Can anyone explain, why, when the neuro tickled the bottoms of my feet with a stick thingy, the toes on my left foot curled under but the toes on my right foot arched upwards ? Thanks
Hi Catherine, When the toes arch upwards that is the Babinski sign which is an indicator of neurological damage. I have no idea why they would be different on one side. I am sure someone else with more knowledge than I will be along to help. Teresa xx
Hi, I had this same test which is looking for Babinski Sign. In a normal response, the toes curl downward, but with MS the big toe can move upwards. Does not necessarily mean though that you do have MS, other tests will need to be run…
Thanks. I have already been diagnosed…it was a re referral to a new neuro so he was checking everything. Thanks Teresa…it’s had me puzzled !!
All these tests they do on you have a specific name and show certain things. They are part of the neuro’s diagnostic puzzle. Teresa xx
An abnormal response means a problem with the upper motor neuron which is basically the pathway from the brain to the nerves that directly control the muscles. Nerves to muscles on the left and right sides are controlled by duplicate left and right systems. Damage in the left system will only affect the left side (and the right, the right). So, from what you’ve said, you have a lesion somewhere in the right system (which goes from the motor cortex in the left half of your brain down to the brain stem where it crosses to go into the right side of your spinal cord and to the nerves that actually move your muscles).
Karen x
Thanks, Karen but waaay beyond me !! He showed me the brain scan and there was like a greyish sludgy shadowing thing near the centre but leftish !! Not much use really, am I ?!!
What does it mean if the toes don’t do anything, just sit there like a group of unresponsive blobs of playdoh?! Like mine!
What does it mean if the toes don’t do anything, just sit there like a group of unresponsive blobs of playdoh?! Like mine!
Mine did them same lilmissdotty n the neuro just went ‘hmmm’ that’s it lol nothing else but my reflexes are hyper on the apprantley n normal on the rite "/ tis a tad baffling haha Lou xx
And that was me trying to make it easy to understand! LOL!
I’ll try again…
If you put your hands on your ears with your fingers relaxed, your ring fingers will be around about the bottom of your motor cortex. If you now move your hands up so they join, your ring fingers will have (very roughly!) outlined your motor cortex. It is in charge of movement. The left motor cortex controls the right side of your body and vice versa. Just because, I’ll also tell you that your middle fingers have just outlined your somatosensory cortex. This is in charge of sensation. It’s the same as the motor cortex in that the left controls the right side of the body and vice versa.
If you imagine threads running from these areas of your brain to all the muscles that they control, you can see that they have to cross somewhere. This is in the brain stem. Then all the threads are on the same side of the body as the muscles that they control. They go down the spinal cord on that side and to the appropriate vertebrae for the muscle they work with.
Is that any better?!?!
Kx
Heehee !! That kinda makes sense to my (very) non scientific brain. So the splodge being where it is would make sense of the right foot thingy and the right side of my body. He also said I was “unlucky” because the damaged area was right in the middle of the CNS. It didn’t look very middle to me but hey, you now understand my complete lack of understanding of the human body !! Xx