What is Guillain-Barré Syndrome?
Guillain-Barré Syndrome is an auto-immune disease that affects a very small percentage of people. Anyone can get this syndrome, but it’s more common as people get older. Males are also slightly more likely to develop the syndrome than are females.
While the exact timeline for a person’s recovery can vary from patient to patient, there’s a general timeline that most people follow. In the first two weeks, a person will be diagnosed after seeing some symptoms. For another two weeks, the symptoms will get progressively worse. Symptoms usually plateau after this initial four-week period. Then, recovery can take anywhere from six months to a few years.
Doctors also don’t know the exact cause of the syndrome, but it often develops after a respiratory or digestive tract infection. In very rare cases, Guillain-Barré Syndrome can occur after a surgery, vaccination, or after becoming infected with COVID-19. Some other common triggers for the auto-immune syndrome include getting Hodgkins-Lymphoma, HIV, Epstein-Barr virus, hepatitis A, B, C, and E, and the Zika virus.
Essentially, Guillain-Barré Syndrome is when your immune system starts attacking the nerves instead of just foreign organisms. For instance, AIDP is one of the most common forms of Guillain-Barré Syndrome, and with this particular type of the syndrome, the immune system attacks the myelin sheath, which is the protective coating that keeps the message in the nerves working properly.
Symptoms of Guillain-Barré Syndrome
There are some general symptoms that are common regardless of the type of the syndrome that a person has, but there are multiple versions of the syndrome, and each one has it’s own unique symptoms that tend to be more common.
Some of the most common, universal symptoms include rapid heart rate, difficulty breathing, and low or high blood pressure. Pins and needles sensations in the fingers, toes, wrists, and ankles is another possible symptom. Some patients can also experience weakness in the legs and upper body, double vision, difficulties climbing stairs, difficulties controlling facial movements, struggles with controlling bladder and bowel functions, inability to speak, chew, or swallow, and aching, cramping, or shooting pain that gets worse at night.
There are three different types of the syndrome, and the exact symptoms can change according to the exact type. For instance, people with AIDP are more likely to experience the legs that spread to the torso and upper half of the body.
People with Miller Fischer Syndrome are more likely to experience an unsteady walk and paralysis that starts in the eyes.
Finally, acute motor axonal neuropathy and acute motor-sensory axonal neuropathy are forms of Guillain-Barré Syndrome that are less common in the U.S. but are more common in Mexico, Japan, and China. And this form of the syndrome has its own unique way that the symptoms manifest.
Treatment for Guillain-Barré Syndrome
While there isn’t a cure for this particular syndrome, there are a couple of treatments that can reduce the number and lessen the severity of symptoms. For instance, some people might undergo plasmapheresis to get rid of the antibodies that are causing the negative reactions. In this process, the blood is drawn from the patient’s body and then spun to separate the plasma from the red blood cells. The red blood cells are then put back into the body.
Another treatment is to give the patient immunoglobins from donor blood. These immunoglobins, when given in high enough doses, can block the antibodies that contribute to the syndrome. Many people with this syndrome also receive pain killers to lessen the experience of pain and medication to prevent blood clots.
Some other kinds of treatment include physical therapy exercises. Oftentimes, people will be given exercises that they can do with a caregiver so that the limbs can stay limber and strong even when the patient isn’t able to walk because the neural signals aren’t transmitting properly. Without any kind of movement, the muscles can atrophy, so the patient would have to build up the strength even after they’ve recovered.
Patients also receive a wheelchair or braces so that they can continue to be mobile and take care of themselves. Beyond some basic care and therapy, people who have developed this particular syndrome need time so that their bodies can heal themselves.
