Of Baseball Legends and Diseases

   During the month of June, CVS/Pharmacy is asking customers to help find a cure for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, otherwise known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's Disease in North America, by donating $1 whenever you make a purchase. CVS/Pharmacy has partnered with the ALS Therapy Alliance for the past 9 years to raise nearly $24 million in support of finding a cure for this disease that effects around 5,000 people in the United States yearly. Currently 20-30 thousand people in the United Stated have been diagnosed with this debilitating disease. What is ALS and why should you support it?

   ALS is one of the most common neuromuscular diseases worldwide and 90-95 percent of individuals diagnosed with ALS seemingly acquire it at random. The other 5-10 percent can inherit ALS as long as one parent carries the mutated gene for it. Most people will not experience symptoms of ALS until they are 40-60 years of age, but it has been known to strike in earlier or later ages. Once diagnosed, individuals usually have a life expectancy of around 2 years.


   The symptoms of ALS are difficult to catch at an early stage, which means they are frequently overlooked by physicians. Early symptoms include twitching, cramping or stiffness in the muscles, muscle weakness in the extremities and difficulty chewing or swallowing. These general complaints then turn into more serious atrophy and weakness which cause doctors to to suspect ALS. Most people experience the first signs of ALS in their arms or legs. Difficulty running or loss of balance to trouble lifting objects or even turning the key in a lock. These smaller symptoms lead to a slow and total body shutdown. Individuals no longer are able to walk, feed themselves or even breathe without the help of a ventilator. 


   In order to be fully diagnosed with ALS, patients must have symptoms of both upper and lower motor neuron damage that cannot be linked to other causes.


   With no known cause for ALS, researchers have a difficult time finding a cure for it as well. As of right now there is only one medication to help reduce the damaging effects of the disease.  So what does that mean for us? The easiest way for us to help is $1 at a time. You can also go to www.alstherapyalliance.org to find out other ways to get involved. Personally, I have written this blog and I will tweet how well my local CVS is doing while trying to reach their $750 store goal. One week in and they are currently at 10 percent. Why don't you help your local store meet their goal?