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Ex-Saint Steve Gleason diagnosed with ALS (1 Viewer)

J

Joe Summer

Footballguy
Steve Gleason may always be remembered most for his blocked punt on the night the Louisiana Superdome reopened for the first time after Hurricane Katrina - a play that stirred an already emotional crowd into a deafening, drink-spilling frenzy.The retired New Orleans Saints folk hero only hopes he can continue to lift people's spirits by the way he handles what until now has been a private struggle with ALS, a debilitating and ultimately fatal disease for which there currently is no cure.On Sunday, five years to the day after his memorable play became a symbol of a devastated community's will to carry on, Gleason, 34, went public with his diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/Former-New-Orleans-Saints-player-Steve-Gleason-of-blocked-punt-fame-has-ALS-092511
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My friend lost his mom to ALS. For those of you who've noted that you also lost a loved one to ALS, I thought you may be interested in this recent ALS breakthrough that didn't get a lot of press...

Major ALS Breakthrough: Researchers discover common cause of all forms of ALS

August 22, 2011

CHICAGO --- The underlying disease process of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS and Lou Gehrig’s disease), a fatal neurodegenerative disease that paralyzes its victims, has long eluded scientists and prevented development of effective therapies. Scientists weren’t even sure all its forms actually converged into a common disease process.

But a new Northwestern Medicine study for the first time has identified a common cause of all forms of ALS.

The basis of the disorder is a broken down protein recycling system in the neurons of the spinal cord and the brain. Optimal functioning of the neurons relies on efficient recycling of the protein building blocks in the cells. In ALS, that recycling system is broken. The cell can’t repair or maintain itself and becomes severely damaged.

The discovery by Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine researchers, published in the journal Nature, provides a common target for drug therapy and shows that all types of ALS are, indeed, tributaries, pouring into a common river of cellular incompetence.

“This opens up a whole new field for finding an effective treatment for ALS,” said senior author Teepu Siddique, M.D., the Les Turner ALS Foundation/Herbert C. Wenske Professor of the Davee Department of Neurology and Clinical Neurosciences at Northwestern’s Feinberg School and a neurologist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. ”We can now test for drugs that would regulate this protein pathway or optimize it, so it functions as it should in a normal state.”

FULL ARTICLE

 
I had to write a report on this back in school, this is the worse disease a person could have, IMO.

Bless him and his family for being strong enough to deal with this the best they can.

 
First off, best wishes and prayers to Steve and his whole family.

Steve Gleason means something important to New Orleans: when we were all stuck in the desperate times and post-horror-insanity of Katrina the Saints reopened the Dome and Steve Gleason - a guy who never gave up, who earned his stripes in the NFL by virtue of pure grit and will - gave everyone a huge release and feeling of victory when he blocked the punt early in the Falcons game. The crowd, the people, the city embraced as one and it was so, so, so loud.

But the joy, worth and value as man and football player aside, I am guessing this is a very big story behind the doors of NFL HQ:

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2010/08/23/another-former-player-comes-down-with-als-or-something-just-like-it/

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2010/08/18/link-emerges-between-als-and-head-injuries/

http://www.newsinferno.com/health-concerns/paper-questions-als-diagnosis-in-athletes-soldiers/

http://journals.lww.com/jneuropath/pages/default.aspx

Gleason was a guy who put his head and body on the line constantly, he crashed and sacrificed his frame to the extreme to make it in the NFL and to help his team and city win. But the reality is that that study that came out showed some remarkable links between concussions and other in-game head injuries and ALS.

"Bernard Goldberg mentioned that 14 former NFL players have developed the condition more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, a fatal illness that ordinarily strike only one in 100,000 members of the population."

In the HBO story, the most remarkable thing was Gehrig himself. The researchers dug into old newspaper archives and tallied up the number of occasions that Gehrig had had head injuries or concussions in a game. In one instance he was beaned or knocked while sliding or something simsilar and was out for a very, very long time (something like 15-30 minutes?) and the Iron Horse ended up playing the second half of a doubleheader.

I am guessing the Gleason event is a serious, big time story inside NFL Inc.

 
'Raider%20Nation said:
Oh man. His speech is so slurred that they have to use subtitles. Terribly sad.
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Yeah, there was a story earlier this week where Gleason said that HBO had misquoted him. You gotta wonder if HBO did it on purpose or if it was an honest mistake based on his slurred speech.http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/8288156/new-orleans-saints-hbo-adjusts-subtitles-per-steve-gleason-complaint
 
I had never heard of a person surviving for years with this disease but Jason Becker a former rock guitarist has had ALS for about 20 years. If they can find a cure or even a form of treatment people like him could be released from their physical prison. Here is his story....My link

 
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'Csonka4life said:
I had never heard of a person surviving for years with this disease but Jason Becker a former rock guitarist has had ALS for about 20 years. If they can find a cure or even a form of treatment people like him could be released from their physical prison. Here is his story....My link
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Hawking was diagnosed with motor neurone disease (at the age of 21 in 1963) related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, a condition that has progressed over the years. As of 2013, he is almost completely paralysed and communicates through a speech generating device. Hawking's illness has advanced more slowly than typical cases of ALS: survival for more than 10 years after diagnosis is uncommon.[198][199] Symptoms of the disease include increasing inability to control physical movements, including vocal functions, and severe coughing spells. Hawking describes himself as lucky, as the slow progression of his disease has allowed him time to make influential discoveries and has not hindered him because, in his words, of "the help I have received from Jane, my children, and a large number of other people and organisations"
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He is 71 right now. ~50 years.
 
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