4-year-old boy from Sydney who went to bed happy and healthy woke up unable to move his legs, telling his mom: “Mummy I can’t feel my legs.”
Oliver Davis’ mother, Bel, took her son to a local doctor who called him an ambulance, beginning the search for the cause of the boy’s sudden and mysterious paralysis, Australia’s 7News reported.
As the next 48 hours progressed, Oliver Davis’ condition worsened, leaving him unable to move from the shoulders down. Five days later he lost his ability to speak and swallow, lost control of his bladder, and had to begin being fed via a feeding tube.
Following a barrage of tests, including an MRI and a lumbar puncture, the 4-year-old was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), a rare autoimmune disorder that occurs when a person’s own immune system damages their nerves, causing muscle weakness and sometimes paralysis.
The CDC says that several things are known to trigger GBS, two-thirds of people who suffer from the condition have had diarrhea caused by a bacteria called Campylobacter jejuni several weeks before developing symptoms. Infection with this bacteria seems to be one of the most common risk factors of GBS.
