So what exactly is Multifocal Motor Neuropathy? Sometimes we find ourselves at a stage in our lives where it seems that we have to simply live with something. One of those elements could be chronic pain, especially related to nerve pain and neuropathic disease. It doesn’t mean you simply need to stick with it daily, but there are some things you can do to help manage and reduce that pain overall.
That pain could be coming specifically from a disease known as multifocal motor neuropathy. But, unfortunately, it’s not something that you can easily assess early on, and that’s why it’s important to look for the signs as they progress.
What is Multifocal Motor Neuropathy
This is a rare disorder that is also slow and progressive. It targets the muscles and slowly starts to weaken them, primarily your limbs, arms, and legs. Why it’s so harmful, besides its advanced degenerative state, is because it’s hard to detect without time. The symptoms, besides the weakness in the arms and legs, can extend to becoming muscle cramps and eventually lead to atrophy. These, of course, can be symptoms of other diseases, including neuropathic-related degenerative diseases.
Another reason is that there’s no direct cause of multifocal motor neuropathy. It’s not due to a poor life or a stressful life, and it can happen to anyone. It’s related to your immune system producing an abnormal response against some type of foreign disease. Since this is the primary defense system for the human body, it is interconnected with the entire body. Ranging from nerves to organs and muscles, to individual cells. It tends to support eliminating these diseases through producing white blood cells and other methods.
Why it is called “multifocal”
Yet what happens when it comes to multifocal motor neuropathy is something known as conduction blocking. This is one of the methods to initially diagnose this condition, and what that means is a nerve impulse is not properly carrying through the nervous system and ultimately to the muscles. Because of this nervous system ‘block’, it starts to malfunction, causing this progressive damage to continue as the nerve impulses continue to become lost.
The reason it has the name ‘multifocal’ is that it can target multiple parts of the body at the same time. These nerve pulses come from the body’s motor function but are not getting from the brain to the muscles. Again it’s essential to note that this is an extremely rare disease.
It can easily affect both men and women, with a tendency to affect men 3 times more. Men are prone to getting it more often and at a younger age. Its current rate of affliction is 0.6 per 100,000 individuals.
How to deal with Multifocal Motor Neuropathy
The first step is to ensure a proper diagnosis to confirm that this is, in fact, multifocal motor neuropathy. Running the necessary tests to confirm will help with a subsequent treatment plan to work on combatting this disease. The first part that helps, since this is primarily due to muscle weakness, is to do physical therapy. This will help to retain that muscle mass in a safe and controlled environment without the fear of causing injury. It also may be necessary to get foot braces or utilize a wheelchair if it starts to worsen.
Modern Science found a treatment option in 2012 when it became available to the general public, known as Gammagard Liquid 10%. Again this is to help alleviate the symptoms and is technically not a cure. It has the name, ‘intravenous immunoglobulin’ (IVIg) treatment, meaning you cannot simply take a pill for it and will need an IV unit hooked up to you for the process. It’s a maintenance therapy that requires, on average, resupply of the treatment every four weeks or so.
This will reduce muscle weakness, but unfortunately, since our immune systems and metabolisms tend to work against us with treatments, this treatment eventually will have diminishing returns. That means you will require more of the dosage down the line to produce the same treatment results from earlier. There are more treatments that are possible in case Gammagard doesn’t respond properly.
Multifocal Motor Neuropathy relief
For those that are looking for pain relief, keep in mind that Multifocal Motor Neuropathy itself isn’t painful, but because of how it affects the body, those portions can get quite sore. One of those areas could be additional pressure on the nerves, as the muscles aren’t there to help hold everything in place. In these situations, surgery is possible, but only as a way to help mitigate the pain, and it is not an actual cure.
Pain Relief
The biggest pain that will arise will be the weight of the body without the support of the muscles. Therefore, it’s important that with any type of neuropathic disease, work on changing your overall lifestyle. While everyone has different stages and different levels of this disease, losing weight, working out in physical therapy, and eliminating other toxins (such as not smoking or drinking), will help your body to be in the best state. It can then focus on providing support to where it needs it instead of working overtime due to poor habits.
Researchers are constantly looking for more answers to Multifocal Motor Neuropathy, and some believe that it could be reversible one day. In addition, there’s a chance, with proper health management and treatment, that Multifocal Motor Neuropathy could go into remission for quite a long time. So the best thing you can do for yourself is work on getting tested, or at the least start asking the right questions when you visit your doctor the next time.
Another way you can help is to Take This Quiz To Find Out Your Body Neuropathy type. This quiz will help to guide you to know if further tests are going to be needed. Use this as a way to expose more people to this disease and neuropathic diseases in general. The more efforts put into discussing this, the more efforts to work towards a cure can happen.
