CENTRAL FLORIDA —

At least two Central Florida children have come down with a rare illness in a matter of weeks.

Doctors said the children have Guillain-Barre Syndrome, a disorder where the body's immune system attacks the nerves.

It only affects about one in 100,000 people. WFTV's Lori Brown asked what causes it.

Eight-year-old Christian went from running a 5K one week to hardly being able to walk and write words a couple of weeks later.

"The scariest moment was when Samantha came to me and said, 'Christian can't walk,'" said Christian's stepfather, Andrae Bailey.

Samantha Bailey, Christian's mother, said Christian was not "able to even pick up his leg to go up and down stairs, or a step."

Over the next two weeks, the Baileys took Christian from his St. Cloud home to three different doctors, including the ER.

He received extensive tests before a fourth doctor finally performed the most revealing test of them all: a reflex test. Christian had none.

It was Dr. Gregory Gordon's first case of Guillain-Barre in his 12 years of practicing medicine.

Then just 10 days later, "I had my second case. It's a really unusual diagnosis."

That time it was an 8-year-old from Windermere.

Gordon said it is possible that a virus going around is triggering the syndrome in some people.

"Both started as a sore throat as their primary feature, and then both had some degree of leg pain and leg weakness," Gordon said.

The syndrome can have serious even deadly consequences if left untreated.

"There are cases that as the paralysis ascends, they can't breathe. It's terrifying," Gordon said.

The Baileys said they hope they can bring awareness to the syndrome so no other child has to wait two weeks to find out what's wrong with him.

"The thing we are most encouraged by is that he can walk again," Andrae Bailey said.

Guillain-Barre Syndrome is not reportable, so it's hard to track. The Pediatric Hospitalist Group said it hasn't seen an uptick in the number of cases.

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