ALS Sucks!
ALS sucks! It is a fatal disease with no cure and only a couple of medications they have developed that are supposed to slow down the progression. And because so few people are afflicted by ALS, they don’t have the resources to aggressively find a cure.
About ALS:
- It is also known as Lou Gehrig‘s disease, after the baseball player who had it.
- It is a motor neuron disease which causes the death of neurons controlling voluntary muscles.
- The average lifespan is 2-4 years after onset. 10% of people live beyond 10 years. Although Stephen Hawking lived for over 50 years with it. What a superhero!
- The ice bucket challenge in 2014 raised $115 million which allowed them to do more studies and they developed Radicava which is supposed to slow down the progression by 3-4 months.
- It is a rare disease affecting only 2-3 out of 100,000.