A woman who would randomly fall over was diagnosed with a rare neurological disease aged 33 - and says her legs feel like "Jell-O" when she tries to walk."

Brooke Eby, 34, was diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in March 2022 after suffering from weakness in her foot for four years.

She first noticed something wrong in 2018, aged 29, when she started taking longer than usual to get to work and her colleagues pointed out she was walking with a limp.

Doctors couldn't determine what was wrong but Brooke's limp became more pronounced and by 2020 she was fitted with a foot brace to keep it upright.

She started to experience unexplained falls around once or twice a month at the end of 2021 and underwent an Electromyography (EMG) in February 2022 - where needles are inserted into the muscles to measure electrical nerve signals.

The results confirmed Brooke’s deepest fears. Doctors found signs of denervation in both of her legs, meaning the nerves that connect her brain to her muscle were dying.

Further tests revealed the denervation had spread to her stomach and arms, and she was finally diagnosed with ALS in March 2022.

The disease - which usually affects people between the ages of 40 and 70 - targets nerves that connect muscles to the brain, eventually causing disability.

Over the last five years Brooke went from walking her dog and doing pilates four times a week, to having legs that "feel like Jell-O" -"

leaving her reliant on a wheelchair to get around.

Brooke, a partner manager from North Bethesda, Maryland, US, said: "I just froze when the doctor read out my diagnosis. I was in disbelief. I couldn't believe this would be my life."

"The average lifespan is two to five years. You have to believe that some miracle is going to happen, because this is the most hopeless diagnosis there is."

"If I walk one block, it’s like I've run a marathon - my legs just feel like Jell-O."

Brooke first started having symptoms in 2018 when her left leg started feeling weaker.

She said: "My walk to the office began taking longer, and my colleagues noticed I had a limp."

She was suffering from symptoms of foot drop, which makes it difficult to control movement of the foot, causing it to "slap" against the ground. "

Brooke said: "I went to the doctors in early 2019, and they thought I might have slipped a disc."

"They did MRIs, CAT scans and x-rays, but they couldn’t find anything."

Brooke started seeing a physiotherapist every week, but she said "it didn’t seem to improve". "

She added: "After about a year, I started worrying. It didn’t feel right - It felt like the weakness was travelling up my left leg."

"It was scary, but I tried to put it out of my mind and hoped for the best."

Over the following year, Brooke’s condition declined further and she started to fall over a lot.

She said: "The atrophy had travelled up my left leg to a quarter of the way up my thigh."

"Towards the end of 2021, I started falling once or twice a month. "

"I would trip and I couldn’t really tell what was causing it. Every time it happened in public, it was very embarrassing."

After seeing a neurologist in February, Brooke was finally diagnosed with ALS in March 2022.

She said: "I was in a state of disbelief."

"My parents and friends called, but I was too shocked to even speak about it. I just had no idea how to process it."

For the three months after her diagnosis, Brooke was in shock and relied on her friends and family to help her through a depressing time.

She said: "I mostly just cried and ate M&M's."

But when she attended a wedding in May 2022, Brooke’s loved ones rallied around her in support. She said: "My friends were riding my rollator - a type of trolley - around the dance floor and doing the limbo under it - it really helped me drag me out of that funk." "

Shortly afterwards, Brooke started sharing videos on TikTok to help raise awareness for ALS.

"I approach it in a funnier lighter way to make people feel comfortable asking questions," she said."

"I used to do Pilates three times a week and loved walking my dog - a mutt called Draymond."

But I had to stop because my symptoms were getting worse."

Brooke went from using a foot brace and a cane to supporting herself with a rollator - a type of trolley.

She got her first electric wheelchair in January 2023 and has been using it ever since.

Brooke said: "when I try to walk, I have no balance- I can’t trust my legs to hold me up.."

"I’m just ping ponging around my apartment clinging onto things."

"The average lifespan is between two and five years from diagnosis, but we’re all praying that we’re an outlier."

"I've already had symptoms for five years, so I’m just hoping I’m in the upper bracket. But I have no idea if that will change."

"When you’ve had ALS for a while, you are fully paralysed, you rely on a machine to breathe and you can’t swallow so you eat through a feeding tube. "

"Your body no longer works but your mind is still the same. It’s hard to imagine."

"I try not to think about the future at all. Whenever I do, it’s really scary."

"Instead, I block these thoughts out and focus on the funny. I hope that by being open, it shows others it’s okay to talk about it. "

"Raising awareness for ALS has become my purpose - hopefully I can encourage other people to speak out." "

To follow along with Brooke’s journey, follow her on instagram/TikTok/Twitter at @limpbroozkit