Growing up with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (CMT), Lainie Ishbia learned about living with invisible disability — experiencing the daily struggle of movement without looking, outwardly and obviously, as if that’s the case. She also learned, once ankle-foot orthotics (AFOs, or braces) made her disability visible, those devices designed to help make movement easier can also make . . .
Patrick Cusick’s journey with MDA — and with muscular dystrophy — started 12 years ago, in, of all places, a life insurance office. Twenty-nine at the time, the Ohio native and his wife were expecting their first child, and making preparations as parents (or soon-to-be parents) do. Securing life insurance meant taking some medical tests; . . .
Every year on Sept. 30, people around the world wear lime green and come together online and in their communities to celebrate Limb-Girdle Muscular Dystrophy (LGMD) Awareness Day. Now four years old, LGMD Awareness Day has been embraced by the LGMD patient community as a way to raise awareness and honor individuals living with the . . .
At 22, when I graduated from college, I, like so many of my fellow millennials, moved back home. I spent two transitional years in the room where I’d grown up, unicorn wallpaper still casting magic above the bed, and then, one weekend, I packed my clothes and moved out. I’d lived alone in my college . . .
The first standards of care for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) were published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2010. And today — on World Duchenne Awareness Day 2018 — the DMD care landscape is already, and excitingly, a much different space. Several new therapies, including the first-ever disease modifying DMD . . .
Today, MDA, supported by grants from VieMed Healthcare and SYNERGY HomeCare, has released the MDA Guide for Caregivers, a comprehensive resource to empower individuals living with neuromuscular disease and their caregivers. The guide provides practical advice, recommendations, tips and resources to maximize quality of life, drawing on the expertise of numerous MDA Care Center staff. . . .
In 2015, Illinois native Rob Besecker hiked to the base camp of Mount Everest, an impressive physical feat that only a few thousand achieve in a given year. Reaching this campsite 17,500 feet above sea level is a grueling challenge that requires weeks of hiking through rough terrain and thin air. Yet for Rob, 43, . . .
One year ago, if you would have asked me to say the words Duchenne muscular dystrophy, I couldn’t. It was too new, too fresh, too difficult of a reality to process. One year ago I fell to my knees crying and physically shaking with fear, anxiety and anger as I hung up the phone with . . .
Amin Lakhani is a 29-year-old man with CMT. After graduating second in his high school class of 700 students, getting two degrees from an Ivy League university and landing his dream job at Microsoft, he thought he had finally made it. But something wasn’t right because he felt completely alone. He hadn’t learned how to . . .
Faith Fortenberry, who lives with SMA, is getting stronger everyday thanks to Spinraza.
