http://ilivewithmg.blogspot.com/2012...yasthenia.html


very interesting. I especially enjoyed how happy the lady was after getting the shot. Must have seemed like some sort of miracle cure to her!

For the record, I am not necessarily suggesting/endorsing website I found the video, in fact I actually didnt look at it.

I ran across this film the other night on youtube and found it very amusing. It made me a bit sad to think that almost 80 years have past since this film and it does not seem a whole lot of progress has been made
kathie

I watched the video, thanks for sharing! In your opinions is her pre-injection condition typical of MG on daily basis? Or would this be a severe case? I don't have MG but I do have weakness in my legs and many other weird symptoms. I am currently undiagnosed. I am just curious to know if this is what you all experience daily or if it's bit more manageable than that. Sorry if this is a stupid question...

There are times i have felt almost as weak as she looked but my condition varies greatly. I take a lot of meds including mestinon every hour to hour and a half but even so i cant sweep floor like she was! In my humble opinion she probably wouldnt be able to for very long, at least i cant do anything very long

I would say she is not the average MG patient. A lot of us that didn't take our meds or know when to rest or stop would be pretty close. We have all learned a lot over the last 20 years.
Mike

I have only gotten that bad about 4 or 5 times when I wasn't taking medicine and had really over done it. I would think she is a severe MG case.

kathie

Thank you, I find this kind of fascinating!
I'm in that nice stage where I'll find myself at least 1/2 of the day like she's in the beginning. It's weird because I soooo recognize some things. Like her face...mine looks much like it, though (fortunately) we don't look alike. It's just the way the muscles in the in the face are, and her head like it's lopsided.
The mounth, the cheeks, I find it almost "cool" in a way, because I've never seen another MG peep besides myself, and well, I didn't realise there really is such a thing as a MG appearance.
And how she tries to sit up! And using that spoon, and..well, it's just fascinating.
I really wanted to hear her talk.

Where can I get those injections?!

I'm very happy for her, that in the end she ends up doing what she's suppose to be doing (sweeping the floor), so yay for those medicine

Steph, This is a pretty well-known video and I think Alice posted it a few months ago.

What I found disturbing, other than having her mop a floor, was the combination of Atropine with Prostigmin. They do the opposite things in MG and Atropine is used for a cholinergic crisis, when too much Mestinon has been taken.

One thing they did do way back then is to take diseases more seriously. They were interested in the pathophysiology of diseases and did a LOT more investigating on symptoms, etc. than they do now.

I think it's pretty sad that we have to dig up a video from 1935 when it's 2013. No offense but where are the "professional" videos now of MG patients? Oh, that's right, doctors don't "document" things like the Tensilon test.

Thank you for sharing it. It does show how dramatic a response to the MG meds can be.

Annie

I think that the atropine blocks muscarinic acetylcholinergic receptors. These would be the ones on the smooth muscle and the heart. Acetylcholine speeds up the gut, but it slows down the heart.

The receptors that are problematic with MG are the nicotinic acetycholinergic receptors, which are the acetylcholine receptors on the muscles.

Prostigmine as well as pyridostigmine inhibit acetylcholinesterase. I'm not sure about prostigmine, but pyridostigmine does not cross the blood brain barrier, so it does not effect the nicotinic receptors in the brain. It does effect acetylcholinesterase all over the body. This has an effect on both nicotinic receptors as well as muscarinic receptors.

The good news: more acetylcholine at the nicotinic receptors means better muscle contractions.

The bad news: more acetylcholine at the muscarinic receptors means you crap your drawers.

Atropine should stop the muscarinic effects.

I think.