MEDICAL MATTERS

  • Medical Matters features questions asked by Members of the ME Association on health-related topics.
  • Dr Charles Shepherd and the ME Association's other advisers answer these questions by sharing their expert knowledge.
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Questions in the Category: Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Functional Limitations: Limb Movement and Use

ME Essential Summer 2021

A friend of mine has had severe ME/CFS for several years and been totally bedbound for the last three. At the beginning of March, within the space of about forty eight hours, she suddenly lost most of the normal functioning and strength of her arms and hands. By turns, depending on which arm had been used the more, first one and then the other hung useless and intermittently painful by her side for a few days. She has since regained some of what she lost but the improvement now seems to have plateaued off. Her fingers remain swollen, she can barely hold a pen to sign her name and needs both hands to operate the switch of her bedside lamp. We surmise that these difficulties may have their origin in inflammation of nerve cells but we are aware that this cannot be proved. We would like to know whether similar problems have been documented in other cases and, if so, whether there is any treatment that has been found helpful.

Charles Shepherd

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