Multiple Sclerosis
An estimated 2,500,000 people in the world have multiple sclerosis - including 85,000 in the UK - it is more common in countries further away from the equator. It is the most common potentially disabling disease of the central nervous system affecting young adults in the Western world. Every week around 50 people in the UK are diagnosed with MS. Diagnosis is usually between 20 and 40 years of age - rarely under 12 or over 55.
- Three women have MS for every two men
- Prognosis is uncertain - ranging from benign through 'coming and going' to severely disabling
- Common symptoms include pain, deadening fatigue, problems with sight, mobility and co-ordination
- MS is not hereditary - but there is a slightly higher chance of getting it if a relative has it - and it is not contagious
- There is no cure for MS but there are now drugs which can modify its course for some people and many symptoms can be successfully treated or managed
- MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) is giving neurologists better understanding of MS, helping diagnosis and research into treatments
- MS is the most common disabling neurological condition affecting young adults. Around 85,000 people in the UK have MS.
MS is the result of damage to myelin - a protective sheath surrounding nerve fibres of the central nervous system. When myelin is damaged, this interferes with messages between the brain and other parts of the body.
For some people, MS is characterised by periods of relapse and remission while for others it has a progressive pattern. For everyone, it makes life unpredictable.
MS is an autoimmune condition. This means that your immune system, which normally helps to fight off infections, mistakes your body's own tissue for a foreign body, such as infectious bacteria, and attacks it. In MS, the immune system attacks myelin. This damages the myelin and strips it off the nerve fibres, either partially or completely, leaving scars known as lesions or plaques. This myelin damage disrupts messages travelling along nerve fibres – they can slow down, become distorted, pass from one nerve fibre to another (short circuiting), or not get through at all.
As well as myelin loss, there can also sometimes be damage to the actual nerve fibres. It is this nerve damage that causes the accumulation of disability that can occur over time.
As the central nervous system links all bodily activities, many different types of symptoms can appear in MS. The specific symptoms that appear depend upon which part of your central nervous system is affected and the job of the damaged nerve.