Drug InfoNet - Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

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Doctors' Answers to "Frequently Asked Questions" - Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

These comments are made for the purpose of discussion and should NOT be used as recommendations for or against therapies or other treatments. An individual patient is always advised to consult their own physician.

Steroids & ALS
Question: I am a 59 year old male with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclarosis, I am currently taking the experimental drug BDNF, and doing physical therapy 3 times a week, my therapist asked if I would use steroids, if it would help...My question to you is there any known patient or whatever using steroids...Or is there any Doctor that knows if this would help...

Answer: Steroids are not currently used in the treatement of ALS. There are a number of promising new therapies such as the one you are using as well as Riulizole which is the only(so far) FDA approved drug for ALS. From a theoretical and practical standpoint you would want to avoid the usual medical type of steroids as they are catabolic(different from the anabolic steroids that athletes misuse)-the problem being that chronic use results in the loss of muscle mass which is already a problem for patients suffering from ALS.

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