Hyperreflexia? (Brisk Reflexes)

[ShirleyTemple]

Those knee jerk tests where they tap a mini hammer on your knee has always always resulted in an exaggerate jump for me. Like crazy high my whole leg would jump! It has always been like that since i was little. From my pediatric exam when i was a little girl. To my 9th grade biology class doing doing this as part of an anatomy class on eachother. I nearly kicked my classmate!

I now know that this is called hyperreflexia, but before i always thought it would good to be super jumpy!, i thought it always meant you were fast ;]
But now it is too seems like another symptom associated with MS. I am now getting scared of it being bulbar onset als! Because of the scalloped shaped tongue (had for years), hyperreflexia, and throat clearing. Yay more worries

How do doctors figure out the difference between a normal response and hyperreflexia and associate it with UMN? What if one person is just really reflexive? Or is that not the case and hyperreflexia is always clinical of something else? For others with MS, do you have very brisk reflexes and are they symmetrical or asymmetrical? I am going to contact a neuro for a complete neuro exam and emg work-up.

[ShirleyTemple]

Over a 100 views, and no responses yet.

There has to be people here (lurkers and ms-vets alike) who have this as well? Lurkers stop lurking! You may get more information if you all communicated with each other. So often i hear of these top symptoms, but when i follow groups on fb i see other forgotten symptoms that seems to be more prevalent than the symptoms that brought them to the docs in the first place. Which makes me think i should do a poll.

Okay poll time!
1. Do you have brisk-hyper reflexes?
2. With/without clonus?
3. Symmetrical or asymmetrical?
4. Have you been dx with MS?

Other questions for MS-vets and Un-dx newbies. (i was actually wondering if aside from geography and age, if there is some other things we have in common that seems to happen more often in MS or those with symptoms of ms)
5. What is your blood type? rh -/+
6. Do you fit into the "general criteria" of a a typical MS person (AT DX or Symptoms onset?: young, female, white)
7. Do you or others say you have wrinkly-er hands than for your age?
8. Lifelong "predominantly" meat or veggie eater?
9. Smoker or non-smoker
10. Daily sun worshipper or shade finder?

[Scott1]

Hi Shirley,

Without invalidating your questions you may be going the wrong way about starting a conversation. Most of us have some hypertonic reactions. Some are painful and some are not. I doubt any of us think of ourselves as typical but we share some symptoms and not others.
Some of us can barely comprehend the research pieces that are posted and other can eat them up. All parts of the spectrum are prone to misinterpreting their contents. Researchers reinvent the wheel, squabble among themselves and occasionally make significant breakthroughs.
You will probably learn more by looking for posting that you can identify with as a starting point and then start to read the ones you cant relate to as you will probably learn more there.
Do keep asking questions because that is how we all learn. No one has a monopoly on good ideas but there is plenty worth reading here. Eventually you will see patterns of coherent threads running through topics that initially seem unrelated.

Regards

[NHE]

When I was in the hospital when I was first diagnosed one of the doctors scraped the bottom of my foot with a plastic card. My foot jumped up off the bed and I nearly kicked him in the chin. Afterwards, he did it again a couple of times, but firmly holding my foot down. So yes, you can count me as a member of hyperreflexia camp.

[ShirleyTemple]

I agree that everyone has a range of different symptoms, so nothing is really set in stone in terms of "typical". Even "abnormal" may be someone elses "normal"

I am that person who likes taking everything head on and all in, and i realize not everyone is like that. Especially my boyfriend, his motto in life is "the less i know the better" I'm... "the most amount of info i can get i can make a valid decision"

It is still something of my interest to know what other lifestyle habits are contributing factors to MS. Why is it that females are more prone? And of european decent? Like i wonder what other odd things people don't think about is a contributing factor? like bloodtype? I'm ab-, a rarer bloodtype and in my life i have been susceptible to a lot more ailments like my mom (who also has ab-), than my sister who has my dads bloodtype.

In Parkinsons, smoker have up to a 60% DECREASE chance in getting parkinsons than non-smokers. But smokers have slightly higher chance getting MS. It's all so crazy on what does what. And why this does that and not that.