BY ADAM DUDDING
Last updated 05:00 25/04/2010
Pauly Fuemana's friends saw symptoms of his illness as early as two years ago.
Fuemana died of respiratory failure on January 31, but last month his brother Tony told the Sunday Star-Times that the family had been seeking answers from doctors as to the underlying cause of the star's early death, as they had been unable to get "concrete" information.
But Fuemana's death certificate, sighted by the Star-Times last week, shows that the musician had been suffering from "progressive demyelinating polyneuropathy", an auto-immune disorder similar to the nerve disease multiple sclerosis. It causes progressive failure of nerves throughout the body and is fatal in about 10% of cases.
The disease, also known as chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, is something of a medical mystery. It occurs when the body's immune system turns on itself, leading to inflammation of nerves throughout the body and a severe slowing in nerve signals. This leads to numbness and a loss of co-ordination, which worsens over time.
Many patients respond well to treatments that fight the inflammation, but others eventually become severely disabled. Aside from numbness and clumsiness, there can be issues with patients struggling to eat and developing malnutrition.
