I had an interesting conversation today after church with the lady who happened to be sitting behind me. She asked me if I was sick, but I knew what she was referring to, so I told her about having uncontrollable jerks and apologized for disturbing her worship. She, of course, said not to worry, but asked what I had. When I told her I had a form of Myoclonus, she told me she had Dystonia! What are the odds of two people sitting that close to each other in a little country church, both with relatively rare Neurological Disorders!!

I tried to do some research to find out just how common these two Neurological Disorders are in the USA, but only found one site that gave a number I actually could understand. Most sites were comparing percentages in different populations all over the world. The WrongDiagnosis.com site listed both Myoclonus and Dystonia as being classified in the USA as Rare Diseases according to the Office of Rare Diseases (ORD) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which means no more than 200,000 people have been diagnosed with each of these Movement Disorders in the whole US. There are only about 2,000 people in our town!

I don’t know if she grew up in this town or not, but we’ve only lived here as adults. I do have very serious Neurological diseases in my family history, and I would be very interested in finding out if she does, as well. My interest in where she grew up stems from the fact that our town had at one time the worst EPA rated toxic site in the state!!!

Even though we don’t have the same Disorder (I choose NOT to think of it as a disease!), having someone else I actually know who battles some of the same demons I do was quite a surprise. I look forward to more conversations with her in the future.

So, exactly what is Dystonia, and how is it different from Myoclonus?

The best place on the internet to learn about Neurological Disorders is We Move. They have a forum with sections for each disorder, and I have found the encouragement of other people who comment there who battle Myoclonus to be very helpful and comforting.

This is the overview on We Move of Dystonia:

“Dystonia is a neurologic movement disorder characterized by sustained muscle contractions, usually producing twisting and repetitive movements or abnormal postures or positions. Almost all dystonic movements share a directional quality that is typically sustained, sometimes for an instant, as well as a consistency and predictability Dystonia movements are directional, forcing the involved body part or region into an abnormal position, which is consistently present.”

Put in simple terms, various muscle groups contort in some way and tend to stay that way.

If you saw the TV show “The Doctors” here in the US this week you saw a young woman who had a severe case of Dystonia who was helped tremendously by DBS (Deep Brain Stimulation) brain surgery.

Myoclonus is defined this way:

“The term myoclonus comes from the Greek words for muscle (myo) and tumult (clonus) and refers to sudden, brief, shock-like movements. These movements may be “positive” or “negative.” Positive myoclonus results in contraction of a muscle or multiple muscles. In asterixis, or negative myoclonus, there is a brief loss of muscle tone and then the tightening (contraction) of other muscles; this results in a flapping-type motion. These movements, which cannot by stopped at will (nonsuppressible), often have a characteristic saw-tooth pattern, and they usually disappear during sleep.”

So Myoclonus involves various types of jerking or flapping motions.