Myasthenia Gravis Awareness month.

 JUNE IS MYASTHENIA AWARENESS MONTH

 Myasthenia Gravis (MG) is a Greek and Latin combination meaning “grave muscle weakness”. I would not be surprised that you’ve not heard of this disease. This autoimmune disease affects 1 in 100,000 individuals. It is considered a form of Muscular Dystrophy. This disease disrupts the lives of our  families and friends, because we are no longer able to do the things we’ve done in the past, but now must depend on them to step in and do them for us. Over exertion, stress and heat are main contributors to the worsening of our symptoms. While friends and family enjoy parties out in the beautiful sun and surf, we must be content with air conditioning and an easy chair. It affects each of us individually. MG was killing 65 percent of the people who contracted it prior to the 1930’s because there was no effective treatment. Mestinon was discovered and the death rate dropped dramatically. It now stands at 5 percent because of the advances in medications. As it stands today, it is not curable. There are some who go into periods of remission. Many of those are the ones who have had thymus glands removed, but even this does not guarantee a remission. Where diseases like cancer and MS have hundreds of case studies in process at any given time, MG currently has less than 20. It seems the reasoning behind this is that MG is controllable with medication and is no longer as life threatening as it once 

was. The fact remains that it is incurable and we would much rather live a normal life than the new “normal” we do now.