Guillain-Barre Syndrome
Guillain-Barré (pronounced ghee-yan bar-ray) syndrome is a very rare and serious condition that affects the nerves.
It mainly affects the feet, hands and limbs, causing problems such as numbness, weakness and pain. It can also affect the trunk and postural muscles, making moving and breathing difficult during the acute phases.
It can be treated and many people will eventually make a full recovery, although it can occasionally be life-threatening and some people are left with long-term problems.
Guillain-Barré syndrome affects people of all ages, but your chances of getting it increase as you get older.
Symptoms often start in your feet and hands before spreading to your arms and legs.
At first you may have:
- numbness
- pins and needles
- muscle weakness
- pain
- problems with balance and co-ordination
These symptoms may continue to get worse over the next few days or weeks before they start to slowly improve. In severe cases, you may have difficulty moving, walking, breathing and/or swallowing.
Our team at TherapyMatters has had years of experience treating people with GBS and we are able to work with you to get the best out of your recovery and to help you to achieve your functional goals. We will work with you to identify your key problems and the rehabilitation programme that we provide will help to target your goals and help you improve in your recovery.
Don’t be discouraged - recovery will take place and things will not be as difficult all the time, you will make changes and start to improve in your function. Please phone us if you have any questions or need to discuss this some more, we are always happy to help.