Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease (CMT)
Medical Alert Page
My name is Charles Gibb and I have Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease (CMT). This is a type of Muscular Dystrophy and severely limits my mobility.
I am a wheelchair user.
My wife Ju is my next of kin.
To understand how you can best help me please read the knowledge share on Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease (CMT) before treating me.
What is Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease?
Named after the three doctors who first described it in 1886: Charcot (shar-coh), Marie, and Tooth, Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT) is an inheritable peripheral neuropathy that includes many motor and/or sensory neuropathies, axonopathies, myelopathies, and neuronopathies. Due to the degradation of their nerves, people with CMT suffer lifelong progressive muscle weakness and atrophy of the arms and legs, progressive sensory loss, and CMT can affect other parts of the body. This leads to problems with balance, walking, hand use, and more. There currently is no treatment or cure for this debilitating and often overlooked disease.
In CMT, all peripheral nerves, whether sensory or motor, can be affected, although sometimes only the motor nerves are affected and sometimes only the sensory nerves are affected.
Peripheral Neuropathy?
The peripheral nerves are every nerve that lies outside of the brain and spinal cord, except for the optic nerves which are part of the central nervous system. The peripheral nerves connect the brain to the rest of the body and allow the brain to send messages to the body while also allowing the body to send message to the brain. There are two basic types of peripheral nerves: motor nerves and sensory nerves.
The motor nerves are responsible for movement. The motor nerves are how the brain controls the muscles of the body. The sensory nerves send sensory information, such as touch, temperature sensation, and pain, to the brain. Additionally, there are autonomic nerves that control the body’s automatic functions, or what are things that we don’t have to think about doing, such as sweating, breathing, etc. CMT can impact each of these and rarely does CMT affect all three types of nerves.
Symptoms
Early signs, might include but are not limited to toe-walking (especially in children), frequent tripping caused by catching the toes due to a weakening of the muscles that pick up the front of the foot (foot drop), frequent ankle rolls/sprains, frequent muscle cramps in the hands and problems with using pens/pencils/crayons and eating utensils, and issues with other tasks involving fine motor skills—zippers, buttons, keys, etc.
Numbness, especially in the points farthest away from the spinal cord (distal), such as the hands and feet. Hand numbness can be random and episodic. It’s not uncommon for somebody who has CMT to wake up in the morning with painfully numb hands. Sometimes, this numbness clears up within a couple of hours. Other times, it can last for weeks or even months.
Chronic pain. The pain can be debilitating. Sometimes, the pain is neuropathic pain. Other times, it’s muscle and joint pain (musculoskeletal). For many who have CMT, it can be both.
Fatigue. It’s well known that somebody who has CMT typically expels three times more energy performing even the most remedial of tasks than somebody who does not have CMT.
Foot deformities, as part of what’s called cavovarus (cay-voh-vayr-us) foot deformity. A cavovarus foot has a high arch, is twisted downward towards the front, and outward onto the lateral (outside) edge of the foot. This deformity is caused by an unequal, unbalanced weakening of the muscles that control the foot. Some of the muscles that control the foot remain relatively strong in CMT while their opposing muscles become relatively weak. These unbalanced muscle forces exerted on the foot are strong enough to cause bones in the foot to change shape. The result is a painful, twisted, and crooked foot that poorly distributes weight, makes mobility difficult, causes frequent trips and falls, and causes frequent ankle sprains. Over time, these can lead to premature ankle, knee, hip, and lower back wear/degenerative changes.
Flat feet, or what is “pes planus.” A pes planus foot deformity in CMT is also caused by an unbalanced weakening of the muscles that control the foot. The unbalanced weakening occurs in muscles opposite to those that cause cavovarus deformity. A pes planus deformity causes the foot to turn inward rather than outward. Again, because it is the opposite to cavovarus. Pes planus deformity is as painful and problematic as cavovarus foot deformity.
Kneecap dislocations, especially in children. A condition called “patella alta,” or what is a kneecap (patella) that is located higher up the leg than it should be (alta), is experienced by many who have CMT. This is likely caused by a weakening of the leg muscles and likely contributes to the dislocations.
Finger contractures, (clawed hands), toe contractures, tremor, absent or reduced reflexes, poor circulation (neuromuscular-induced venous insufficiency), scoliosis, kyphosis (kyphoscoliosis when scoliosis and kyphosis occur together), and the list goes on.
Less common issues, CMT can cause neurogenic bladder issues, neurogenic bowel issues, vision problems (due to optic atrophy and/or slowly reactive pupils), vestibular issues leading to worsened balance, speech/vocal issues, swallowing/choking issues, and breathing issues.
Pompe Disease 