Guillain Barre Syndrome

Guillain-Barre Syndrome is serious. It is a disorder that really isn't all that commonplace. What this illness does, is launch an attack on the nerves. The attack initially comes from your immune system.

The cause of Guillain-Barre Syndrome is a mystery. But through studies done on people that have had it, it seems that there is a link between having had the flu or types of respiratory illness such as pneumonia. This condition only seems to come up in about every 1 to 100,000 people.

When a person comes down with Guillain-Barre Syndrome, they usually need hospital care, especially if the illness is really severe, or they have other underlying medical problems.

Most typically, the symptoms of Guillain Barre Syndrome are of the following:

The fingers and toes have funny prickly or tingling sensations. This is one of the most common symptoms.

A lot of people have trouble with their coordination and being steady on their feet for any length of time. There is a weakness in the legs.

The back really hurts and has pain that is very intense.

Many people seem to also have trouble with their breathing a lot and feel very short of their breath. This is quite common from what I have read.

There is much difficulty controlling the bowels and bladder. This is due to the lack of feelings that are suddenly occurring in the back and legs from nerves not functioning correctly.

The rate of the heart slows way down which could account for the breathing problems. There again, this is a nerve involvement disorder, so it stands to reason that this links right in there with affecting the heart.

The weakness experienced in Guillain-Barre Syndrome seems to progress after about 21 days after the initial symptoms. There are some people that have a rapid progression of Guillain-Barre Syndrome, and the symptoms will increase very quickly.

Anyone that has a rapid progression of intensive weakness in their body to where they can hardly walk, along with other serious breathing problems needs to get help right away even in the emergency room.

Other risk factors for having Guillain-Barre Syndrome are having HIV, mononucleosis, Hodgkin's Disease, or the Epstein-Barre virus.

When people experience complications from Guillain-Barre Syndrome, they often have many breathing difficulties which are life-threatening, or numbness that is leftover after a recovery. More rarely, death can occur from troubles in breathing, or having permanent problems with numbness in the extremities.

Diagnosing Guillain-Barre Syndrome is done by using a spinal tap procedure where spinal fluid is drawn out. They are looking for something in the fluid that people with Guillain-Barre Syndrome carry.

Nerve function tests such as electromyography is also done to determine muscle and nerve damages to the body.

Doctors cannot cure this syndrome. But there is supportive treatments available to help the body recover from it. One of the treatments involves immunoglobulin given by intravenous. This treatment is given aggressively which negates harmful antibodies from coming into the system, and thereby, restoration of healthier antibodies can come in to the system, which gives healing.

Plasmapheresis is another treatment that can also be given.This is a "blood cleaning," type of a treatment. All of the troublesome antibodies in the blood are wiped out from the plasma in your blood. What happens next after the separation of blood cells from the plasma is the blood cells are then put back into your system.The blood cells then join the plasma again, and the person affected begins to heal well in many cases.

Recovery from this syndrome takes many people quite some time to get over the illness. It could take anywhere from 6 months up to 1 year. A lot of people need physical therapy once recovered.