About Us
The Australian Myasthenic Association in NSW was set up to support sufferers of Myasthenia Gravis and their carers. It was established in 1982, and we now have 200 members from all over Australia and worldwide.
The incidence of MG is reported to be at around 1 person per 10,000. With a population of around 19 million people, we estimate that there are around 1900 sufferers in Australia. It occurs across races, and across the world. It can occur at any age, although women usually notice it first in their 20’s to 30’s, and men over 60. It is often quoted that around twice as many women have the disease as men.
The Australian Myasthenic Association in NSW Committee is made up of the following positions:
- President
- Vice President
- Treasurer
- Secretary
- Minute Secretary
All Committee members are volunteers.
Through support networks such as ours, MG sufferers are provided with the opportunity to communicate with other sufferers. A common comment made by our members is “I thought I was the only one that had it before I discovered you!”
The Association meets once every three months, usually on the first Saturday of each month of March, June, September and December. (Please check dates on this site to confirm) The Ryde Eastwood Leagues Club kindly provides a room for our meetings [and has generously done so for several years]. The Annual General Meeting, at which office bearers are elected, is held in March.
The Association survives on membership fees, donations, help from sponsors and volunteers. The cost to join is $20, with annual membership of $20. The Association does not receive any financial support from the Government.
In addition to our meetings, members are kept updated via a newsletter every three months.
There are a number of excellent internet sites that more than adequately deal with the topic of “Myasthenia Gravis”. On this site, we have deliberately kept the language easy to read. We use the term “drooping eye lids” rather than “ptosis”, and “difficulty in swallowing” over “dysphagia”. We have referred to people with MG as “myasthenics” – we are not all patients when we are not visiting a doctor, and “people with MG” gets a little tedious to read.
Our Links Page includes medical web sites visited for research, and these sites may be of interest to those seeking technical details.
All internet sites used for research for this site are included on our Links Page. We encourage you to explore these sites, as there is an abundance of information on our special condition.