Rare Neurological Disease, Charcot Marie Tooth (CMT)

One of the most common inherited neurological diseases is known as Charcot Marie Tooth (CMT). The most common subtype of this disease is Type 1a. It can be seen in 1 out of every 2500 people (or 2.7 million people in the world). It is no more a rare disease and the number of people suffering from this disease is increasing day by day.

Charcot Marie Tooth

In this article we will discuss the Type 1a subtype of this disease as this is the most common occurring type. However, there are many other subtypes of this neurological disease, but our emphasis in this article will be on Type 1a.

Generally, Charcot Marie Tooth falls into the category of Muscular Dystrophy family of diseases. As the signals from the nerves weaken, the muscles begin to atrophy. Nerves very much resemble the electric wires in general which are used for the passage of electricity. The same is the case with nerves, they provide necessary signals to different muscles of the body but at times these nerves become weak and develop resistance in them for one reason or another. As the resistance increases the muscles efficiency reduces. This is what happens with Charcot Marie Tooth. This is usually begins with the peripheral limbs (hands or feet). Hands and feet are the first one to suffer from this, however, there assumes to be many more things attach with this disease and it only attacks your limbs but it has impact on your whole body in one way or another. Symptoms can be different in different people. For instance, at age 10 there may be a person on wheel chair while at same age the other person may be running marathon.

Symptoms of Charcot Marie Tooth

The most common symptom of Charcot Marie Tooth is high arches in the feet. These high arches are particularly found in weak muscles and ankles and cause balance problems. The people affected with CMT stumbles a lot along with pain in legs and feet. In kids these pains and stumbling is sometimes misperceived by the parents as growing pain and stumbling. It is not easy to diagnose the symptoms of CMT in the patients until or unless it is diagnosed in your family. CMT cause stumbling, high arches, problem in writing, restless leg syndrome and hammer toes. The other symptoms of CMT involve burning in hands, legs, feet and arms, pain in the high arches feet and calf pains. To conclude we can say that CMT in general sense is a very painful disease that needs immediate treatment once it is diagnosed.