Myasthenia Gravis Support Group
Myasthenia gravis (MG) is a neuromuscular disease leading to fluctuating muscle weakness and fatiguability. The hallmark of myasthenia gravis is muscle weakness that increases during periods of activity and improves after periods of rest. Although myasthenia gravis may affect any voluntary muscle, muscles that control eye and eyelid movement, facial expression, and...
My problem with MG has been mainly double vision. The prednisone/cellcept/mestinon treatment (since April 20150 has improved it considerably. I did have a re-occrance during the prednisone reduction, but an increase solved that (so far). The vision is back to normal except for the far right, which is still double, but does not seem to be getting any better. This is only a problem as when driving and looking right at an intersection (but can be countered by turning head more or closing one eye).
My question is, does the vision usually get back completely normal, or can there be lingering effects (such as the far right double vision)? Can the disease cause damage to the muscles that will never fully recover? The range of vision now is that normal activity is just fine, so far. I hope to reduce the prednisone some more to offset the rise in blood glucose readings, but am concerned if the far right double vision indicates incomplete takeover by the cellcept, of is just a lingering after effect?
I discontinued the mestinon over a week ago as I felt that it had never helped the symptoms, but may be masking the prednisone/cellcept results. So far, I have not noticed any difference.
My question is, does the vision usually get back completely normal, or can there be lingering effects (such as the far right double vision)? Can the disease cause damage to the muscles that will never fully recover? The range of vision now is that normal activity is just fine, so far. I hope to reduce the prednisone some more to offset the rise in blood glucose readings, but am concerned if the far right double vision indicates incomplete takeover by the cellcept, of is just a lingering after effect?
I discontinued the mestinon over a week ago as I felt that it had never helped the symptoms, but may be masking the prednisone/cellcept results. So far, I have not noticed any difference.
Good luck. Russ
Does it vary during the day or is it always there? If it is MG it is likely to be variable during the day or week.
Generally speaking, there should be no permanent damage from MG, at least the ACHR positive type. The MG symptoms are from blocked and destroyed receptors on the muscles which, when the antibody attack is removed will grow back fully and the endplates where they reside return to normal. Only in cases where very long term untreated MG goes on it appears that there can be permanent damage--but I don't find much mention of that. With the attack gone the receptors should return to normal.
Another person here had something like this see
http://www.dailystrength.org/c/Myasthenia_Gravis/forum/19404699-wierd-double-vision
Good Luck
-- Generally MG is treated to get rid of most symptoms with prednisone or other immune system inhibitor, but not necessarily all. We can't live with our immune system fully suppressed, so sometimes we have to live with some symptoms and usually that is why the ongoing treatment includes some pyridostigmine--to allow us to get by with a few MG symptoms if needed. So MG treatment may be to a level of tolerable symptoms rather than absence of all of them.
However, we can't assume that all of our symptoms are actually from MG, so have to keep looking for other explanations that may be present along with MG.
Good Luck