Take a walk on the wild side

I've been re-reading Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials recently, an epic trilogy of fantasy novels set across parallel universes.

In Pullman's incredible worlds, humans have daemons. These take the form of an animal and are the external physical manifestation of your inner-self.

Obviously I have spent way too much time considering what form my daemon might take* and my perusal of highly scientific online quizzes has sent me skittering from one website to another, eventually leading to a sad animal-human discovery.

And what I've found - although I really wish I hadn't - is that there is an equivalent of multiple sclerosis in the hedgehog community.

It's called Wobbly Hedgehog Syndrome (no, seriously) and it is a neurodegenerative disease which affects the brain and spinal cord of African pygmy and European hedgehogs.

WHS affects hedgehogs in a similar way to the effects of MS on humans. Symptoms of WHS include:

• falling over, often to one side
• tremors
• muscle atrophy
• dysphagia (problem swallowing)
• wasting
• ascending paresis (slight or partial paralysis)
• tetraparesis (paralysis in all four limbs)

As with MS, there is no known cure for WHS. Various vitamin supplements, antibiotic and steroid treatments have been used; some appear to temporarily improve the signs or slow the progression of the disease.

However, as signs of WHS wax and wane, it is difficult to assess the benefits of treatments. Sounds horribly familiar.

Oh the poor Mrs (and Mr) Tiggy-Winkles. This discovery has made me very sad. Turns out that we humans are not the only ones coping with prickly MS days.

:: Take a walk on the wild side by Lou Reed

*I like to think cat, but suspect, more likely, sloth.