Muscle weakness, or myasthenia gravis, can develop as an independent disease, and be a symptom of more serious pathologies. The essence of the disease boils down to the fact that muscles do not cope with their functions and, as a result, quickly become tired. The consequence of this is the inability to move normally. It is worth noting that myasthenia gravis occurs relatively rarely, the main reason is often banal overwork. The heaviest load falls on the legs, so it is the lower limbs that undergo pathology in most cases. To reduce the likelihood of serious consequences, it is necessary to undergo examination by a neurologist and therapist.
The concept
In medicine, myasthenia gravis is a reduction in the contractility of one or more muscles. Pathology can occur in any part of the body, but muscle weakness in the legs, arms, and face is most common. The disease appears as a result of a malfunction of the immune system, causing disruption of muscle cells with nerve endings.
It is believed that myasthenia gravis can be inherited. Experts say that this is possible, but this fact has not been scientifically proven. Often muscle weakness manifests itself in the form of seizures, after sleep, usually no symptoms of pathology occur. During the day, signs are more pronounced, and by the evening the situation worsens. A disease has periods when it subsides and does not give itself away. Long-term remission is detected during pregnancy, but after a while the disease again makes itself felt.
Forms of pathology
Specialists distinguish three main forms of myasthenia gravis. Let's consider each of them in more detail:
- Congenital This form is considered the most rare. This is the case when muscle tissue defects appear from birth, a genetic disease. The child has a violation of the conduction of synapses, due to which weakness is expressed.
- Acquired. Unlike the first option, this is the most common case. It is difficult to name the exact causes of the disease, because the pathology can develop both from the presence of infections in the body, and with a thymus tumor. We will talk more about the reasons below.
- Neonatal. The most complex form of the disease. It occurs in infants if the mother already has a pathology. The infection process is as follows: antibodies pass from mother to baby through the placenta, and the child assigns the disease.
Why is there a problem?
The causes of muscle weakness can be many, especially if the pathology manifests itself on the body and limbs. Quite often there is increased fatigue in diseases such as hepatitis, anemia, depression and chronic fatigue syndrome.
Reasons for the occurrence of the disease:
- Stroke, spinal cord compression, neuropathy, sclerosis.
- Muscle atrophy, this situation is often found in seriously ill and bedridden people, and myasthenia gravis can develop throughout the body.
- Bad habits like smoking and alcoholism. This sensitivity appears with the acquired form of myasthenia gravis.
- Prolonged medication, especially in bedridden people, leads to muscle weakness.
- If the focus of the disease is the legs, then the cause is most likely due to varicose veins, flat feet or joint problems.
- Throughout the body, weakness often occurs with low blood pressure, so the level of this indicator must be carefully monitored.
- Vitamin deficiency is also quite bad for muscle performance.
It is problematic to list all the reasons for the occurrence of a pathology, the doctor determines the exact cause based on the symptoms. In any case, the sooner you contact a specialist, the higher the chance of a successful recovery in a short time.
Diabetes
One of the diseases that lead to the weakening of muscle tissue is diabetes. If the body does not produce a sufficient amount of the hormone insulin, there is a violation of carbohydrate metabolism, resulting in increased blood sugar. Diabetes can be of two types:
- In the first case, insulin production is completely absent due to the negative effect of the cells of the immune system on the pancreas. Patients should monitor their sugar levels every day to avoid negative effects.
- General muscle weakness can also occur due to insulin deficiency. Diabetes is provoked by diseases such as obesity, low physical activity, pancreatitis, etc. If you ignore the pathology and do not deal with the treatment, the patient develops the first type of diabetes. It is worth noting that the disease is not treated, a person controls the level of sugar for the rest of his life.
Sports pathology
Everyone knows the feeling when you really want to go in for sports. In most cases, excessive enthusiasm ends with a banal overtraining. The desire to train disappears, and apathy appears. As a result, working capacity decreases, endurance is lost, weakness appears, including in striated muscles.
Among the symptoms of a sports disease, there are:
- lethargy,
- decreased appetite
- frequent depression
- insomnia
- aversion to training, etc.
If you find yourself with several of these signs, you need to take a break in training for at least a few weeks. To cope with muscle weakness in the hands and other parts of the body will help calm swimming in the pool. In order not to have a similar situation, you need to be careful about your health and not give the body an extra load.
Symptoms
Signs of pathology and causes in this case are interrelated. Myasthenia gravis is characterized, first of all, by weakness in the muscles of the face. Often the eyelids suffer, the patient has a split image. If pathology is found throughout the body, the muscles of the shoulder, lips and neck first suffer. As a result, it turns out that the victim cannot speak and swallow normally.
In case of muscle weakness in the legs, the patient is tormented by pain, there is a venous network and a change in skin color around the affected area. If a person likes to “attach to the bottle”, swelling develops along with weakness, because alcohol-containing drinks provoke its manifestation.
When the cause of the pathology lies in low blood pressure, severe headaches, dizziness are detected, the patient complains of memory lapses. With a stroke, not only weakness appears throughout the body, but the gait also changes, speech is disturbed, it becomes difficult to speak and swallow.
Only a doctor can establish a diagnosis of muscle weakness after conducting the necessary studies. An examination is necessary, because in some cases the reason lies in the negative impact of several pathologies at once.
Myasthenia gravis in children
As already noted, the disease muscle weakness is of a congenital type. In a child, such a pathology is quickly detected, because immediately you can observe a violation of muscle tone, an asymmetric body, an affected limb becomes unbearable. In addition, the physical development of the baby in this case leaves much to be desired. Children, like adults, have a lot of causes of the disease. Among the most common, Down syndrome, blood poisoning, jaundice, muscle dystrophy, rickets and hypothyroidism can be distinguished.
