ALS

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), is a genetic disease that effects the motor neurons. Motor neurons are nerve cells that create a pathway from your brain to your muscles, telling them what to do. These neurons are mainly used for voluntary muscles. ALS effects the motor neurons by slowly destroying them, leaving the victim without muscle movement. In later stages of ALS the victim may become completely paralyzed. This may seem like something you can live with but it is not. What about your lungs? You can control your breathing so once you are stricken with ALS this becomes much harder to do. Swallowing with ALS? I don't think so. You control when you swallow. ALS makes swallowing much harder to the point of possible choking.  That is why ALS is such a serious disease. It can effect people at different rates too. Normally people die within 2 to 5 years once they are diagnosed. 

A-myo-trophic is a greek word. "A" means no, "myo" has to do with muscle, and "trophic" means nourishment. No muscle nourishment. This brings up another part of ALS. When your muscles don't receive messages from your brain, then the muscle would not take the nourishment being delivered through the blood. Combine this with no exercise and you get muscle atrophy. This is when muscle is lost and becomes very weak. You can find out what this would feel like by clicking here. When muscles atrophy, the limbs become thinner. 

ALS only effects about 5,600 in the U.S in one year (1 out of 50,000). That is not a lot of people. Chances do not increase due to genetic heredity for ALS can strike anyone. Help for ALS and the medicines used to fight it can be found here.