Symptoms: Page Two

Ataxia


Ataxia is not a disease.  It is a description.

Taxi, as in the cab you hail —move from place to place.

A-taxic, difficult (or unable) to move.


It took ten scary years before I found where my motion disturbance lay.  As I look back, I am disappointed in the scores of neurologists I've seen.  You would think one might have realized a connection between my weird motion and the process of proprioception.

Last year, finally, one did.  After my responding to an ingested compound, a recent doctor confirmed  there had been a breach of my blood brain barrier (BBB).  Afterwards, a simple examination led him to be certain of inflammation of the cerebellum, which is responsible for the proprioceptive process.

Even though I told him of protomyxzoa (which was not new to him) he believes it to be caused by Lyme disease, though I never received Lyme as a diagnosis.  For that matter, though I tested positive for protomyxzoa, my other doctor made a point of saying "this is not a diagnosis," and listed me simply as having multiple protozoan infections.  Apparently, unidentified co-infections are easier to slip through insurance.


Proprioception:

Imagine yourself in a strange city.  You have a map, but without knowing where you are currently, you cannot begin to understand which direction to proceed to get to where you are going.  Proprioception is the term used to describe the process by which your brain understands where your body is in space and so understands what it needs to do to move your body where it needs to be.

You might understand it a little easier this way.  Ever been drunk?  Alcohol affects proprioception.  When the officer asks you to close your eyes and touch the tip of your nose, he is testing your proprioceptive process.  You can cheat and peek and get away with it —if you don't get caught.  Visual perception is a second process which tells your brain where your body is.  But if you can't peek then you'll likely touch your nostril, your cheek...your forehead.  This is because the brain cannot accurately read the position of your joints to know precisely where your limbs are, so your result can be way off.

Intoxication is a global impedance in the system and though you might wobble, all parts of your body are working with the same sluggish delay.  They still communicate at the same speed.  Inflammation is not necessarily global and communications within the process can become sporadic and cues can be missed resulting in unsteadiness, jerking and sometimes freezing in place.  This happens most often when something changes; an unexpected dip in the sidewalk; taking a step up or down; changing direction.

It takes a minute.  I look, I concentrate and with a total lack of any grace, I manage to continue.  After a moment my brain understands the new series of motions and some gracefulness returns...until the next change.  One of my oddities related to this is I have the darnedest time washing the edges of a spatula —wipe up, across, down...my hand goes completely out of control and my entire arm goes tense.

That our bodies move is truly remarkable.  The complexity is so vast and any one malfunctioning part of the system is going to be noticeable.  Motion requires complete signals from many parts of the brain; the frontal lobe; the cerebral cortex; the amygdala to name a few.  Proprioception is only a small part of it.  There are also the central and peripheral nervous systems to consider, to say nothing of the affect from fatigue or exhaustion.  The extent and location of the inflammation will determine the sort of motion disturbance that presents.  It is my belief that any of the microbes that are related to the diseases referenced in this blog are capable of causing any movement disorder and quite possibly mimic many diseases, throwing your diagnosis and treatment way off track.  I was diagnosed with Spontaneous Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia and for two years I built my life to deal with that end.

What a relief to find out it was only brain damage.

I can only speak with regard to my own experience but here are some things for you to help your doctor decide if your motion impairment might be related to proprioception.


Less obvious symptoms:

• Loss of gracefulness; dance, sports, craftsmanship.
• Tasks become 'just harder to do'; e.g., stacking blocks, dealing cards.
• Difficulty performing easy, familiar tasks with eyes closed.
• Loss of coordination when something changes; surface grade, or travel direction.
• Loss of coordination during repetitive motions (as in an assembly line).
• Extreme changes in handwriting or artistic ability.
• Concentrating improves simple motions.

More obvious symptoms:

• Jerky motion that smooths if you slow down.
• Difficulty in targeting an object when you reach to grasp it.
• Standing to walk begins with difficulty but quickly becomes easier after several steps.
• Regular stumbling without loss of equilibrium (no vertigo or feeling of falling).
• Feeling as though there is physical resistance against your motion.
• Sudden momentary loss of control resembling the surprise reflex of a baby.
• Unable to stand perfectly still without constant corrections.
• Needing to be in contact with a stationary object to feel relaxed; e.g., merely touching the counter stabilizes you.
• Puzzling results in neurological strength testing; as in uniform loss of strength in opposite appendages, but only in one direction (e.g., can't lift toes against light opposing force although other results are normal).
• Long term motion disturbance without loss of strength or atrophy.
• A particular motion becomes easier or harder depending on body position; e.g., easier to walk with arms raised, easier to stand still with chin down.
• Freezing in place, which can be alleviated with concentration, time, or rocking or swinging to 'get things going'.

If you suffer more than a few of the lesser conditions, or any of the more sever symptoms you might want to pay closer attention to some of the others.  You just might have bugs in your brain.