It must be said that a violation of tone is not always associated with a congenital form of muscle weakness. This kind of pathology is found in babies who survived hypoxia in the womb. This problem can be solved by conventional massage, physiotherapy and gymnastics. Within a year, the child fully recovers, in rare cases, drug therapy is necessary.
Parents should carefully monitor the health of the baby. Lethargy and drowsiness at any age is not a normal manifestation, so you should start to worry. If, on top of all, insomnia, poor appetite and reluctance to move are observed, you need to make an appointment with a neurologist as soon as possible. The diagnosis of myasthenia gravis is not always confirmed, but it is better to be safe.
Diagnostics
If you are tormented by the above symptoms, then it's time to consult a specialist. A neuropathologist and therapist are involved in this issue. To begin with, it is best to visit a doctor with a general specialization, and he, in turn, will refer the patient to a professional with a narrower profile. The main purpose of the diagnosis is to determine the nature of the anxiety of the victim: weakness or muscle fatigue.
As in most cases, the diagnostic process begins with an anamnesis, that is, collecting information from the patient's words. The doctor needs to know how often the pathology worries, in what parts of the body it is localized, etc. The doctor also needs to evaluate the patient’s memory, whether he can take care of himself, how long the symptoms and a lot of other information have appeared.
External inspection is the next step. Much can clarify the weight of the victim, the condition of the skin and reflexes. Past diseases play a very large role. A qualified specialist will definitely ask for a patient card and hospital discharge if available. After that, the doctor already has suspicions about the disease that torments the person.
Depending on the assumptions of the doctor, the following studies are prescribed:
- tests with edrophony, which allows you to check the immune response;
- genetic laboratory testing is carried out only if a hereditary disease is suspected;
- muscle biopsy analysis;
- in some cases, the specialist recommends computed tomography, ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging;
- if there is a suspicion of infection, a general and biochemical analysis of blood and urine is prescribed;
- in case of detection of a tumor, puncture is used.
Progressive muscle weakness requires timely treatment. If a doctor after anamnesis and assessing appearance understands that it is a case of myasthenia gravis, he immediately prescribes therapy.
Traditional treatment
The prescribed therapy is based on the results of the diagnosis. After all the studies, the doctor decides how the recovery of weak muscles will take place. If the cause of myasthenia gravis is any disease, then first of all it is necessary to deal with its elimination. In most cases, it is enough to cope with the symptoms so that the disease recedes, but not with muscle weakness.
To completely get rid of the pathology, a long physiological and drug treatment is prescribed. The essence of therapy is to restore the immune system, as well as to normalize muscle tone. If the situation is difficult, the doctor may prescribe surgery or radiation therapy. The goal in this case is to remove the thymus gland. This is necessary if conventional treatment or tumor detection is ineffective.
Usually, experts recommend using the following drugs as a treatment for muscle weakness:
- Anticholinesterase. Medicines of this type provoke muscle contraction, the dosage is selected individually for each patient.
- Hormonal These drugs are used only in case of severe pathology.
- Immunoglobulins.
Combination therapy is considered the most effective, because all treatment methods complement each other. Physiotherapy will be very useful, because it helps to normalize muscle function. Doctors recommend using manual massage, aerophytotherapy, electrophoresis, chromotherapy. When the period of remission begins, the patient can go for treatment to a sanatorium. Otherwise, with exacerbation of myasthenia gravis, the patient is contraindicated in excessive exercise and certain medications.
ethnoscience
Almost all doctors have a rather negative attitude towards alternative treatment. The fact is that not all popular methods help recovery, some of them only exacerbate the situation. Before using them, you need to identify the cause of the pathology. If you start treatment without knowing the exact reasons, you can provoke serious complications, especially with muscle weakness.
As already noted, myasthenia gravis is best treated with a complex method. As for folk recipes, their use is possible only after consultation with your doctor. Self-medication is not recommended, because there have been many cases of deterioration of the patient's condition after ignoring the advice of specialists.
If, however, the doctor allowed the use of alternative methods, only the most effective should be used. Among them are:
- The use of dried fruits. The entire period of the course of myasthenia gravis, regardless of remission or exacerbation, it is recommended to consume prunes, raisins, dried apricots. Dried fruits can be prepared in different ways: add to salads, cook compotes, make infusions. In the latter case, rosehips and dried berries are additionally placed.
- A remedy for garlic, lemon, honey and linseed oil. The ingredients must be crushed and mixed thoroughly, it is recommended to take the infusion daily on a teaspoon half an hour before meals.
Prevention
The prognosis is influenced by the type of disease that was detected in the patient. It is worth noting that myasthenia gravis is an incurable chronic disease. However, modern medicine offers a lot of tools that can significantly improve the quality of life of the patient. In some, especially successful cases, pathology has almost no effect on human life.
The development of pathology is often quite difficult, so you need to take therapy and prevention of muscle weakness seriously. It is recommended that the patient eat right, exclude fatty foods from the diet. In addition, at first it is better not to physically load the body, you can only perform simple gymnastics as prescribed by your doctor.
In general, with myasthenia gravis, it is better to listen to the advice of a specialist. All prescribed medications should be taken, especially drugs to strengthen the immune system. If necessary, attend physiotherapy classes and undergo treatment during periods of remission. Therapy is recommended to be carried out under the supervision of a doctor so that the patient takes only the necessary medications. When the cause of the pathology is an infection, you first need to eliminate it.
The main thing - do not self-medicate and listen to your doctors. Then you will reduce the risk of complications and improve the quality of life.