Whats a myasthenic crisis?
A myasthenic crisis occurs when weakness affects the muscles that control breathing. This can create a medical emergency requiring a respirator to help the person breathe or measures to prevent a person from taking in, or aspirating, too much air into their lungs. In individuals whose respiratory muscles are weak, infection, fever, a reaction to medication, or emotional stress can trigger a crisis. Plasma exchange may be performed to treat myasthenic crisis or to improve very weak patients before thymectomy. In this procedure, blood plasma is removed and replaced with purified plasma free of autoantibodies. It can produce a temporary improvement in symptoms, but is too expensive for long-term treatment. Another blood treatment, intravenous immunoglobulin therapy, is also used for myasthenic crisis. In this procedure, large quantities of purified immune proteins (immunoglobulins) are injected. For unknown reasons, this leads to symptomatic improvement in up to 85% of patients. It is als
