symptoms of arachnoiditis
Arachnoiditis can cause a number of symptoms, including numbness, tingling, and a characteristic stinging and burning pain in the lower back or legs. Some people with arachnoiditis will have debilitating muscle cramps, twitches, or spasms. It may also affect bladder, bowel, and sexual function.
The predominant and most distressing symptom of arachnoiditis is chronic, persistent, intractable, and debilitating pain , primarily neurogenic(lesion in the nervous system) which is clinically manifested as hyperalgesia (amplified pain) and allodynia (pain from light touch or clothing).
Bowel, bladder and sexual dysfunction as well as âelectric shocksâ type of pain are common in patients with severe arachnoiditis. All the symptoms are caused by the alteration and impediment of the CSF circulation resulting from clumped nerve roots, scar tissue and fibrosis.