I cant move: Ontario woman opens up about stiffperson syndrome fight [Video]

An “episode at work” is how Robyn Cook describes the sudden and life-changing full-body spasm that sent her to the emergency room, five years before a mysterious set of symptoms would be diagnosed as stiff person syndrome.

“I couldn’t open my mouth because my jaw was spasming,” she said of the frightening experience in 2012 that prevented her from calling for help from her desk at a bank.

“My left arm was stuck to me and my body was spasming from the neck, the shoulder, the torso, trunk, even into the hips,” Cook said from North Bay, Ont.

Cook, now 46, says signs of the neurological autoimmune disease began when she was 23. Her back stiffened with pain that took her to the floor and a similar debilitating incident eight years later forced her to stop working for five months.

“These episodes kept happening where it’s like, ‘Oh, my back went out. I’m …