Explaining MMD

In april we went to the Neurologist again. She was getting an EMG done which is the initial reason we went to see her in the first part. The orthopedist wanted her to have this done to see if the nerves that lift the foot up even worked. When she was younger with her clubbed feet she always had her feet pointed down when he wanted her to lift them up. So we went to see her and have this done....it was a very cool experience.

She put Dallas on Verced to help keep her calm and so that she wouldn't feel it as much. She pulled out a little machine and they had little tiny needles the size of acupuncture needles and they were attached to a wire that showed on the screen frequencies. We didn't know how to read them but she explained them later. When would puncture her skin and put the needle into the muscle at first we didn't see or hear much but aa she probed around a little we started to hear some sounds. It was sooo bizarre. It sounds exactly like low growling. As she moved it some more it sounded like a muscle car engine idling and revving. She said bingo this is what I was looking for this is the myotonia. My mom went with me and we were a little puzzled. Who on earth knew that your muscles made sounds like this, or even sounds at all. The little needles had microphones in the end of them and that is how we were able to hear this.

She explained that the myotonia is your nerves are sending impulses to your muscles to do an action. When your nerves are supposed to stop sending the impulses they don't, they continue to send the impulses. So even though your not doing the particular action they are still receiving the impulses. My mom will hopefully comment on this and explain it a little better than I have. That was truly a neat experience to witness the myotonia and know whats going on when its happening to me and to her. She doesn't show the same symptoms of it that I do. One of the tests she had me do that simulated the myotonia was to hold my hand in a tight fist. Hold the fist as hard as I could for ten seconds. So i held my arm out extended with my hand in a fist and when she counted to 10 i would release the fist as fast as i could. She did it with me. What happened is my release was severely delayed. I would stop sending the signals but my muscles in my fingers didn't relax like they were supposed to. My fingers slowly raised from my fist position when her immediately raised.  It was stunning to watch because i had no control over how fast they relaxed.