Woman who would randomly fall over diagnosed with ALS
SWNS
2023-03-29
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A woman who would randomly fall over was diagnosed with a rare neurological disease aged 33 - and says her legs feel like “Jell-O” when she tries to walk.
Brooke Eby, 34, was diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in March 2022 after suffering from weakness in her foot for four years.
She first noticed something wrong in 2018, aged 29, when she started taking longer than usual to get to work and her colleagues pointed out she was walking with a limp.
Doctors couldn't determine what was wrong but Brooke's limp became more pronounced and by 2020 she was fitted with a foot brace to keep it upright.
She started to experience unexplained falls around once or twice a month at the end of 2021 and underwent an Electromyography (EMG) in February 2022 - where needles are inserted into the muscles to measure electrical nerve signals.
The results confirmed Brooke’s deepest fears. Doctors found signs of denervation in both of her legs, meaning the nerves that connect her brain to her muscle were dying.
Further tests revealed the denervation had spread to her stomach and arms, and she was finally diagnosed with ALS in March 2022.
The disease - which usually affects people between the ages of 40 and 70 - targets nerves that connect muscles to the brain, eventually causing disability.
Over the last five years Brooke went from walking her dog and doing pilates four times a week, to having legs that "feel like Jell-O" - leaving her reliant on a wheelchair to get around.
Brooke, a partner manager from North Bethesda, Maryland, US, said: “I just froze when the doctor read out my diagnosis. I was in disbelief. I couldn't believe this would be my life.
“The average lifespan is two to five years. You have to believe that some miracle is going to happen, because this is the most hopeless diagnosis there is.
“If I walk one block, it’s like I've run a marathon - my legs just feel like Jell-O."
Brooke first started having symptoms in 2018 when her left leg started feeling weaker.
She said: “My walk to the office began taking longer, and my colleagues noticed I had a limp.”
She was suffering from symptoms of foot drop, which makes it difficult to control movement of the foot, causing it to “slap” against the ground.
Brooke said: “I went to the doctors in early 2019, and they thought I might have slipped a disc.
“They did MRIs, CAT scans and x-rays, but they couldn’t find anything.”
Brooke started seeing a physiotherapist every week, but she said “it didn’t seem to improve”.
Over the following year, Brooke’s condition declined further and she started to fall over a lot.
She said: “The atrophy had travelled up my left leg to a quarter of the way up my thigh.
“Towards the end of 2021, I started falling once or twice a month.
"I would trip and I couldn’t really tell what was causing it. Every time it happened in public, it was very embarrassing.”
After seeing a neurologist in February, Brooke was finally diagnosed with ALS in March 2022.
Brooke Eby, 34, was diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in March 2022 after suffering from weakness in her foot for four years.
She first noticed something wrong in 2018, aged 29, when she started taking longer than usual to get to work and her colleagues pointed out she was walking with a limp.
Doctors couldn't determine what was wrong but Brooke's limp became more pronounced and by 2020 she was fitted with a foot brace to keep it upright.
She started to experience unexplained falls around once or twice a month at the end of 2021 and underwent an Electromyography (EMG) in February 2022 - where needles are inserted into the muscles to measure electrical nerve signals.
The results confirmed Brooke’s deepest fears. Doctors found signs of denervation in both of her legs, meaning the nerves that connect her brain to her muscle were dying.
Further tests revealed the denervation had spread to her stomach and arms, and she was finally diagnosed with ALS in March 2022.
The disease - which usually affects people between the ages of 40 and 70 - targets nerves that connect muscles to the brain, eventually causing disability.
Over the last five years Brooke went from walking her dog and doing pilates four times a week, to having legs that "feel like Jell-O" - leaving her reliant on a wheelchair to get around.
Brooke, a partner manager from North Bethesda, Maryland, US, said: “I just froze when the doctor read out my diagnosis. I was in disbelief. I couldn't believe this would be my life.
“The average lifespan is two to five years. You have to believe that some miracle is going to happen, because this is the most hopeless diagnosis there is.
“If I walk one block, it’s like I've run a marathon - my legs just feel like Jell-O."
Brooke first started having symptoms in 2018 when her left leg started feeling weaker.
She said: “My walk to the office began taking longer, and my colleagues noticed I had a limp.”
She was suffering from symptoms of foot drop, which makes it difficult to control movement of the foot, causing it to “slap” against the ground.
Brooke said: “I went to the doctors in early 2019, and they thought I might have slipped a disc.
“They did MRIs, CAT scans and x-rays, but they couldn’t find anything.”
Brooke started seeing a physiotherapist every week, but she said “it didn’t seem to improve”.
Over the following year, Brooke’s condition declined further and she started to fall over a lot.
She said: “The atrophy had travelled up my left leg to a quarter of the way up my thigh.
“Towards the end of 2021, I started falling once or twice a month.
"I would trip and I couldn’t really tell what was causing it. Every time it happened in public, it was very embarrassing.”
After seeing a neurologist in February, Brooke was finally diagnosed with ALS in March 2022.
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