ALS - Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

I couldn't stop reading about Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) because I had never heard of it before and to try and imagine the things Dr. Mate explained actually happening in our body was slightly horrifying. For example, the condition is caused when motor neurons in the CNS start to gradually die. When there are less neuron synapses and impulses, the muscles wither. That is why patients with ALS have troubles grasping objects, speaking, or walking, depending on where in the spinal cord or brain that is affected. According to the website that I attached below, eighty percent of people diagnosed with ALS die within 2-5 years after diagnosis, usually because they are unable to breathe or swallow. Another astonishing statistic I found from the ALS Society of Canada website was that approximately 2,500 - 3,000 Canadians currently live with ALS.

Dr. Mate talks specifically about a patient, Alexa, who pushed herself way beyond her limits. She would stay up long after midnight to complete her daily marking of student assignments (because the small muscles in her hand shriveled up). Then get up at five-thirty in order to arrive to work on time. Dr. Mate also talks about her early life and how no matter how hard she tried, she could not manage to establish a connection with her adoptive mother. Alexa had an overwhelming fear of abandonment ever since, which showed through her first and second marriages. How does this connect to her condition? First of all, she grew up feeling like she had to take care of everybody and she also developed an inability to express her emotions. Not being able to express her emotions, made her bottle up everything she felt inside. It is hard to imagine what that kind of stress does to your body, though I know it is not a healthy way to deal with issues. Alexa and her husband wanted Dr. Mate to support their belief that her symptoms were purely stress related, though Dr. Mate knew that the diagnoses was "irrefutable". It is unknown what causes ALS, though a study done at Yale University showed two patterns in ALS patients.

1. Rigidly competent behaviour - the inability to ask for or receive help

2. Chronic exclusion of so -called negative feelings

They found these patterns within the ten patients that they studied, though all of the patients appeared cheerful on the outside. That makes me sad to think about because they are trying so hard to make the world a nicer place by not polluting it with their own sadness and then get punished with a horrible disease. I guess the moral of the story is that no ones sadness or frustrations deserve to be bottled up and there should be at least one person that is willing to listen.

For more information about ALS:

http://www.als.ca/