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What Is Guillain-Barré Syndrome?

Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) is a rare disorder of the peripheral nerve system that results in muscle weakness. Peripheral nerves travel to and from the brain. About 3500 cases are diagnosed each year in the United States and Canada. Anyone can get it, at any age, and both sexes are equally affected. There’s no cure, but about 85% of people recover completely. It cannot be prevented.

What Causes Guillain-Barré Syndrome?

The exact cause is unknown, but more than two thirds of people have an infection 1 to 3 weeks before the muscle weakness. It isn’t contagious. Most experts believe that it’s an autoimmune disease. Autoimmune means that the body’s own immune (infection-fighting) system produces antibodies against its own nerves.

What Are the Symptoms of Guillain-Barré Syndrome?

First symptoms include weakness and tingling in the legs that often spread to the arms and upper body.

These symptoms can get so bad that the muscles cannot be used at all and people are almost totally paralyzed. Then, the disorder can become life-threatening. It can interfere with breathing, blood pressure, or heart rate. Abnormal heartbeat, infections, and blood clots can also occur. It can affect breathing muscles such that some people need to be put on a ventilator.

The disorder can progress rapidly over a few hours or days or more slowly over 3 to 4 weeks. Most people have the greatest weakness in the first 2 weeks after symptoms start, so by the third week, 90% are at their weakest.

How Is Guillain-Barré Syndrome Diagnosed?

The health care provider will make a diagnosis from the medical history and physical examination. The health care provider may want tests to rule out other diseases. These tests include electromyography (EMG) to measure electrical activity of nerves and muscles, lumbar puncture (spinal tap) and analysis of spinal fluid, and breathing and blood tests. A doctor who specializes in disorders of the nervous system (neurologist) will be involved in your care.

How Is Guillain-Barré Syndrome Treated?

The key to treatment is to prevent complications. Plasmapheresis and high-dose immunoglobulin therapy are also used to reduce the severity and duration of the illness. In plasmapheresis, whole blood is removed from the body, and red and white blood cells are separated from plasma (liquid portion of blood). Blood cells without plasma are then returned to the body. In high-dose immunoglobulin therapy, doctors give intravenous injections of proteins that, in small amounts, the immune system normally uses to attack organisms.

The most critical part of treatment is to keep the body working during recovery of the nervous system. Using a respirator, heart monitor, or another machine that helps the body work may be needed. Usually, people are treated in the hospital, often in the intensive care ward.

DOs and DON’Ts in Managing Guillain-Barré Syndrome:

  • DO understand that Guillain-Barré syndrome can be devastating because of its sudden and unexpected onset.
  • DO realize that recovery isn’t necessarily quick. Recovery may take a few weeks or as long as months or years.
  • DO call your health care provider if you notice muscle weakness.
  • DO call your health care provider if you develop numbness or tingling feelings, have trouble swallowing or breathing, feel depressed, or get a fever.
  • DON’T be afraid to ask for a second opinion.
  • DON’T be afraid to ask for social and emotional support.
  • DON’T miss follow-up appointments after you leave the hospital.
FOR MORE INFORMATION

Contact the following source:

  • GBS/CIDP Foundation International
    Tel: (610) 667-0131, (866) 224-3301
    Website: http://www.gbs-cidp.org/
  • American Academy of Neurology
    Website: http://www.neurology.org
  • National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
    Tel: (800) 352-9424
    Website: http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/gbs/gbs.htm

Copyright © 2016 by Saunders, an imprint of Elsevier, Inc.

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