Symptoms
Symptoms in AIP can be variable. They include abdominal pain which is severe and poorly localized (most common, 95% of patients experience), Urinary symptoms (Dysuria, urinary retention/incontinence or dark urine), peripheral neuropathy (patchy numbness and paresthesias), Proximal motor weakness (usually starting in upper extremities which can progress to include respiratory impairment and death), autonomic nervous system involvement (circulating catecholamine levels are increased, may see tachycardia, hypertension, sweating, restlessness and tremor), neuropsychiatric symptoms (anxiety, agitation, hallucination, hysteria, delirium, depression), Electrolyte abnormalities (Hyponatremia may be due to hypothalamic involvement leading to SIADH that may lead to seizures). Unlike other porphyrias, rash is not typically seen in AIP.
Read more about this topic: Acute Intermittent Porphyria
Famous quotes containing the word symptoms:
“A certain kind of rich man afflicted with the symptoms of moral dandyism sooner or later comes to the conclusion that it isn’t enough merely to make money. He feels obliged to hold views, to espouse causes and elect Presidents, to explain to a trembling world how and why the world went wrong. The spectacle is nearly always comic.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)
“Murderous desire, hatred, distrust are nowadays the accompanying signs of physical illness: so thoroughly have we embodied our moral prejudices.—Perhaps cowardice and pity appear as symptoms of illness in savage ages. Perhaps even virtues might be symptoms.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)