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gawel

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May 5, 2010
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Loved one DX
Country
PL
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Mazowieckie
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Warszawa
Hi

I'm from Poland, so my English could not be great, but i hope that you will understand me. I have such a problem. I have always been a little hipohondriac (a little), bu till now I haven had any serios reasons to worry about. Everything changed about a month ago... About 5 months ago, by chance, I have read about the ilness ALS, because I had some fasciculations and I was searching web for the reason of them. My fasciculation are 99% caused by stress, becasue I was in a great stres that period of time, and they went away for a while when I have gotten some magnesium and "calm pills". But I am the person, who want to know everything about the thing that is worying me, so I was searching funther, and I relize one thing... My great grand mother died at the age of 30... My grandma told me about her. She have lost her strength in legs, then in arms, then she was comletely paralized and she died. She also had an operation on her backbone, but the doctors said, that they found nothing. So it's unfortunately quite shure that she had ALS, but that time in Poland the hospitals werent "good" at diagnosis, that why she havent been diagnosed. Soon after that I start to read about the familial cases of the disease and i start to freak out. Now, after reading a lot of pages abut some strange cases with only 2 or 3 affected members I am terribly frightened of the possibility of inheriting the disease... I don't know what to do to stop this fear... I cant tell about it to my mother or grandmother, cause I don't want her to freak out too. To my knowledge, she was the only person in family with that ilness. I know that her parensts werent affected, but her father died in a relatively young age - 53. What is worse, my family tree is very small. I am the only child, my mother is the only child, my grandmother has only one sister. And that is my question... How big is the chance, that i can inherit the disease, and is it bigger than in general? My grandmother is now 77 years old and has no signs of the ilness. My mother is 50 and doesnt have it either. My grandmother sister is 73 and is also a healthy person. Please, answer me, cause my perfect life is starting to be damaged by that fear... Thank you for reading this...
 
What's more, I've read, that such an early age of onset (25 - 26) is really rare for sporadic als :/
 
Hello, they do have tests at least in North America, that will look for an ALS marker, but I am not sure what you have access to. There are others on here who will be more familiar with ALS that is hereditary, but if it makes you feel better, hereditary ALS (known as familial) is actually quite rare. Most who get ALS have no family history and it is not linked to other members of their family. I do know one woman in my community whose family has the genetic ALS and not one but several people in her immediate family have had the disease.
My advise to you would be to not let it worry you too much as it does not sound as though it runs in the family. Only one person in your family may have had it, and it is unclear that she did have it. Please, if you are not showing symptoms, enjoy your health and do not worry yourself sick. If you are unable to stop worrying, ask your doctor and that might help ease your fears.
 
Thank you for the answer, it makes me a little more calm! But if there's someone, who is "in" the topic of familial ALS please, anwer my post... I will be really grateful...
 
You are welcome. You may also want to repost this question under "Is this ALS" thread as you might get a better, more direct answer. Hereditary effects less than 10% of all who have been diagnosed, so I am not sure how many members will be able to help you, but I do wish you good luck and very good health. Jodi
 
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