Symptoms of myasthenia gravis in the elderly

Many elderly people have been frugal all their lives, and what they feel most painful about is spending more money. Especially when spending more money on themselves, they are unwilling to use good medicine even if they are sick, for fear of bringing financial burden to their children. However, illness comes like a mountain, and the condition becomes more serious the longer it is delayed. Therefore, when the elderly are sick, they must actively go to the hospital to receive professional treatment, and their children should also pay attention to the symptoms of common diseases, such as myasthenia gravis in the elderly.

Although many elderly people with myasthenia gravis will definitely have a lack of strength, few people understand exactly what it means to have a lack of strength. In fact, it is very necessary to understand these symptoms, especially for the care of the elderly.

1. Ptosis: Myasthenia gravis patients suffer from ptosis, and the degree varies from person to person. Most of them slightly cover the pupil or half of the pupil. In more serious cases, the eyelids are to the lower edge of the pupil or lower, but rarely are they completely closed. Since it is inconvenient to see things, they often have a posture of "raising their head and looking down", frowning their foreheads and raising their eyebrows to reduce the obstruction of their vision, and often feel that the upper eyelids are heavy. Some normal elderly people have loose forehead and upper eyelid skin that droops slightly, so they raise their eyebrows unconsciously to reduce ptosis. This is not considered a disease (it may also occur in other age groups). Some people do have ptosis, which needs to be distinguished. The ptosis of myasthenia gravis patients may improve slightly within a quarter of an hour or half an hour after waking up in the morning, and it is lighter in the morning and heavier in the evening. This is also a characteristic of this disease (because the levator palpebrae superioris muscles can reduce fatigue after sleep and rest). The ptosis of the patient may also be slightly aggravated when the patient stares at an object fixedly.

2. Diplopia: Seeing one object as two is called diplopia, which causes dizziness and inconvenience. It occurs due to strabismus or eye rotation disorder, and the images of both eyes cannot be merged into one image in the brain. Some patients with myasthenia may have diplopia. Since the degree of diplopia can be reduced when leaning in a certain direction, most patients can look at objects by tilting their heads. People whose both eyeballs are fixed or whose upper eyelid covers one pupil will not have diplopia. However, diplopia will occur when one eyeball starts to move or the eye can be slightly widened as the treatment improves, causing the patient to mistakenly believe that the condition has worsened, when in fact it has improved. Diplopia often requires late treatment to be cured. However, if diplopia reappears after myasthenia gravis is cured, it may be a sign of a recurrence of myasthenia gravis.

Through the introduction of the above content, we can understand that there are many symptoms of myasthenia gravis in the elderly, usually drooping eyelids and blurred vision, etc. However, family members are generally not doctors, so when this disease occurs, it is best to solve the problem through professional treatment by a doctor. Formal treatment is the responsible way to treat the elderly.