Myasthenia Gravis News Community › Forums › Research and Clinical Trials › Chemical exposures and MG › Reply To: Chemical exposures and MG
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MemberHi – I want to share a deep idea about chemical case. I too was in Viet Nam and I’m sure exposed to lots of things. But in the 90s my wife was driving from our home through an orchard. The farm guy spun his spraying tractor just as she drove by with the car window open. She was drenched with what we later were told was an organophosphate. She came back home dripping and I helped her into the shower and tried to scrub her down.
She was diagnosed with ALS in 05 and died in 2010. A year later after lots of wrong diagnoses – including damaging surgery – I spent 11 days in intensive care and when I was told I had two days to live, they finally let the neurologist in. He handed me mestinon, and I was off the breathing machine in an hour. That was my start with MG treatment. But here’s my point:
Organophosphate is a key element in chemical warfare. If you read about it especially during the mid East wars starting in the early 90s, it sounds a lot like hyper-MG. And that’s when the US Military started giving mestinon to soldiers in Iraq. And since then the military has sponsored lots of research on MG and ALS type illnesses. I recommend you look at that complicated young people’s thing called the internet -for quite a bit of info from our Department of Defense.
And (finally), my conclusion is that certain chemicals like organophosphate can and do cause neuro muscular destruction. Maybe not to all of us, but I’m pretty sure me and my wonderful late wife….