Neurologists have long recognized optic neuritis (or retrobulbar neuritis) to be a forerunner of MS in the majority of cases. Recognizing this and the fact that other problems such as transverse myelitis and acute symptoms...
A diagnosis of MS is not generally accepted unless a neurologist confirms the diagnosis. In actuality, many general physicians are aware of the illness and recognize the characteristic problems that patients have with MS. Some...
Difficulty with walking in MS can result from plaques in different places in the brain stem and spinal cord. The location of the plaques determines, in large part, whether that difficulty is due to the...
Although visual loss accompanying attacks of MS, diagnosed as optic neuritis or retrobulbar neuritis, may occasionally be severe, blindness is unusual. There may be a small blind spot left after an attack, and occasion-ally, this...
The manifestations of MS are often mild and transient but less commonly may be severe. Shortly after the discovery of MS as a disease in Paris, Uhthoff, a Vien-nese physician, found that increases in body...
Stuttering is not part of MS. However, intermittent difficulty with speech was recognized as a rare manifestation of MS 40 years ago (paroxysmal dysarthria). This difficulty with articulation is often associated with difficulty in finding...
To be considered a symptom of MS, the symptom should last at least 24 hours. However, certain rare symptoms such as recurrent brief spasms in one or more limbs can be recognized as part of...
Fatigue (a lack of energy) is a common and important manifestation of MS and is even more common than numbness and tingling. Although not specific to MS, it occurs in the vast majority of patients....
Which symptoms are most common? Symptoms of MS vary from common problems such as unexplained difficulty in walking (occurring in about half of patients at the very beginning) to those that are relatively less common,...
Observations that MS is more common in the Northern latitudes of Europe and North America were originally interpreted as showing a latitude effect, the so-called North–South gradient. Recent evidence suggests that this may be an...
Most of the people with MS are of European descent. MS is less common in African Americans (about half as common) and appears to be even less common among Asians living in the United States....
Yes, women do get MS more often than men. Approximately 70% of all of the patients diagnosed with MS are women. This is even more so for women under the age of 30 years. Almost...
MS has been described as the most common illness causing disability under the age of 45 years. Most people, especially women, have their first symptoms and are diagnosed before the age of 30 years. However,...
Treatment can reduce or even prevent inflammation. The use of adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH), steroids,“ABC” (Avonex, Betaseron, and Copaxone), and certain other drugs is aimed at stopping or reversing inflammation. These drugs do this in a...
When lymphocytes become turned on by an immune reaction, they, in turn, “turn on” or “activate” blood monocytes. Once activated, monocytes become macrophages and develop incredible appetites. The activated lymphocytes and macrophages have “Velcro-like” molecules...
Macrophages (meaning “big eaters”) are actually monocytes from the blood stream that have been “turned on” by interacting with lymphocytes, which themselves have been turned on by other macrophages that have encountered a foreign protein....
Inflammation in the nervous system is usually caused by white blood cells (WBCs), called lymphocytes (mostly CD4+ cells); monocytes (macrophages) from the blood stream usually cause inflammation in the nervous system. Cells and fluids in...
Myelin on the nerve fibers (axons) is arranged like beads on a necklace. The cells that make myelin are called oligodendrocytes. Each of these oligodendro-cytes sends up to two dozen tentacle-like arms to jelly roll-like...
Nerve fibers (axons) coming from neurons and going to other neurons are surrounded by myelin. The axons and the myelin that cover them make up the white matter. Myelin insulates the nerve fibers just like...
The outermost layer of the brain is the cortex or gray matter, which is made up of brain cells (neurons). The cortex completely covers the white matter, which is the greatest part of the brain...
These spots of inflammation and scarring responsible for the hardening are often called plaques and are found in the white matter of the brain and spinal cord. They are called plaques because they looked like...
Physicians often use the term lesion to indicate focal tissue damage in some part of the body. MS symptoms that neurologists are “tuned into” are the consequence of inflammation in the nervous system. Inflammation occurs...
All of the symptoms and abnormalities that the neurologists found on the neurologic examination and that are thought to be evidence of MS are the result of lesions of the brain and the spinal cord....
In the classic sense, multiple sclerosis (MS) is a dis-ease of the central nervous system (the brain and spinal cord) that most commonly affects young adults. Sclerosis means hardening; MS means that there are multiple...