Hi again, Thank you Nikki,
I received my records from Columbia today. If someone could look at them and tell me what they think I would be so grateful. I can't make heads or tails out of it. These tests were done four months ago. I have absolutely progressed in my symptoms. I know I keep reading tests can't really be done too early, but here's my question. When I look at the summary table for the EMG in the Recruitment Pattern section, what does Reduced mean? and in the Effort column what does Submax mean? I ask, knowing nothing about what I am looking at, but in the very muscles that say reduced or submax are the very ones that I first started my symptoms in that I noticed. Is that relevant? This is the summary of what the Dr wrote.
Motor nerve conduction studies of the left median nerve shows normal distal motor latency, low evoked response amplitude, and normal conduction velocity. The left ulnar, fibular and tibial nerves show normal distal motor latency, evoked response amplitude, and conduction velocity. Minimal F-wave latencies are normal in all the tested nerves.
Sensory conduction velocity and evoked response amplitude are normal in the left median, ulnar, superficial fibular and sural nerves.
All muscles tested by needle EMG are listed at the end of this report. EMG of selected muscles in the left arm and leg including biceps brachia, triceps brachia, abductor policies brevis, FDI, vastus lateralis, tibialis anterior and medial head of the gastrocnemius reveals no abnormal spontaneous activity, normal MUP form, and full recruitment on maximal effort or reduced recruitment on submaximal effort. EMG of left cervical, thoracic and lumbosacral paraspinal muscles reveals no abnormal spontaneous activity.
Conclusions:
This is an essentially normal study. There is no electrophysiological evidence of motor neuron disease, no detected fasiculations, generalized polyneuropathy, focal neuropathy or left cervical or left lumbosacral radiculopathy.
So, as clueless as I am about these reports, I know that "no evidence of motor neuron disease" is really good. But what does "essentially normal study" mean? What was off in my test then?
Thank you in advance for your insight,
Jennifer