One morning when I was about five or six, I was walking to the breakfast table when my legs gave out on me. Just crumpled beneath me, I couldn’t move them. As best I can remember, I had feeling, but couldn’t move my legs. Mom took me to the doctor after ensuring I wasn’t malingering to avoid school, which I wasn’t really prone to yet as I still liked school at this point. I wasn’t particularly frightened, since mom and the doctor were batting a thousand at fixing things up as far as I knew.
Mom and the doctor were plenty scared though, neither of them could figure out what the deal was. The only thing my doctor could think to do was to take me off of some medication I was on for some minor childhood illness or what have you. The next day I could walk again.
Thinking about it now weirds me out a bit, since if something is make a kid’s leg muscles not work, it doesn’t seem that far off to say something could stop your freaking heart. Any medical/pharmacological dopers willing to hazard a water cooler guess as to what it might have been?
Bumping for the daylight hours, and to add more info. My mom told me via email that it was apparently some sort of drug interaction, two or more medications that adversely affected either my brain or my musculature. I also apparently passed out when getting blood drawn, but I think I was prone to that anyway.
So, anyone? Bueller? Don’t leave me hangin’, guys. If nothing else, someone at least post a joke or something.
(oldbat pokes her head out of the rafters)
Hi, pravnik, oldbat M.D. on call here, at your service. Do you recall whether you were able to move any upper-body muscles? Able to speak clearly, without slurring? Any problem with breathing normally?
Your description isn’t ringing any bells with me right off, but I’ll try to pull it together and share any imformed guesses that occur to me.
As best I can remember (and this was 25-27 years ago) my sole symptom was a complete loss of motor control over my legs. There was no confusion and I could speak clearly, and no trouble breathing. I could move my upper body fine. There may have been some upper body weakness I wasn’t aware of or don’t remember, but I definitely could move above the waist. I couldn’t move my legs at all.
Hmmmmmm…
Well, intact sensation plus loss of motor function sounds like interference at the neuromuscular junction; basically, the nerves carrying the “move” commard from the brain are working, but the muscles are not getting the message. But only in the lower extremities? I can think of drugs that would do that (succinylcholine or curare) but they work all over if they work at all. And knock out the breathing muscles too. Unhelpful.
No telling what was in your meds at this point, but belladonna type alkaloids used to show up in decongestants; antihistamines definitely are players in the sleep-wake regulation loop, Compazine, used for nausea, affects a wide range of cells in the brain, and if you had some type of respiratory infection some combination of these could have been involved.
It’s nothing that happens very often (I’m guessing here) because it baffled your family doctor. Possibly your unique biochemistry responded in a completely idiosyncratic way.
If anything related to the classes of medication you might have taken was the culprit, then it should have gone away, completely, once the molecules of drug were eliminated. Which did happen. I think your doc was right on with the drug-interaction effect, even if he couldn’t explain it either.
And your history since then doesn’t seem to be notable for anything weird enough to be alarmed about.
I’m afraid I haven’t said anything helpful, but this is the kind of problem-solving algorithm most docs use when they have to figure out an unusual condition.
Hope you’re well now and stay that way!