What are the early signs of leprosy?
Early signs include discolored or light patches on the skin with loss of feeling. When nerve trunks in the arm are affected, part of the hand becomes numb and small muscles become paralyzed, leading to curling of the fingers and thumb. When leprosy attacks nerves in the legs, it interrupts communication of sensation in the feet. The feet can become subject to erosion through untended wounds and infection. If the facial nerve is affected, a person loses the blinking reflex of the eye, which can eventually lead to dryness, ulceration, and blindness. Bacilli entering the mucous lining of the nose can lead to internal damage and scarring which in time causes the nose to collapse. Untreated, leprosy can cause deformity, crippling, and blindness.
The early signs and symptoms of leprosy can vary considerably depending on a patient’s resistance to the disease. They can be easily missed or mistaken for some other disease by the untrained person. People with lepromatous leprosy usually develop a skin rash or nodules while tuberculoid leprosy might first show itself as an area of numbness or pins and needles. Dark-skinned people sometimes have patches that are paler in colour than their normal skin and light-skinned patients show pinkish and reddish patches. There is no one “first sign” of leprosy. Careful consultation by a competent doctor with the examination of skin smears under a microscope is necessary for correct diagnosis.
