Guillain-Barre Syndrome

[( o Y o )]

Anyone have any info, first hand or not on this?

Quite a good friend of mine, I saw rather healthy last week, this week started to feel a little weak. Wednesday she felt a bit off so had someone drop her kids off at school for her, and by lunchtime Thursday she was basically a quad. Cannot stand, pick anything up, feed herself etc...she can barely move at all and was diagnosed as having GBS which when doing a search I came up with Guillain-Barre Syndrome.

Anyone here know just how bad this is/can get? And are these symptoms temporary and if so leave much damage?

Sad thing is she has two very young kids (6 and 3) and her husband is a heart surgeon based at a hospital in another prefecture (state) that generally only comes home every second weekend.....

[MZN]

hmm well I have heard of it actually. I always like to watch these forensic detective shows and one time some guy got poisoned by his wife with thallium at first they thought he had guillan barre syndrome cuz of the symptomes (numbness, paralasys, burning sensations and so on ) But the symptoms kept on occuring too long for it to be gbs. They said that after a week or 5 days gbs would fade. I don't know anything on irrepable damage. But well it's just a tv show.

[freefightdave]

Well there`s an MD on this board, unicorn. You could ask him, I guess.

[AKA]

I'm physical therapist and neurology reeducation is one of my speciality.

GBS is one of the worst disease , its an auto immune disease...Thats mean its ur own body who destroy thimself (its the neurological system)(sorry for the bad english) btw the GBS usually dont kill patient and after a hard time several month to 2 years they are OK, I mean they recover ALL their past possibilities....
But if the disease just start, its the beginning of Hell for ur friend, but she will be oki in several month and the doctors probably already said that to her becoz if u dont know u are going to get better its impossible to mentally survive the GBS shit.

Usually the neurological system is attck and then u lost quickly Force and then the sensitivity....U become 100 % handicapped and cannot controlo the urine etc...
The worst moment is when ur breath muscles are attacked...u can be in a reanimation unite with some stuff to make u artificially breath...btw all the GBS didnt take this importance....sometimes they just lost their leg use and then begin to recover quicly, sometimes its worst and u began to recover when u are very paralized etc...


Just say to her to keep in mind that ists a bad moment and that she will recover ALL his abilities. She have to be strong for his children, thats a good argument to make her dont become dispressed.


Sorry for the bad news...

In conclusion : GBS is a quick and huge neurological disease, but almot all the patient recovers....usually in less than one year, all the patient i had said they were ok in their head when they were able anymore to take their child in their arm :)

[( o Y o )]

Thanks for the new, bad, but good in the end I guess as it sounds as though while she is in a serious way, her life is not really in danger.

2 years is a looong time to be sick with something this serious. I`d never even heard of it before.

Again, thanks for typing all that out.

[AKA]

ur welcome.
post some news of her.
Japanese doctor are some of the best of the world in neurological disease they will probably do a good job!(i hope she has great medical insurance, i heard that in Japan u have to get some expensive insurance to get ur money back.)

Like u said she is in a very bad moment but usually in that kind of disease the end is good :)

[( o Y o )]

I will let you know when I get more news. Her whole family, from all over Japan, are at her place this weekend and I would think her Mother and sister will be there helping for quite awhile.....anyway, with the family and shock of everything happening we have kept out for now but sometime next week hope to see/talk to her.

[AKA]

thats a very good thing! In japan people have the family sense...
Its very important for her! Nice.

[unicorn]

Confirming what Lilian said. GBS was killing people when medicine couldn't afford sophisticated support and rehab therapy and is still killing if the patient/the system are poor and can't afford it. Otherwise it has only a light-gray prognosis - that is, it can harm a lot but it is not anylonger a fatal disease. It will be nevertheless a hard test to pass through :|

[( o Y o )]

Very late, but a quick update.

She has nearly completely recovered. She said she still tiers easily and has some weakness in her right arm, but overall she is nearly perfectly healthy again.

[Amron]

One question:

How do you get this desease? By infection trough another carrier or...??

BTW good news oyo, i did not see this thread back in march

[AKA]

Very late, but a quick update.

She has nearly completely recovered. She said she still tiers easily and has some weakness in her right arm, but overall she is nearly perfectly healthy again.
Good news, she will have more stamina in the future but it will take a long time before she completely recovers!
BTW maybe she will be a lil bit weak in her right arm forever.
The important things is that she survived and recover well. Today she probably can easily take her children in her arms thats the most important thing bro :)