Multiple Sclerosis – What is it, Symptoms and Treatments!
Multiple Sclerosis – What it is, Symptoms and Treatments . In addition, Multiple Sclerosis , also known as MS, is a chronic disease that attacks the central nervous system (brain, spinal cord and optic nerves). In severe cases, the patient is paralyzed or blind, while in milder cases, there may be numbness in the limbs.
Multiple Sclerosis – What it is, Symptoms and Treatments
What is Multiple Sclerosis?
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Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease that affects the brain, optic nerves, and spinal cord (central nervous system). This is because the body’s immune system mistakes healthy cells for “intruders” and attacks them causing injury. The patient’s immune system erodes the protective sheath that covers the nerves, known as myelin.
Possible Causes:
The exact causes of multiple sclerosis are not known, but there is interesting data to suggest that genetics, the environment a person lives in, and even a virus may play a role in the development of the disease.
Although the cause is still unknown, multiple sclerosis has been the focus of many studies around the world, which has enabled a constant and significant evolution in the quality of life of patients.
Genetics and environment: It is believed that multiple sclerosis may in part be genetically determined. Relatives of people with multiple sclerosis are at greater risk of developing the disease. Siblings of a carrier have a 2% to 5% higher risk of having multiple sclerosis .
However, experiences with identical twins indicate that heredity may not be the only factor involved. If multiple sclerosis were determined solely by genetics, identical twins would have identical risks. However, an identical twin has only a 30% greater chance of developing MS .
Signs and symptoms:
- Sensory loss (ie, paresthesias): usually an initial complaint
- Spinal cord (motor) symptoms: muscle cramping secondary to spasticity
- Spinal cord (autonomic) symptoms: gallbladder, bowel, and sexual dysfunction
- Cerebellar symptoms: Charcot’s triad of dysarthria, ataxia, and tremor
- optic neuritis
- Trigeminal neuralgia: bilateral facial weakness or trigeminal neuralgia
- Facial myokymia (irregular twitching of the facial muscles): can also be a presenting symptom
- Eye symptoms: including diplopia in lateral gaze (33% of patients)
- heat intolerance
- Constitutional symptoms: especially fatigue (70% of cases) and dizziness
- Pain: occurs in 30-50% of patients at some point in their illness
- Subjective cognitive difficulties: with regard to attention, concentration, memory and judgment
- Depression: a common symptom
- Euphoria: Less common than depression
- Bipolar disorder or overt dementia: may be a late discovery but is sometimes found at initial diagnosis
- Symptoms associated with acute partial transverse myelitis
Treatments:
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There is still no cure for multiple sclerosis. Existing treatments focus on suppressing the autoimmune response and managing symptoms . Several disease-modifying drugs are approved for relapsing forms of Multiple Sclerosis .