Myasthenia gravis is a neuromuscular disorder which leads to weakness in the skeletal muscles. Skeletal muscles are used by the body for making movements. It is a serious health condition which causes the weakening of the tissues.
Continue reading, you can find useful information on myasthenia gravis causes symptoms and treatment which is mentioned in the below paragraphs.
Myasthenia gravis causes symptoms and treatment
Causes of Myasthenia gravis
As a result of particular reasons, there are possibilities for even a newborn baby to be affected by Myasthenia gravis. But mostly this disease is seen in aged peoples, more than 80% of disease is affecting peoples who are in the age group 40 – 60. This disease is not hereditary, and won’t transmits from one to other. Even though the disease may affect one or more member of a family, It’s quite a coincidence. Myasthenia gravis can infect a newborn baby in most rare cases.
The growth of thymus gland seen just below the heart has a close relation with causing the disease Myasthenia gravis.
Respiratory failure
As the disease ages, Myasthenia gravis can also affect the tissues of the respiratory system. This is a serious condition which even causes death if the patient is not given necessary treatment. Myasthenia gravis can also affect the tissue of the hand and fingers.
Symptoms of Myasthenia Gravis
Even though this disease can affect any tissue which a body is capable of moving, in most cases above 50% the disease affects the tissues in the eyelids. If the disease affects the tissues of your eye, then possibly it will keep your eyelids to half way down. A myasthenia gravis infected patient will try hard to lift their eyelids but they won’t be able to open more than half way, unless they use their hands. This is commonly seen among the disease affected ones.
Myasthenia gravis can also affect the tissue which helps the eye to move left and right. If this happens the person will see things in dual imagery. It may affect any one of the eyes or both.
And as time passes it spreads to other parts of the body tissues. If the disease affects the tissue of the face, it will end up in losing the ability to show facial emotions. Visitors who come to see the patient will complain that he is not even smiling to them. But the truth is he is not able to use the tissue on the face to express the emotions.
Since the disease affected person won’t able to control the tissue on the face, their chin may fall down so frequently. The patient would need a support to his chin to keep it closed or they might always seem to keep their hands to support their chin.
They will experience difficulty in moving their heads forward and back. And gradually in the extream situations, the patient will find it difficult to eat food and even drink water. In such a situation when we feed the patient with any food, it may come back through their nose. This happens because the patient’s inability to swallow food to reach their stomach. Their sound seems to be very low. Even sneezing would be a silent sound.
- Also read about the rare type of cancer mesothelioma
Myasthenia gravis diagnosis and treatment
There is no complete cure for myasthenia gravis disease. But it can be treated with medications and in extreme cases, surgery may be an option. A drug called pyridostigmine (Mestinon) is commonly used for the treatment of the disease. This can increase the amount of acetylcholine available to stimulate the receptors in the body.
Medications for Myasthenia gravis include Anticholinesterase Medication, Immunosuppressant Medications like Prednisone, Monoclonal antibodies etc. And other treatment methods like Thymectomy (removal of the thymus gland), Intravenous Immune Globulin, Plasmapheresis and Supplemental Therapies.
Myasthenia gravis can be identified from the disease symptoms. But the disease won’t show any noticeable symptoms at the early stages. Even though some of the noticeable symptoms are, the strength of tissue would decrease by evening for most of the times. The affected person will feel severe weakening and pain over the body. These symptoms may vary from person to person depending on their health condition.
If you find any symptoms showing the disease, then you should do preliminary diagnoses like blood tests and there are several other modern treatments particularly for the diagnosis of Myasthenia gravis.
Even though this article doesn’t cover the entire course of myasthenia gravis causes symptoms and treatment, It does cover the most important and common ones. And in most cases, this would be enough to know for a common purpose.