A 49 y/o F w/ a PMH of HTN, ETOH/THC abuse p/w bilateral leg weakness that started a week ago following during an admission for CAP that has since gotten worse along with urinary and fecal incontinence
is it true weakness or asthenia?
If weakness is present, is it ascending/descending, any back pain, incontinence, sensory deficits?
is the weakness proximal, distal, both?
Also think vascular and myopathy causes
weakness could be anywhere in neuraxis - neuromuscular junction, peripheral nerve, cord, brain. Bilateral concerning for cord
diabetic myopathy can present with leg pain (usually proximal), although it’s usually unilateral
Would be helpful to know if an infectious organism was isolated during the prior admission. If bacteremic could consider epidural abscess with incontinence.
“CAP” could be malignancy with Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome (LEMS)
Time for some more information:
She is afebrile, tachy, crackles in her right upper lobe.
There is 3/5 strength in her bilateral LE proximally and distally with hyperreflexia in both LE. There is no sesnory changes
Na slightly low at 133, CO2 20. WBC 11, Hgb 11, Plts low at 123
What about transverse myelitis? It is acquired focal inflammatory disorder often p/w rapid onset weakness, sensory deficits, and bowel/bladder dysfunction.
At peak 50% are complete paraplegic w/ virtually all of the patients having a degree of bladder/bowel dysfunction
The MCC of TM is idiopathic, & there is no causative factor found. Infections leading to TM include enteroviruses, West Nile, herpes, HIV, human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1), Zika virus, neuroborreliosis (Lyme), Mycoplasma, & Treponema pallidum. statpearls.com/kb/viewarticle…
Lets back up a bit. what’s the story/labs/imaging leading to the cap dx?
Wonder about Na level too although doubt that would cause isolated symptoms, maybe Wernickes?
Maybe Na overcorrected at OSH and now with ODS? hmm @ABRezMed
pantoprazole can cause B12 deficiency - would explain weakness, not incontinence
subacute combined degeneration from b12 deficiency
Could she have an epidural abscess? PNA causing bacteremia and seeding to the spine. Would likely have back pain though
Would be odd to have TM without sensory findings as most commonly, there is sensory involvement with symptoms, including pain, dysesthesia, and paresthesia at the level involved.
Now for some imaging...
MRI of T and L spine are unremarkable
CXR shows a RUL infiltrate
Just got some records from her last admission. She was tx aggressively for HypoNa while there as her Na was 103 upon admission
An MRI of the brain was obtained showing very bright signal of the bilateral pons and thalami
Final dx central pontine myelinolysis (CPM)
She unfortunatley did poorly as she was sent to palliative care and passed away
CPM is a misnomer, demyelination is not limited to the pons.
wernicke encephalopathy or Machiafava Bignami due to alcohol use affect thalami nuclei first
Beer potomania is very prone to overcorrection. You often have to give D5W or DDAVP to avoid overcorrection.
Those at highest risk for ODM, women, low BMI, Na<120, cirrhosis, underlying eating disorder.
often presents slightly delayed 2-6 days after overcorrection.
More on ODM: Hyponatremia & Central Pontine Myelinolysis as a Result of Beer Potomania:
Hematogenous dissemination then can occur typically 4 to 10 weeks later, giving rise to secondary syphilis. <40% of pts w/ syphilis have primary syphilis diagnosed. These “Secondary” lesions last for several weeks before spontaneously resolving. Coined “early, latent infection”
What does late infection mean? When syphilitic lesions recur after 1 year from the initial eruption, or seropositivity is detected more than 1 year after the initial eruption, it is termed late latent syphilis.
Some optics neuritis pearls in a short #Medtweetorial 🧵…. We all know that optic neuritis is frequently associated with multiple sclerosis (MS). But optic nerve inflammation can exist from autoimmunity, infection, granulomatous disease, paraneoplastic disorders, & demyelination
Classical ON from MS is unilateral, moderate, painful color vision loss with an afferent pupillary defect & normal fundus examination.
In those with ON, 95% of patients showed unilateral vision loss & 92% had associated retroorbital pain that frequently worsened w/ eye movement.
If you have not listened to the @CuriousClinPod most recent podcast (Episode 10: Why does metronidazole treat both bacterial and parasitic infections?) then I suggest you tune in.
I'll summarize their show notes here in short #medtweetorial
First a question:
Was metronidazole first used as an antibiotic or as an antiparasitic?
If you guessed antiparasitic, then you would be correct!
It was developed in the 1950s to treat the parasite trichomonas & then was used in the 1960s to treat other parasitic infections, like giardia and amoebiasis.
A 31-year-old M born and raised in Brazil w/ no PMH presented with a 3 mon history of worsening DOE, orthopnea, 7kg weight loss, abdominal distention, dry cough, and syncope
An interesting fact from @3owllearning : Depending on the clinical problems, the studies of disease probability for differential diagnosis often show 10 - 25% of cases are unexplained, even after careful examination and testing.