ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis), also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, is a disease in which the body loses the ability to communicate with all its muscles, usually beginning with the arms and legs, then the trunk, so that the person finally dies when the heart stops working or the lungs stop breathing. One of the many sorrows of this disease is that the person's brain remains alert while their body gradually dies in about three to five years although a few last ten years. It is always fatal. If you want to learn more about ALS, there's a wonderful novel, Tuesdays With Morrie that describes the effects of the disease in a beautiful story.
A lovely lady I met over the weekend asked me if natural medicine had anything to help folks with ALS since she had a dear relative that was suffering from the disease. I told her I'd look into it for her.
The Cause of ALS
It appears that ALS is caused by some of the 80,000 untested chemicals that we are exposed to in our daily lives. Our brave men and women in uniform are about twice as likely to develop ALS than the rest of us. We don't know which chemicals cause ALS, so I suppose you can say that ALS is a form of chemical poisoning but we don't know which chemicals are the culprits--possible ones that the military uses more than people who write health articles.
I'm not being of much help, am I? Maybe we should ask our government to require that companies test their chemicals before we innocently breathe them, drink them, eat them, or lather them on our skins. That might prevent ALS in the future but it does nothing for the 30,000 people who have ALS in the USA at the moment, or the 14 people who will be told today, for the first time, that they have ALS. If you live in another country, hopefully your government protects you from chemicals with unknown human consequences.
If I had ALS
I would make sure that I ate a Mediterranean Diet and did moderate exercise, especially Tai Chi. Of course that is pretty much my solution for everything! I would supplement with Essential Fatty Acids which are really lacking from our Standard American Diet (SAD). These acids are critical for cellular health and are very inexpensive. I would take lecithin to obtain phosphatidylcholine which is a precursor to a helpful neurotransmitter called acetylcholine. Phosphatidylcholine is important for healthy cell walls and acetylcholine helps nerve cells talk to each other.
Nothing so far is getting rid of ALS; I'm just giving the nervous system some resources to be healthy.
Going with the assumption that I have ALS due to chemical poisoning, I would try to make the liver as strong as possible because the liver is one of the great blood filters in the body. To make the liver stronger I would use acupuncture by a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) practitioner that was certified by the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (NCCAOM). My TCM professional would probably have me drinking some special herb teas to extend the effectiveness of the acupuncture between treatments. This is the only real suggestion I have to reversing ALS--if it is at all possible. I would even relocate, if necessary, to live close to a certified acupuncture professional.
Please note: The information in this article is not to be followed as medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Please consult with your physician or primary health practitioner for information regarding your own personal health and necessary treatments.
