Tag Archives: Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

I work in medical research and, up until very recently, my long-time gig was Motor Neuron Disease. More specifically, I worked in clinic with people who had been diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). You may also know it as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

ALS can be hard to diagnose. The early signs of the disease appear to be various other things and it isn’t until all of these other illness are ruled out that doctors begin to think of ALS. I once had a patient who, because swallowing problems were his first symptom, was scared he had throat cancer. By the time the diagnosis of ALS had been made, he and his wife told me they wished it had been cancer.
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