A Problem by Any Other Name...

Sometimes a medical diagnosis is nothing more than a description. Think of arthritis, which simply means "inflammed joint". I imagine a patient telling his doctor how his joints are painful and swollen. "I think my joints are really inflammed! What is wrong?" "I think you have arthritis." "Oh, ok, thanks doc!" The big word is a way to communicate a lot with one word, but there are often other words that sit with the descriptive word. "Osteoarthritis" is one type of joint inflammation while "rheumatoid arthritis" is something else. Another one of my favorite diagnoses is tremor. "Why is my hand shaking?" "You have a tremor." But the fact is that there is more to be said about the tremor... An "essential tremor" describes a person whose hands shake for no apparent reason. A "secondary tremor" is caused by some other known disease process like a stroke or muscle injury. In my case I have been told that my walking problem is not a muscle weakness or even likely to be multiple sclerosis, but that I have "primary focal paroxysmal dystonia" in my leg. What that means is that from time to time my leg has muscles that fight each other for control of my leg when walking. "Primary" means that no one knows why, and "focal" means it is only in one place. Dystonia can be described as "crossed wires" in the brain where my brain tells opposing muscles to move. If you watch me walk you would see a twisting movement as these muscles pull one way and then another, and I look a little funny as I walk. It comes and goes so it is said to be paroxysmal, and it is often the result of being excited or worried so if I limp up to you I am either really happy to see you or you frighten me. When awaiting my parents' arrival from Pennsylvania i was so excited I could barely walk. I have been told that physical therapy may help me learn to walk a different way, or that some type of drugs to treat Parkinson's can help. There is more work to be done to determine what comes next, but this could be the new normal for me.