular disease, symptoms & causes of neuromuscular disease and what are the treatments are available
What is Neuromuscular disease?
Our nervous system is our brain our spinal cord the nerves that come out of the spinal cord The Junction between your nerve and muscle and the muscle itself neuromuscular disorders are any conditions that affect the part of your nervous system outside of your brain and spinal cord so this is the nerve including the cell itself and the nerve fiber The Junction between an urban muscle and the muscle itself.
What are maintaining symptoms and causes?
Neuromuscular disorder is most commonly present with weakness and this can be perceived by patients in many different ways they can feel it as weakness they can call it as heaviness they can also call it as a deadness or a numbness and the weakness can affect various different muscle groups including your limbs it can also affect your eye muscles, your face muscles, your speech and swallowing muscles and also your breathing muscles patients also present with fatigue and when your nerves are involved you can present with sensory symptoms so feeling of numbness or feeling of pins and needles or hot and cold sensation or painful Sensations.
Patients can also have basting of the muscles so a thinning of the muscles very rarely you can have enlarged muscles they can also have cramps Twitchy muscles and they can have spasms the cause for neuromuscular conditions is varied the vast majority of patients so a large proportion of patients with neuromuscular disorders have a genetically inherited condition so this is something that is passed down in the family the other causes for a neuromuscular problem can be inflammation or it can be an overactive immune system so an autoimmune condition rarely it can be a direct insult from a bug like a virus and very rarely can be an immune response to a cancer that is happening elsewhere in your body.
How will I know if I'm at risk of neuromuscular disease?
A large proportion of patients with neuromuscular diseases have an inherited neuromuscular problem so this is something that is passed on in the family so if there is someone in the family who has an inherited neuromuscular problem then you may be at risk of developing the condition yourself. this may be something that is dominantly inherited this means that you only need one abnormal copy of the gene to get the condition and this can happen if either of your parents is affected or you can inherit it in a recessive manner which means that you need two copies of the bad Gene to get the condition so this means that both of your parents are either suffering from the condition themselves or are carriers of the condition so you have a 25% chance of getting the condition and you have a 50% chance of passing it on yourself as in being a carrier.
How exactly does it affect the body?
Neuromuscular conditions can affect the body in various different ways and it depends on which part of the neuromuscular system is affected so is it affecting the muscle is it affecting the nerve or is it affecting the junction between your nerve and your muscle. so when it affects the muscles for example with the myopathy it can affect any muscle groups so it can affect the limb muscles it can affect the muscles in your face it can must affect the muscles in your eyes your speech swallowing or your breathing it can also cause wasting of the muscles along with the weakness.
When it affects the nervous system and very commonly inherited conditions like a neuropathy for example it affects the paraphrase first and then it's the progressively spreads towards the center of your body and this can cause sensory problems of numbness or pins and needles again when the nerves are affected the supply to the muscle is disrupted so once again you will have weakness with the nerve problem as well if it is a problem with the junction between your nerve and your muscle the presentation is slightly different although you have weakness of the muscles with this the pattern is one of a variable weakness so the more you use the muscle the more tired you can become and when you rest you feel better.
Is it life threatening?
If a neuromuscular condition affects your muscles of breathing or your muscles of swallowing it can become dangerous to your life occasionally some conditions for example an immune-mediated neuropathy can cause problems with your autonomic nervous system. now autonomic nervous system is that part of your nervous system that is used to regulate your heart rate and regulate your blood pressure so if this is affected once again it can become life-threatening.
What are the different treatment options?
So far we don't have any Curative treatment options for an inherited neuromuscular problem there are some treatments for certain neuromuscular conditions where the progression can be slowed like with SMA but otherwise there are no treatment options for inherited conditions just supportive management
On the other hand for inflammatory conditions or conditions where your immune system is hyperactive can be treated and also cured and the Mainstay of treatment is usually keeping the immune system under control so with immune suppressants like steroids or plasma exchange or IV immunoglobulins or other immunosuppressive agents that we can use
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