We Did the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Properly

Don't forget about the super cute giveaway!

We were getting a little annoyed about the ice bucket challenge clogging up our newsfeeds. Not because of ALS, but because people were forgetting about the ALS and focusing on one-uping their friends with the ice bucket.

However, Justin's sister, Jana (who has spina bifida), challenged us to the ALS Bucket Challenge. She was one of the few who did the challenge properly by mentioning ALS and bringing awareness to it. Being aware of neurological, muscular, and auto-immune diseases is a very important part of my life now that I know many people with them, so we have no problem accepting the challenge. 

But, to make sure the real reason behind the challenge isn't forgotten, I want to talk a little bit about ALS, since the whole point of the challenge is to raise awareness.

The ALS website www.alsa.org, explains ALS as such:

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as "Lou Gehrig's Disease," is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Motor neurons reach from the brain to the spinal cord and from the spinal cord to the muscles throughout the body. The progressive degeneration of the motor neurons in ALS eventually leads to their death. When the motor neurons die, the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost. With voluntary muscle action progressively affected, patients in the later stages of the disease may become totally paralyzed.

As motor neurons degenerate, they can no longer send impulses to the muscle fibers that normally result in muscle movement. Early symptoms of ALS often include increasing muscle weakness, especially involving the arms and legs, speech, swallowing or breathing. When muscles no longer receive the messages from the motor neurons that they require to function, the muscles begin to atrophy (become smaller). Limbs begin to look "thinner" as muscle tissue atrophies.A-myo-trophic comes from the Greek language. "A" means no or negative. "Myo" refers to muscle, and "Trophic" means nourishment–"No muscle nourishment." When a muscle has no nourishment, it "atrophies" or wastes away. "Lateral" identifies the areas in a person's spinal cord where portions of the nerve cells that signal and control the muscles are located. As this area degenerates it leads to scarring or hardening ("sclerosis") in the region.

As motor neurons degenerate, they can no longer send impulses to the muscle fibers that normally result in muscle movement. Early symptoms of ALS often include increasing muscle weakness, especially involving the arms and legs, speech, swallowing or breathing. When muscles no longer receive the messages from the motor neurons that they require to function, the muscles begin to atrophy (become smaller). Limbs begin to look "thinner" as muscle tissue atrophies.

Basically, your muscles lose their ability to work and begin to degenerate. These are some affects of ALS:

• muscle weakness in one or more of the following: hands, arms, legs or the muscles of speech, 
  swallowing or breathing
• twitching (fasciculation) and cramping of muscles, especially those in the hands and feet
• impairment of the use of the arms and legs
• "thick speech" and difficulty in projecting the voice
• in more advanced stages, shortness of breath, difficulty in breathing and swallowing

The website also gives information about who it affects:

• It is estimated that ALS is responsible for nearly two deaths per hundred thousand population annually.
• Approximately 5,600 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with ALS each year. The incidence of ALS is two per 100,000 people, and it is estimated that as many as 30,000 Americans may have the disease at any given time.
• Although the life expectancy of an ALS patient averages about two to five years from the time of diagnosis, this disease is variable and many people live with quality for five years and more.  More than half of all patients live more than three years after diagnosis.
• About twenty percent of people with ALS live five years or more and up to ten percent will survive more than ten years and five percent will live 20 years. There are people in whom ALS has stopped progressing and a small number of people in whom the symptoms of ALS reversed.

However, there is a lot of research going on currently, especially with genetics. There are also many societies, such as this ALSA.org that are trying to raise awareness and money to sponsor research. So, we are completing the challenge properly by raising awareness, and now dumping ice water on our heads!

We challenge: 

Steve, Garrett, and Joey (Justin's BFF's)

Madison, Bobby, and Paige (my siblings)

Desiree from Macke Monologues

and 

Aubrey from Dreaming About Someday