13 July 2007

I had the most interesting (yes, really) appointment the other day. It was with Prof. Christopher Miller to repeat the EMG tests. I am told he is the top expert in the country in myasthenia (and, no doubt, many other things) He was an interesting, and apparently interested, and very kindly person. He did a different kind of test to the last EMG I had, but I guess there’s more than one way to skin a cat. It was still about measuring electrical signals along nerves.

He described it as a tap on the head which he was detecting via electrodes on my shin. I’m not sure if it was a ‘tap’ or am electrical impulse, but anyway it felt like a tap on the head so I guess it was. He did some baseline measures and said categorically that it’s not myasthenia – and that he’s probably seen more cases of myasthenia than anyone else.

The idea was then to get me to reproduce the feelings of fatigue, so I walked rapidly up and down the corridor. I only needed to go about probably 30 or 40 yards before I could feel my feet begin to drag.

He repeated the test and against a baseline time taken for the nerve impulse of 49 m/s (if I remember correctly) the time taken had increased to 66 m/s – about 33%. So he thought this was extraordinary and speculated that it was caused by the fractional warming of my muscles/nerves caused by exercising, maybe as little as 1/10 of a degree could have an effect. He didn’t advance any theory as to how I might be able to improve it, but perhaps Michael Rose will when I see him next.

Now the strange thing is, is this connected to the MS, or something completely different? It doesn’t sound like it’s connected, because MS seems to be all about permanent nerve damage, not transient changes affected by environmental factors. Or perhaps I really know less than I thought.