unexpected means of rating rarity

[waider]

So a friend's daughter has Gillian Barre Syndrome, essentially an autoimmune disease of the brain that causes problems with coordination. Consult your local doctor for a better definition, I guess. Anyway, being the curious sort, I plugged "Gillian Barre" Syndrome into Google. From the resulting list of hits, I've determined that this must be a fairly common disease, since it's being used to bait sites in the same way as, say, Brittney Spears or Hot/Live/Wet/Young/Nude/Whatever Teens.

Update: Actually, I'm seeing several names for this. The friend in question told me it was Gillian Bere. Gillian Barre turns up a lot of hits, and it's what google suggests. Somewhere else says Gillian Barré. And I've now seen one that says Guillain-Barre, which seems to be the correct spelling as it's turning up some far more useful hits. Google, spell-checker of the masses.

Comments

[vspope.livejournal.com]

Check out Joseph Heller's book "No Laughing Matter," which is all about Heller's bout with this disease.

[ikkyu2.livejournal.com]

Guillain-Barré (ghee-LAIN bar-RAY) is correct (the N is nasalized. This is not proper French, but it is how Dr. Guillain pronounced it.) It is less eponymically referred to as acute inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy. It is an autoimmune disorder, not of the brain, but of the peripheral nervous system.

The insulation gets stripped off the wires, slowing nerve conduction. It can range from mild to fatal. Essentially full recovery is expected in 70% of cases.

[waider.livejournal.com]

Yep, that sums up what I eventually found, more or less. Apparently the kid in question is a hell of a lot better, although still not back to normal.

And I can see how an Irish doctor's rendition of the name might turn into "Gillian Bere", although I'd have expected "Gillian Barry".

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Sounds like MS, then, right, except for the recovery bit?

[ikkyu2.livejournal.com]

Different myelin in the peripheral and central nervous systems - MS is central only - and GBS isn't supposed to recur. Most cases (50+%) of GBS follow an infection, either Campylobacter or Mycoplasma; no one has yet found a cause for MS. But yeah, these 2 are the bread and butter of "neuro-immunologists."