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1131852 tn?1260378322

MRI and Lumbar Puncture Results

Hey Guys, My mom is 38 years old, she is the mother of two children, myself(20) and my younger sister(16), for the last 6 years she has been progressively getting more and more sick. She has been losing control of her bladder and bowel movements, can not remember much, night vision is gone, she can not make decisions for herself, her muscles are very weak that she can not walk, she is very fatigued all day long and has no appetite. The doctors initially thought it was from her depression or the meds for it and than her family doctor just realized in the last two years its something much more severe and has not been able to diagnose it. She has just recently been admitted to the hospital in my city and upon her arrival was given a bunch of tests, one was a lumbar puncture and one was an MRI among other but those two are of importance. The Lumbar puncture came back showing things simmilar to that of a patient with MS would show, and she also had her MRI come bak with quite the mass of white matter. So with this the doctors have confirmed it is some sort of demyelination disorder. And about 3 days about she was only able to speak a few basic english phrases and the rest was just gibberish that made no sense. She seemed to be able to comprehend things but not relay anything. She could remember who was there to visit her but not their names or else would get them mixed up with others. Is there any thing in specific we should be looking for? How hereditary are these types of things? How can i make her more comfortable in dealing with this? I am extremely worried that i am going to lose my mom. I just turned 20 and she just turned 38. we are a very young family and something like this is too hard to deal with... please help if you can. or even suggestions on what we should look at.
4 Responses
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1083596 tn?1313394676
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
Deal Alexa,
Brain biopsy is a risky invasive procedure to do as we might end up in doing more damage to her.
Regarding the remission aspect, these sort of diseases don't remit. They keep on progressing.However we can't predict the speed of the progress.
There is no single diagnostic test to prove Multiple sclerosis.We need to co-relate the physical sings and symptoms along with the MRI findings to arrive at the conclusion.So it's the treating doctor's decision to lable the condition as MS.
Regards
Helpful - 0
1131852 tn?1260378322
hey i was also just wondering if any drug would possibly cause this? or any environmental factors?
Helpful - 0
1131852 tn?1260378322
I spoke with my moms doctors yesterday and they mentioned the possibilitie of a brain biopsy, but they said it is very traumatic and intrusive however it would be ideal to find out if it is a hereditary disease. The doctor also said though that if they find out for it to be so, life insurance will be very hard to get for ourselves and that since we already know it is a demyelinating disease, we already know there is nothing we can really do to slow down the progression. Do diseases like this ever go into remission at all or do they continue to go down hill? Her physical health is starting to look alot better that the doctors are having a hard time explaining why they are keeping her in the hospital but this disease what ever it may be, is preventing her from making any beneficial decisions. The doctor also mentioned that one possibility although he said it was VERY rare would be the primary progressive multiple sclerosis, is there anything one can do if diagnosed with that?
Helpful - 0
1083596 tn?1313394676
MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL
Dear AlexandrukM,
Am very sorry to hear about all these details.But frankly there is very little we can do presently.The disease of demyelination has already started and hence we can't control it.But we can definitely help to make her quality of life much better.
As per your questions -
1) Is there any thing in specific we should be looking for?
                    Well we have already confirmed that there is a demyelinating disorder that is responsible for the same.

2) How hereditary are these types of things?
                10-25% chances of heriditary.That doesn't means you can get affected also.

3) How can i make her more comfortable in dealing with this?
            You can make her feel comfortable and familiar with the things around you.

Demyelinating disease can be due to any reason (idiopathic/viral/autoimmune/etc) but the end result is that the myelin sheath, that is present around the nerves,gets slowly destroyed and hence results into demyelination. The symptoms,i need need to elaborate, as they are same as you have already told.
In these situation, you need to heavily rely on the treating doctor as he knows the condition of the patient perfectly.
You must act of the treatment protocol provided by the doctor.If he is not a proper neurologist, then you should meet a proper Neurologist for expert opinion.There are various treatment available for the same  -
1) Immunoglobuling,
2) Plasmapharesis.
3) Prednisolone.
4) Azathiopine . Etc.

I can't advice the treatment as i have not physically examined the patient and hence it's difficult for me to prescribe.
Feel free to ask me more in this context or other context.
I hope i was able to satisfy your concern.
Regards
Helpful - 0

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