Symptoms of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)
The most common symptom of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is muscle weakness or muscle atrophy. Muscle atrophy is a decrease in the size of the muscles making them significantly weaker. When people are seeking a neurologist and they mention ALS before the consultation, muscle weakness is the first thing the neurologist will look for as to exclude ALS immediatly.
It is very rare that people are diagnosed with ALS without having muscle weakness. That’s also why weakness and atrophy should be in capital letters and in bold in any list of ALS symptoms (table 1).
| Cramps in muscles |
| Spasticity in limbs |
| ... MUSCLE WEAKNESS AND MUSCLE ATROPHY ... |
| Emotional sensitivity and instability |
| Dysphagia |
| Dyspnoea |
| Dysarthria |
If you are on this webpage because you fear that you have ALS, the chances are that if you do not have any weakness or any atrophy in any of your limbs and are younger than 40 years old, you do not have ALS! However the symptoms you feel may be due to something else, so the best advice is to see a doctor.
Table 1 contains some words that might needs a further explanation:
Dysphagia is referring to difficulty of swallowing. In bulbar onset of ALS this can happen at an early stage. Swallowing difficulties are however also a common complaint from older people. The incidence of dysphagia among elderly is relatively high.
Dyspnoea is difficulties in breathing caused by pain. Dyspnoea is same as shortness of breath. Its a common symptom of many disorders an sufferers from dyspnoea need medical treatment.
Dysarthria is poor articulation of words caused by dysfunction of one or many of the subsystems involved in speech such as the tongue, jaw or the respiration. Often dysarthria only occurs later on in the development of ALS.
References
Symptoms as described by the ALS Association
ALS symptoms described at WebMD
Mayoclinic - overview of symptoms
Forum about ALS symptoms