#muscle diseases

[bpod-bpod]

LARGE Links

Every muscle fibre in your body is packed with muscle cells firmly attached to a surrounding sheet called the basement membrane. This attachment requires a protein on muscle cells called dystroglycan and the help of the enzyme LARGE1. LARGE1 makes another protein, matriglycan, directly onto dystroglycan's outward-pointing end, forming a bridge to the basement membrane. Interfere with dystroglycan and the disease muscular dystrophy occurs. Researchers dig deeper using mice genetically engineered with dystroglycan lacking its outward-pointing stretch. Measuring specific protein levels, they find now LARGE1 can only make stunted forms of matriglycan in muscle cells. Dystroglycan could nonetheless bind the basement membrane but the muscle couldn't work properly. Fluorescent microscopy revealed disrupted neuromuscular junctions (pictured, bottom) – connections between a muscle (green) and its nerves (red) – compared with normal mice (top). This helps unpick dystroglycan’s role in muscle diseases.

Written by Lux Fatimathas

Image from work by Hidehiko Okuma and colleagues

Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy Specialized Research Center, Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics and Department of Neurology, Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in eLife, February 2023

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[twipsai]

SURPRISE SURPRISE the triple s guy made more triple(star)s fanart who woulda guessedddddd

this au is made by @zeezu-ix / @triple-starsss (I NEVER KNOW WHAT BLOG TO @ FOR THIS KINDA THING SOB)

full image under cut :P

[dailyloopdeloop]

DAY 53: FATALITY

[amygdalae]

i like to think my bg3 character has chronic joint pain but didnt quite realize how bad it was until they started asking shadowheart to cast lesser restoration on them every morning for unrelated reasons (wink) and they suddenly started to feel better than before

[50stressballs]

Really wish all the “low impact” exercise routines I find weren’t hyper focused on like squats and lunges and shit. Like bro, my knees DO NOT WORK. They simply do not function properly. If I do 15 squats today I’m not going to be able to walk properly for literal days.

…….but like I’m so tired and I NEED to work out to help with my fatigue, and I don’t have the attention span for yoga right now. So I do the five bajillion squats anyway.

And I’m stupid so I forget that that’s a bad idea, so when I’m in an incredible amount of pain just walking up and down the stairs for the rest of the week, I’ll be like

[blitzosicedcoffee]

People with Chronic Illness and compensating things they can't do with their body by deliberately hurting other parts of their body:

[kaeyapilled]

i particularly think kaveh has zero muscle. you can't even argue that he has to be strong in the arms since he wields a claymore because well. he doesn't wield it. mehrak does basically everything and this isnt slander work smarter not harder hes extremely right about this. and anyways alhaitham is 100% a gym bro. he misses leg day sadly but he does have some muscle in the arms there. uhhhhh i lost track of what my point here was. i dont know. i guess something something character foils mirrors of each other (hates physical activity X is extremely annoying about going to the gym)

[tumble-tv]

Gotta love The Leg Shakies when I need to get up to take a piss at midnight, and this seemingly simple sidewuest jacks up my heart rate to 150 BPM because I have to:

1. Amy crawl to the bathroom

2. Transfer to the edge of the bathtub so I can transfer to the toilet

3. Do my business

4. Transfer back to the edge of the bathtub so I can get back to the floor

5. Army crawl to my bed again

6. Climb back into bed

All while nearly crying and throwing up in pain and my legs are spasming with any and all muscle movement

[dvdkisser]

Self Indgent doodle since it's getting cold where I live already

[tj-crochets]

Hey y'all! A word of advice about going to a new doctor (this is US-based, but I think might be applicable to more than just that): If they do not ask you for your medical history, that is not a good sign

[chronic--experiences]

After years of putting it off, I finally got my first cane.

Definitely having mixed feelings about it. I’m worried about judgement coming from people who have seen me move around without a cane, and people claiming that I’m faking a disability because I’m young.

At the same time it’s such a relief to have something that provides me with more stability while moving around. My left leg has gotten so weak and I’m constantly scared of falling after my leg has given out multiple times (once on a flight of stairs)

I’ve got great friends who are super supportive of me finally getting a mobility aid and are willing to fight anyone who looks at me funny, but it’s definitely going to get some taking used to.

[idontliketomatoesleavemealone]

OH RIGHT WHOOPING COUGH CAN BREAK YOUR RIBS

[baja-blastoise]

So I went to the rheumatologist the other day and they prescribed me gabapentin. However, the doctor never went over any of the side effects, so being the overly cautious person I am I decide to look them up and HOOOO BOY idk if I want to even try gabapentin anymore. They say it can ultimately cause dementia as well as:

• cause memory loss

•weight gain (which I already have problems losing weight anyway)

• clumsiness

Among many other things. Don’t get me wrong, I’m in a lot of pain, but I’m too scared to try it at this point. Has anyone tried gabapentin for chronic pain/fibromyalgia? If so, how was your experience and did you have any side effects?

[bpod-bpod]

Nerve Meets Muscle

Aligned muscle fibres surrounded by innervating motor neurons forming functional neuromuscular junctions grown from human pluripotent stem cells creates a model for studying neuromuscular disease and drug targeting

Read the published research article here

Image from work by Alessia Urzi and colleagues

Stem Cell Modeling of Development & Disease Group, Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association (MDC), Berlin, Germany

Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Published in Nature Communications, December 2023

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[50stressballs]

It’s so weird having my physical health tank when my mental health is the best it’s ever been.

Like whenever someone asks me how I am I’m just like “well my bones hurt, and my muscles hurt, and I can work maybe 3 hours a day before I collapse from chronic fatigue. But like the world keeps on turning, so I’m vibing dude B) ”

[blitzosicedcoffee]

It's fun when my muscles randomly feel like they're being squeezed and pulled in one of those medieval torture devices.

These things: