It's common for MG to either start, or get suddenly worse, when the body is fighting an infection of any kind. I don't know the mechanism, but it makes sense to me that when the immune system is challenged, it can over-respond. Here's another example: after a woman has a baby, her immune system goes into high gear to prevent infection. That's a common time for a woman to get an autoimmune thyroid disease like Graves (that's what happened to me).

Here's my whole MG story. In the spring of 2009 I had a relapse of my Graves disease. I took PTU (propylthiouracil), as I have on and off for 15 years. That summer, I started sleeping a lot more than usual, but otherwise I felt fine. Then in October of 2009, my five youngest children got H1N1 (before the shot was available). I took care of them for three weeks. At the end of those three weeks, I wasn't feverish, but I had deep body aches for a few days, and then got better. I felt like I was catching the flu, but my body was successfully fighting it off. Then one evening I was standing talking to my husband when I suddenly felt extremely tired. I put my arms around him, but collapsed slowly to the floor anyway. I didn't faint or get dizzy or lose my balance. I didn't understand what had happened. Now I do: my legs simply weren't strong enough to continue to support my weight.

In the next few weeks, I noticed I would lose my balance slightly while walking, and have to take a step to the side to catch myself, two or three times a day. Then I had more of those collapsing incidents, and started walking in a very wobbly way, because of the weakness in my sides. Then I had trouble with my arms, and sometimes with swallowing, and a little eye strain, and neck weakness. After about six months I stopped getting worse, and though my symptoms move around, I don't seem to be declining. I am seronegative (diagnosed by SFEMG). I'm on Imuran.

Abby