MAJN
New member
- Joined
- Nov 16, 2007
- Messages
- 1
- Reason
- Friend was DX
- Country
- US
- State
- MI
- City
- Lansing
Hi. I'm new to this Forum.
My best friend was diagnosed a few months ago with ALS. She is in her mid-30's and has bulbar onset ALS. At least that is what the doctor's are saying.
She started exhibiting symptoms almost immediately after having a spinal block done for a c-section delivery. (This was over 2 years ago). Her speech a couple of days after the block was slurred, like she had a couple drinks. It has progressively gotten worse. She is very difficult to understand and she has problems swallowing. She's been in and out of Dr's. Had MRIs and all of that - all looked normal. It took 2 years but they finally gave her an ALS diagnosis. She has NO other symptoms - no weakness in limbs or anything like that.
I have a few questions I'm hoping to get direction on.
1. Does it sound like this may be something else? The circumstances around it's onset just seem odd to me.
2. She has read somewhere that bulbar onset has a longer life expectancy. Intuition tells me that it probably would be shorter, since the speaking & swallowing seem to be in the region of the respiratory function. Does anyone have any information on this?
Thanks in advance for any help you can give.
My best friend was diagnosed a few months ago with ALS. She is in her mid-30's and has bulbar onset ALS. At least that is what the doctor's are saying.
She started exhibiting symptoms almost immediately after having a spinal block done for a c-section delivery. (This was over 2 years ago). Her speech a couple of days after the block was slurred, like she had a couple drinks. It has progressively gotten worse. She is very difficult to understand and she has problems swallowing. She's been in and out of Dr's. Had MRIs and all of that - all looked normal. It took 2 years but they finally gave her an ALS diagnosis. She has NO other symptoms - no weakness in limbs or anything like that.
I have a few questions I'm hoping to get direction on.
1. Does it sound like this may be something else? The circumstances around it's onset just seem odd to me.
2. She has read somewhere that bulbar onset has a longer life expectancy. Intuition tells me that it probably would be shorter, since the speaking & swallowing seem to be in the region of the respiratory function. Does anyone have any information on this?
Thanks in advance for any help you can give.