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

[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."