Clonus

Posted By Chery Crane on February 28, 1998 at 13:32:35:









What can cause rampant clonus?
9 years ago (1989) I was clinically diagnosed w/ MS at Mayo in Jax. They found a small something on the conus and suspected an AV malformation. They did an angiogram and ruled out the AV malformation. My symptoms were leg pain, bladder hesitancy, post-voiding residual, and what I thought was a small tremor in the rt hand. (I had already had a L5S1 discectomy)
In 1991, trigeminal neuralgia started as well as a lot of clonus in rt hand. Later Glosso-pharangeal neuralgia and rt. hand - arm - shoulder weakness.
Now I have clonus everywhere, both sides of jaw, both hands, arms, feet. Clonus in arms so bad I beat my haed w/ phone. I take 20 mg baclofen X3, 300 mg neurontin X 3, 50 mg Zoloft. This puts the clonus in a state that it will stop after a few seconds.
Current MRI's on brand new equipment which show no problem w/ CNS. Lumbar shows 3 herniated discs, none pressing on the cord. Cervical shows an anterior herniation at c5-6, not pressing on anything. EMG's say that it's central. No problem on evolked responses.
Where can the problem lie? Is clonus a symptom or a separate condition by itself? Is it found as a feature of diseases other than MS?