Raising awareness of Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease (CMT)

1st September 2017 sees the beginning of the international awareness month for Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease also known as CMT. Organisations from around the world who focus on CMT are coming together to try and raise as much public awareness as possible. They are exposing the causes, treatments and supporting people who have been diagnosed with CMT.

The team at SMP Healthcare Ltd are not medically trained. We do however, due to the nature of our job come across many different medical conditions. I must confess that this is one I had not yet heard about.

We are supporting the global push for ensuring people do know about Charcot-Marie-Tooth-Disease.

What is Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease?

CMT is a genetic condition that damages peripheral nerves. These nerves are responsible for passing on commands from the brain to the muscles (motor nerves) and for passing information to the brain about sensations, such as pain, heat, cold, touch, importantly for balance – where your joints are in space (sensory nerves). When these are damaged, people are said to have a neuropathy.

Because of this nerve damage, people with CMT may find that some of their muscles become slowly weaker over the years, particularly in their feet and hands. Some find that feeling becomes duller, or numb, in the same areas.

In the UK, around 25,000 people are thought to have CMT, making it the most common inherited neurological condition. The positive news is that it is hardly ever life threatening however, like many other conditions of this type CMT often becomes worse over time.

What are the symptoms?

The exact symptoms you experience may vary hugely from other people with CMT. This is because there are many different sub types of CMT. Symptoms can also vary hugely, even within the same sub-type, for example between close family members.

The above information has been sourced from http://cmt.org.uk/ and we would urge you to refer to this website for more information and help them raise the awareness, raise funds and raise the profile of CMT in the UK and beyond.