Multiple Sclerosis And Symptoms

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is one of those dreadful diseases that you hope never come into your life. This disease is merciless in choosing its victims and has devastating affects on them. Multiple Sclerosis is a disease of the central nervous system. It affects the brain and the spinal cord. It attacks a sheath around the nerve cell which is there to protect them. In short this is a disease that affects the entire nervous system's functions and may at one point block them completely. So imagine for a minute all those important things your nervous system does for you, and then suddenly not being able to do them anymore or that well. The disease has no particular age at which it strikes but is generally believed to target people between the ages of 20 to 40 and sometimes its onset is also difficult to recognize. The demographics show that women are more prone to the disease than men.

One may as well as well wonder how the body continues it involuntary functions like breathing and pumping blood to the body. The answer to that is that the disease affects the Central Nervous System and not the peripheral nervous system. And it is this system that helps continue the vital functions of the body. Although as the disease progresses, they may eventually be affected to some extent. As the disease progresses, it may render the person unable to walk and talk.

The symptoms are Short-term and long-term memory problems, forgetfulness, slow word, Loss of coordination, Problems with posture, Paralysis - Total or near total loss of muscle strength, Blurred vision, eye pain, loss of color vision, blindness, Double Vision, Lack of coordination between the two eyes, nystagmus, diplopia, Slurred speech and related speech problems, Male and female impotence, Ejaculating into the bladder, fatigue, muscle weakness, stiffness and spasms, bladder and bowel problems, loss of balance, coordination and dizziness, pain and numbness or tingling of your skin difficulty speaking and swallowing, feeling emotional, anxious or depressed and sexual difficulties. It is however unlikely that all these symptoms occur at the same time.

There is unfortunately no cure to this disease. MS isn't usually inherited but having certain types of genes make you more likely to have it. There are four types of MS. Benign MS where there are time when the symptoms flare up and other times when they die down or are reduced significantly. It is characterized by a few relapses. The second type is relapsing-remitting MS, where there are frequent relapse periods. However, the symptoms may get steadily worse or increase in number with each successive relapse. Secondary progressive MS. This is actually a stage in development of the disease and for those who have relapsing-remitting MS; they will likely acquire this stage within ten ears. It is marked by an increase in disabilities and lesser remittance periods. Lastly there is primary progressive MS in which the symptoms grow worse and there are no periods of remittance.

Few drugs have been developed to cure this disease and of them even fewer get approved by the FDA. Many prefer physical therapy for reasons like the in affordability of the drug and many of the side effects that they cause. The drugs in use themselves do not provide good figures of positive effect. MS patients should of course explore all the available options and see which suits their condition best.

• Emma Bullock
• 31/01/2009, 10:59 AM
• 0 Comments