Initial Findings
Gender
This part looks at the gender of the patients and which disease they had. The graph and table shows slightly more women than men filled in the survey (this probably means women are more trusting?). All other information states that more men have GBS or CIDP than women - so right at the start here is the first variation on conventional thoughts. Not all the respondents specified GBS or CIDP, the other main ones hadn't been diagnosed yet or put down sensory Neuropathy. Of the CIDP people, 45 were diagnosed with GBS first, which is nearly one third. 49 people stated they also had Diabetes and 20 High Blood Pressure. |
The two graphs above relate to the age of the people who filled in the survey, which on first site seems to tie in with the general perception that it effects people over 50, much higher. The mistake I made in my questions was asking how old the people were, not how old were they when they first contracted the disease. So by working out their age based on the date they contracted and the age they filled in. The second graph is much more accurate and shows the age of people being a good 5 year younger.
The data from GBS or CIDP really doesn't differ in age much at all.
Some statements have been made about women being more susceptible after pregnancy, I can't comment on that - as I didn't ask.
The data from GBS or CIDP really doesn't differ in age much at all.
Some statements have been made about women being more susceptible after pregnancy, I can't comment on that - as I didn't ask.
Diagnosis Time
These two graphs show the length of time for diagnosis of the two groups. Which does confirm what has been stated that GBS takes less than 4 weeks and CIDP any time over 2 months. The average is around 42 days for GBS & 1004 days for CIDP. However this has been skewed by a small number of very large entries in both totals, where either it has taken a very long time to get diagnosed or they are incorrect. By removing the largest 20 entries - the numbers go down to: GBS - 10.5 days, CIDP - 387 days |
What this shows is that significantly more people with GBS thought their condition was due to a virus or other illness and in my view that is because the symptoms occurred much more closely with when GBS was contracted and therefore it was a "known" issue. As CIDP takes a lot longer, nearly two thirds had no idea how it was contracted, because the original incident and then the slow on-set made it "unknown". What is also worth noting is that a vaccination is actually deliberately giving you a virus (albeit a "dead" one) so this could be classed as the same. I know how I contracted CIDP, via a vaccine, but that was easy as it was shortly afterwards that I was laid low by a virus.