Question
Hye im 19 now almost 20 and when i was 4 years old they told me I had "acute transverse myelitis" and told me i would never walk again but long story short I walk fine now and run and always have but since i have grown up I have these ridiculous twitches supposedly called myoclonic jerks or "seizures" and jsut recently I had a grand mal seizure and I have jsut beeen so worried im going to become paralyzed again and was jsut wondering if this is a possibility and also ever since my seizure My back is in alot of pain and its really hard to sleep and when i turn to look behind me pain, my neck hurts and lying around hurts its very frustrating.
Also i have had this strange feeling that something is wrong when i pee becasue sometimes its jsut seems so hard and most of the time i want to sit down when I pee and I used to be paralyzed from waist down and ahvent had many check ups becasue my parents dont have money and so i feel like ive slid down the lines of doctor checkups and im jsut scared and i feel like something is wrong down there becasue  it gets really skinny sometimes and i feel like i jsut coulnt pee at all normally  so i ahve to liek squeeze it to make the hole big enough


But i was jsut wondering what exactly i should do when i go to the doctor and what to ask for

Answer
Hello there.  I have been doing a lot of research on this topic, and there's not as much in the way of treatment as I would like.  I guess the best place to start is with the condition's name: anything ending in "-itis" is inflammatory, meaning that there are five conditions that must be met:  Redness, swelling, pain, heat, and loss of function.  Whatever is infront of the -itis is the tissue that's inflamed: dermatitis= skin, arthritis= joints, and myelitis= spinal cord.

Myelitis is not a good thing.  You have seen first hand what can happen when the cors is inflamed...paralysis being among them. The myoclonic jerks, could definitely be due to this inflammation. One of the goals for you would be to knock down inflammation however you can, from drugs to diet.  Grand mal seizures, from what I know, are usually brain related... not my field of expertise.  Reading about ATM, difficulty peeing is definitely on the list. A google search will show that much.

Now, however, you need some interdiction... I would recommend going to a neurologist in your area.  THey may put you on a round of antiinflammatories, maybe something as easy as Advil, or maybe something more powerful.  

Anti inflammatory diets are everywhere, most of them rely on fruits, veggies, and elimination of roasted or barbecued things.. again a Google search would help on this.

Studying up on what you have, I feel comfortable making the diagnosis for ATM.  That may not be much help for you, but I would like to thank you for opening my eyes to a new area to study.

Dr. Peter Carr
Seattle, Washington