PARMA HEIGHTS -- It's called Lymphangioleiomyomatosis, a long word with 24 letters to describe a disease that may affect more women than previously thought.
Sally Nagel's been battling the disease, LAM for short, for more than 30 years. It strikes women in the prime of their life and destroys their lungs.

Sally can't leave home without her supply of oxygen. She can barely climb a flight of stairs without needing to stop for 15 minutes or so to catch her breath.

Symptoms of LAM include shortness of breath, chronic cough, collapsed lung, chest pain for fatigue. It's often misdiagnosed as asthma, emphysema or bronchitis. Because it mainly strikes women, it's thought to be hormonally-related.

There is no cure or proven treatment for LAM. Sally recently finished a clinical trial that used a chemotherapy drug to treat LAM. She believes it made a huge difference, but so far it hasn't been approved.

Sally also suffers from Tuberous Slcerosis, a genetic disorder that affects many of her organs and caused seizures when she was younger.

There is a genetic link between Tuberous Sclerosis and LAM and experts believe about a quarter million women have it and are unaware. So far about 1,500 people have been officially diagnosed with LAM according to the LAM Foundation.


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