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Information About MS
 The symptoms depend on which nerves have damaged myelin, and which parts of the body those nerves help control. Symptoms can range from dizziness to difficulties walking and moving, mood changes, bladder or bowel dysfunction, or tingling sensations in arms or legs.
In the most common form of MS, people have flare-ups of neurological symptoms, called exacerbations. The pattern of disease in each person can be different. MS can progress gradually and progressively, or have reversals and remissions. Exacerbations may be followed by partial or complete recovery.
Most people with MS have a normal, or close to normal life expectancy. Most people with MS do not become severely disabled.
While we don’t know for sure what causes MS, it is currently believed to be an abnormal response of the body’s immune system, which attack’s the body’s own myelin. Researchers are investigating whether genetic susceptibility plays a role, and whether environmental features, such as chemicals or viruses, might act as triggers. Some patients find that heat or cold in their daily environment triggers symptoms.
How is MS diagnosed?
As with some other neurological diseases, no single test determines whether you have MS. A doctor
will perform a complete examination of neurological function, and brain scans. The two signs that indicate MS are nerve damage in many areas of the body, and repeated exacerbations. Since symptoms can come and go, and since they can resemble symptoms of other conditions, diagnosis of MS can sometimes be slow. Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a disease in which myelin, a sheath of fatty tissue around the nerves that insulates them and helps them conduct electrical signals, becomes damaged, lost or scarred (sclerotic) in many places.
The symptoms depend on which nerves have damaged myelin, and which parts of the body those nerves help control. Symptoms can range from dizziness to difficulties walking and moving, mood changes, bladder or bowel dysfunction, or tingling sensations in arms or legs.
In the most common form of MS, people have flare-ups of neurological symptoms, called exacerbations. The pattern of disease in each person can
be different. MS can progress gradually and progressively, or have reversals and remissions. Exacerbations may be followed by partial or complete recovery.
Most people with MS have a normal, or close to normal life expectancy. Most people with MS do not become severely disabled.
While we don’t know for sure what causes MS, it is currently believed to be an abnormal response of the body’s immune system, which attack’s the body’s own myelin. Researchers are investigating whether genetic susceptibility plays a role, and whether environmental features, such as chemicals
or viruses, might act as triggers. Some patients find that heat or cold in their daily environment triggers symptoms.
What are some research directions in MS?
Multiple resonance imaging (MRI) has enabled researchers to observe plaques or lesions in the brains of some (but not all) MS patients since it was introduced in the early 1990’s. In August 2006, a team of Dutch researchers used a new brain mapping technique called T1 to observe subtle changes in the brains of MS patients not observable by previous imaging techniques. Scientists hope that T1 imaging may become a more precise diagnostic tool for MS.
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