Alex123
Distinguished member
- Joined
- May 31, 2014
- Messages
- 128
- Reason
- PALS
- Diagnosis
- 05/2014
- Country
- US
- State
- California
- City
- Los Angeles
At about the same time I was in my home country taking care of my mom, and while I was starting to have symptoms of ALS, I noticed that our female cat was loosing strength in her legs. As she continued to deteriorate, she was loosing weight, the muscles around her spine were shrinking and the vertebrae were more easily felt when touching her. She also started to loose her “voice” and eventually had trouble chewing the regular cat food. So I started buying her cat food in paste form and she could chew that one much more easily. Very often I noticed that her breathing involved quick (not smooth) motions of her rib cage. This didn't happen all the time but when it did it was easy to notice. Before getting sick and in the early stages of her disease she was spending most of the time in the house's porch. But when she got weaker and the weather outside was a little cold, I let her spend her nights in the kitchen. It looks like her cognitive function was OK, because some times early in the morning she would come next to my bed and call me so that I would let her go out to “go to the bathroom”. Eventually I brought the litter box inside the kitchen. She was sleeping on a cushion on the floor, which made her more comfortable. One morning, when I went to the kitchen, I found that she was not moving. She was in the same curled up position she usually sleeps. Soon I noticed she was dead. It appears that she just stopped breathing.
I have heard (now that I have done a lot more reading about the disease) that there are other animals besides humans that have diseases similar to the human ALS. I also read about cats having a neuromuscular disease that resembles ALS. So it is not too strange that this cat got the disease. But the strange thing is that her and I got similar diseases while living in the same house and at about the same time. As a possible cause for this coincidence, of course genetics is excluded but two factors that remain a possibility would be exposure to some toxic substance or to some insects that could have transmitted a pathogen. It could also be that there was contagion in either direction, but most likely form the cat to me, as I got some scratches from her and was cleaning her litter box.
On a second thought, if some pathogen transmitted by insects was what caused the disease, then there would be many more people exposed. At one time I used pesticides to eliminate fleas, and I think both the cat and I were exposed to this, as well as some herbicides that I used in the garden. But if I was exposed to these substances, the exposure was minimal (no effects noted at the time) and not too often.
Now, while I think that having a cat and a human living in the same house develop an ALS-like disease is unusual, I have never had an opportunity to comment this to my doctors, and even if I did, they would not be interested in hearing about it. So I can imagine that if there are other cases like this happening, they must be under-reported. I don't remember seeing any question about a situation like this in the National ALS Registry.
Have you heard of or experienced something similar?
Do you think this was just coincidence or there could be a connection between my disease and the cat's?
I have heard (now that I have done a lot more reading about the disease) that there are other animals besides humans that have diseases similar to the human ALS. I also read about cats having a neuromuscular disease that resembles ALS. So it is not too strange that this cat got the disease. But the strange thing is that her and I got similar diseases while living in the same house and at about the same time. As a possible cause for this coincidence, of course genetics is excluded but two factors that remain a possibility would be exposure to some toxic substance or to some insects that could have transmitted a pathogen. It could also be that there was contagion in either direction, but most likely form the cat to me, as I got some scratches from her and was cleaning her litter box.
On a second thought, if some pathogen transmitted by insects was what caused the disease, then there would be many more people exposed. At one time I used pesticides to eliminate fleas, and I think both the cat and I were exposed to this, as well as some herbicides that I used in the garden. But if I was exposed to these substances, the exposure was minimal (no effects noted at the time) and not too often.
Now, while I think that having a cat and a human living in the same house develop an ALS-like disease is unusual, I have never had an opportunity to comment this to my doctors, and even if I did, they would not be interested in hearing about it. So I can imagine that if there are other cases like this happening, they must be under-reported. I don't remember seeing any question about a situation like this in the National ALS Registry.
Have you heard of or experienced something similar?
Do you think this was just coincidence or there could be a connection between my disease and the cat's?