What Is Multiple Sclerosis?
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a potentially debilitating brain and spinal cord illness. MS causes the immune system to destroy the protective sheath (myelin) surrounding nerve fibers, resulting in impaired communication between the brain and the rest of the body. Eventually, the condition results in irreversible nerve loss or degeneration.
MS has no recognized cause and is classified as an autoimmune illness. Symptoms vary considerably and depend on the extent of nerve damage and the nerves involved. Some people with severe MS may lose their ability to walk independently. Some may enjoy extended periods of remission without developing new symptoms.
MS affects people differently. Symptoms may not develop for months or even years. Occasionally, symptoms may progress quickly, within weeks or months. While some individuals may suffer relatively mild symptoms, others have significant alterations that result in impairments.
Unfortunately, MS has no known cure. However, treatments may help speed up healing, change the disease’s course, and control symptoms. The intensity and degree of symptoms may fluctuate from day to day.
Fatigue is a frequent symptom of MS and may impair performance at work or home. According to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, around 80 percent of patients with MS experience fatigue.
Nerve injury may cause a lack of muscle usage, resulting in weak muscles. This muscle weakness, balance issues, dizziness, and fatigue may alter the way individuals walk.
Vision issues may be a warning indication of MS. Some persons may develop double vision, impaired vision, or even blindness. Typically, only one eye is affected at a time, and optic nerve inflammation may cause discomfort when patients move their eyes.
MS results in brain lesions that may impair speech. These speech problems, referred to as dysarthria, vary from mild to severe. Slurred speech, fluctuations in the loudness of speech, and “scanning” speech, with gaps between words or syllables, are symptoms of dysarthria.
MS has four forms: clinically isolated, relapsing-remitting, primary progressive, and secondary progressive. Healthcare practitioners refer to a first episode of MS symptoms as a clinically isolated condition (CIS). Not everyone diagnosed with CIS develops MS.
The most common type is relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS). Individuals with RRMS have flare-ups — referred to as relapses or exacerbations — of new or worsened symptoms. After a flare, remission periods occur when symptoms stabilize, diminish, or disappear.
Patients diagnosed with primary progressive MS (PPMS) have symptoms that steadily develop without intervals of remission or relapse.
Frequently, individuals initially diagnosed with RRMS advance to Secondary progressive MS (SPMS). With secondary progressive MS, nerve damage continues to develop. The symptoms intensify over time. While one may still encounter relapses or flares (increased symptoms), they will no longer experience periods of remission following them (when symptoms stabilize or go away).
A neurological exam will need to be performed by a healthcare expert, most often a neurologist. Additionally, they will first discuss the patient’s clinical history and then commit a battery of additional tests to evaluate whether they have MS. MRI scans, spinal taps, blood tests, optical coherence tomography (OCT), and visual evoked potentials (VEP) tests are all examples of diagnostic testing.
OCT images the nerve layers at the back of the eye to detect thinning around the optic nerve. The VEP test needs the activation of neural pathways to examine the brain’s electrical activity. Previously, auditory-evoked and sensory-evoked potential testing on the brain stem were also employed to diagnose MS.
MS diagnosis needs evidence of demyelination happening in many areas of the brain, spinal cord, or optic nerves at distinct periods. Demyelination is a process that impairs nerves’ ability to transmit messages effectively.
