ALS & Pain

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or ALS is a neuromuscular disease that slowly takes away a person's ability to move and control their muscles. It is often known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Gehrig was the baseball legend who was diagnosed with the disease in 1939 and died from it in 1941.

Risk Factors

• Ninety percent of cases are non-hereditary and there is no known cause. For the 10 percent of cases that are heredity, the only known risk factor is having a relative with the disease. For the 90 percent of non-heredity cases, there are no known risk factors.

Onset

• ALS begins with muscle twitching or weakness, usually in one limb. About one-fourth of patients experience bulbar onset, where ALS affects the individual's ability to speak before it affects the limbs or other body parts.

Muscle Cramps

• As the disease progresses, patients may experience muscle cramps that can be painful or just uncomfortable. Outside of this, ALS is usually not associated with physical pain.

Psychological Effects

• Since most ALS patients suffer no cognitive effects, they are fully aware of their surroundings and what is going on with their body. They know their muscles are going to quit functioning and that they will eventually die. This can make the psychological pain of ALS difficult to bear. Since those with advanced ALS cannot speak without the help of a machine (usually controlled by their eyes) and cannot write, it can be hard to express the psychological pain they are enduring.

Treatment and Prognosis

• Most ALS patients will retain control over their eye and sphincter muscles, but all of the other muscles will eventually cease to work. There is no cure for ALS, so treatment consists of helping the patient breathe and eat as the muscles that control those functions begin to fail. Most patients will need a wheelchair and some will be able to get a machine that will allow them to speak via eye movements. Patients may live anywhere from a few months to decades after diagnosis.