Since I was diagnosed I have often explained that my biggest issue is spasticity in my hips and shoulder, however, I have always made an assumption that people know what I'm talking about.

I'm therefore taking an opportunity to explain what it is, how it impacts me and how the Mollii Suit helps the problem

What is spasticity?

Spasticity is a disruption in muscle movement patterns that causes certain muscles to contract all at once when you try to move or even at rest. The muscles remain contracted and resist being stretched. It interferes with movement and can also affect your speech and gait (walk).

It is a symptom associated with damage to the brain, spinal cord or motor nerves, and is seen in individuals with neurological conditions, such as:

• Cerebral palsy (CP)
• Multiple sclerosis (MS)
• Stroke
• Traumatic brain or spinal cord injury

It causes certain muscles to contract all at once. It ranges in severity and can affect movement and speech.

Spasticity can affect muscles in any part of the body, but is most common in leg muscles. Symptoms can vary among individuals and can be painful, disfiguring and disabling.

Spasticity in Multiple Sclerosis

People with MS can experience spasticity of the leg and hip muscles, resulting in flexor spasticity (legs and hips locked in a bent position) or extensor spasticity, where stiff muscles hold the legs straight and occasionally crossed at the ankles.

Spasticity can vary greatly in how it affects someone — it may be as mild as the feeling of tightness of your muscles or may be so severe that it causes painful, uncontrollable stiffness and spasms of your extremities.

Spasticity can involve the following:

• Increased muscle tone (hypertonia)
• Muscle spasms (quick and/or sustained involuntary muscle contractions).
• Clonus (series of fast involuntary muscle contractions that may feel like a tremor, most often experienced in your ankles).
• Pain or discomfort.
• Abnormal posture.
• Difficulty performing daily activities, and difficulty for others to help with activities such as dressing and bathing.
• Sleep disruption due to, for example, painful spasms or muscle tightness.

Muscle movements are normally controlled by a complex system that allows some of your muscles to contract (tighten) while others relax. Damage to nerves in the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord lesions) can disrupt this pattern. As a result, many muscles may contract all at once (sometimes called co-contraction), which makes it difficult to perform voluntary movement.

For me, the spasticity in my hips and left shoulder are similar to having a severe bout of cramp 24/7 and is caused by a disruption in the normal brain pattern. As the brain doesn’t understand why a message is not getting through it just continues to send the message. This results in the area causing the blockage to be overloaded and goes into permanent spasm.

The Mollii Suit is designed to help relieve the symptoms of spasticity, however, from the second it is switched off, the brain is still sending the messages that cause confusion and over a period of time the spasticity will return. Mollii only works for a period of time which is why I need to use it regularly.

The issue I am now discovering is more to do with muscle fatigue than anything else. As my muscles haven’t worked properly for several years and I haven’t been exercising efficiently, I am effectively starting from scratch. I can only repeat something a few times before the muscles are overworked and need to rest. I therefore need to start work on building my muscles up again, so that they can start making use of the periods of time when the spasticity is reduced.

Recuperation is going to be a lengthy process.

Data source used for details on Spasticity

hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/spasticity