By Emily Joshu Health Reporter For Dailymail.Com
18:16 03 Nov 2023, updated 18:21 03 Nov 2023
- Sarah Todd Hammer, from North Carolina, had a spinal cord injury as a child
- She is now partially paralyzed in both arms and legs due to a rare condition
- READ MORE: I have migraines – I swear by a BIZARRE trick to get rid of them
A North Carolina college student became paralyzed from the neck down after suffering a migraine as a child.
Sarah Todd Hammer, now 22, was eight years old when she started feeling severe pain during dance class.
‘I was at a ballet class, and I got a really excruciating head and neck ache, and then on my way out of the class, my arms and hands stopped working,’ Ms Hammer said in a TikTok video.
About 10 minutes later, she could move her legs but was unable to walk. The next morning, she lost movement in her legs. ‘I was completely paralyzed from the neck down,’ she said.
Ms Hammer was diagnosed with acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) – usually caused by an overreaction by the body in response to a virus or infection.
It causes devastating inflammation around part of the spinal cord called gray matter, which causes the muscles and reflexes in the body to become weak.
According to the Mayo Clinic, the condition most commonly affects young children, who often develop an infection from the virus enterovirus.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began tracking AFM in 2014. So far, there have been 736 confirmed cases in the US.
The CDC estimates that 90 percent of these cases have been in young children.
Doing ballet did not cause Ms Hammer’s AFM, she said. The timing was coincidental.
She spent two months in the hospital, including 12 days in the intensive care unit (ICU).
While in the ICU, Ms Hammer told People that she had plasmapheresis treatment,
