Multiple Sclerosis: Together We Can Cross it Out
Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is the most common disabling neurological disease affecting young people. Globally more than 2.5 million people have MS and its symptoms vary greatly from person-to-person. The disease is so serious and rare that it may affect the whole body of a person where the person stops responding and the brain cannot function properly and efficiently.
The disease and its symptoms depend on the amount of nerve that has been damaged and sometimes may lead to not walking properly or a person is unable to perform simple tasks properly and efficiently, and would need the help of others. An individual with MS normally gets diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 40, and the disease has lots of different symptoms. Most people will not experience them at all and certainly not at the same time.
The symptoms of MS result from repetitive attacks of inflammation in the central nervous system, which presumably happen through an immune system component. The object of the immune attack is myelin, the lipoprotein sheath that encompasses the axons and protects them, enhances nerve conduction. Myelin is made by cells called oligodendrocytes and when it is inflamed and damaged, nerve conduction is disrupted and nerves along these lines lose function, thereby giving rise to neurological symptoms of MS.
There is no cure for MS. It is an auto immune disease of the central nervous system such as brain, spinal cord and optic nerves in which the body’s immune cells attack the myelin sheath protecting the nerve fibres themselves. As essentially all that we do is eventually controlled by the brain, with this condition anything or everything can go wrong. Therefore every individual’s MS is different and the severity of the disease is also highly variable.
Common symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis include:
• Problems with mobility and balance
• Clumsiness
• Pain
• Incontinence
• Tremors and ataxic gait from cerebelllar dysfunction
• Slurred speech
• Painful monocular visual loss – Optic Neuritis
• Fatigue
• Weakness or numbness in one or more limbs
• Double vision, Dysarthria, or Dizziness from brainstem dysfunction
The cause of MS is obscure and its pathophysiology remains inadequately comprehended. Individuals with MS are not born with the disease, but instead some ecological factor clearly follows up on genetically vulnerable individuals to produce the disease; yet the nature of the factor, for example, whether or not it is a virus, remains elusive. The best acknowledged clarification hypothesizes that macrophages present myelin antigens to appropriate T-cells, thereby initiating the T-cells to multiply.
At this point, they cross the blood-brain barrier through interactions with intercellular adhesion molecules and once they are inside the central nervous system, they discharge cytokines that further harm myelin which perpetuates the immune response.
The details of this interaction, including the nature of the triggering antigen, are still dependent upon hypothesis but there is strong proof that MS is a T-cell intervened immune system attack on the central nervous system. Corresponding with the myelin annihilation, there is likewise harm to the hidden axon, which prompts further disability.
Most symptoms develop suddenly, within hours or days. These attacks and relapses of MS normally reach their peak inside a couple of days at the most and then resolve gradually over the next few days or weeks so that a typical relapse will be symptomatic for around two months from beginning to recovery.
In few patients, over a period of 5 to 15 years, the attacks start all the more lethargically, endure more chronically and remit less totally, steadily changing into a pattern of consistent deterioration rather than episodic flares. This pattern is alluded to as secondary progressive MS.
The pathophysiology responsible for this change from a relapsing disease to a progressive one is inadequately seen yet has significant ramifications for treatment as large numbers of the medications effective for preventing relapses appear to be useless in the secondary progressive phase of the disease.
Chetna Foundation's supports everyone affected by MS or any other disability. We are here to support and encourage you to take control of your health, making informed lifestyle choices and living a full and healthy life.
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