husband diagnosed in sept. lots of ?

[rowland's wife]

my husband was diagnosed in Sept. 2008 with bulbar onset ALS he is 48 we had a motorcycle wreck in Oct. 2007 he hit his head on pavement went to ER had scans everything was fine. Then in Jan. 2008 he had colitis which is a bacterial infectin took antiobotics felt better. In april 2008 started taking chantix the stop smoking medicine, in may started having shoulder pain, got worse he couldn't sleep well at night. finally got him to go to DR in june when his elbow swelled up to golf ball size, he had chipped in in motorcycle accident, thought maybe it was causing shoulder pain. Dr. said it was bersitis. swelling went away but shoulder and neck pain and worse pain at night continued, then noticed twitches in arms, went back to DR he schedueled MRI of neck thought he had messed up disk it only showed arthritis, pain continued to worsen, Dr referred him to pain specialists a month away, so he went to another family Dr. told him he had fibromyalgia put him on lyrica this was end of june, he was in alot of pain still not sleeping well.2 weeks later noticed slurred speech went back to dr he thought it was from lyrica stopped medicine put him on cymbalta. Finally had appt. with pain specialists who was a neurologists said it was fibromyalgia, and said they could urn the nerves to stop the pain but was concerned about the slurred speech so referred him to his partner who was a neorologists surgeon, to run tests,in august made it to appt. neurologists done X-ray on neck mri on back and brain all showed nothing wrong no stroke only arthritis in neck and back. referred him to neurologists for EMG and nerve test. finally in sept. got results said it was ALS but had to be referred to another Neurologists because he was a surgeon so he couldn't put anything in writing for disability claim or work.On sept 29 saw neurologists she done several tests on reflexes and balance look at all the tests he had run and officially diagnosed him with ALS. We were lucky he was diagnosed so soon, I read were it sometimes takes a long time.

But I can't help but wonder if the head injury, or the bacteria infectin, or the chantix he was taking when his slurred speech started could have caused the onset of ALS, maybe he had it all his life but something triggered it? you can't help but wonder.
He has muscle weakness in legs in arms especially right hand gets tired easy has alot of muscle twitches has them in his chin it is scarry how fast it seems to progress.

 

[olly]

hi

sorry to read about your husband,i hope his progression slows down a bit soon.
he had a very fast diagnosed for most people,i guess it must be harder getting such a sudden blow like that.
i started with symptoms 9-10mths after major surgery and i am so certain that must have started it.
i know others who have had accidents or surgery before symptoms started,it does seem a bit of a coincidence dont you think?
i am not saying it is a direct cause as some think it could be a virus to blame or just plain predisposition,but there must be a trigger that starts it off.