Imagine running across the finish line in a race, and suddenly, you cannot feel your legs at all. This is how many people find out they have MS.
Multiple Sclerosis, or MS, is a non-communicable disease in the central nervous system, or CNS. It disrupts the flow of information inside the brain, and/or between the brain and the body. It is a very unpredictable disease and it is often disabling.
MS is the result of damage to myelin, which is a protective coating of proteins and phospholipids around nerve fibers of the CNS. Because this myelin is damaged, messages cannot be passed through the nerve fibers as well.
The specific cause of MS is not known yet, but scientists and doctors all over the world are finding out bits and pieces and putting them together.
The damage to myelin in MS may be because of an abnormal response in the body’s immune system. It may be that MS could be an auto-immune disease, which means that the body attacks its own cells and tissues, in this case, myelin. Scientists still do not know for sure why the body attacks myelin in this way, but it is likely due to a combination of genetic factors and environmental factors.
Genetic factors in MS are when a person happens to have polymorphisms, or variations, in their genes. These genes are healthy, but, by chance, they do not fit well together. Now that there are these small alterations, little changes happen in the passing of messages in the CNS.
Now, an environmental factor will trigger the immune system to attack and destroy myelin. One theory is that a virus, maybe lying dormant inside the body, may majorly affect the development of the disease. This virus may disturb the immune system or indirectly initiate the auto-immune process in which the body attacks the myelin.
A lot of research has been done, trying to identify a specific virus that could trigger MS. It is probably true that there is not one specific MS virus, but that a common one triggers it.
This trigger activates white blood cells, or lymphocytes in the bloodstream, which go into the brain and make its defense mechanisms vulnerable. Once these cells are inside the brain, they activate other elements of the body’s immune system so that they attack and destroy myelin.
MS symptoms vary with each patient, and are very unpredictable. Some common symptoms are: fatigue (occurs in 80% of people with MS), walking difficulties, weakness, spasticity (exaggerated twitching), loss of balance, numbness or tingling in the face or extremities (often a first symptom experienced by those who are eventually diagnosed with MS), memory loss, depression, and mood swings. Bladder problems, bowel problems, and sexual problems are some other common symptoms of MS. Vision problems, such as blurred vision, poor contrast and/or color vision, pain with eye movement, and even blindness are often complained about by MS patients, and are often one of the first symptoms they encounter. Pain is a big complaint from MS patients as well. Approximately half of MS patients complain about some sort of pain at some point.
Some less common symptoms are: speech problems (such as slurring and loss of volume), difficulty swallowing (due to nerves in the back of a person’s throat not working properly), tremors (uncontrollable shaking or trembling), seizures (somewhat uncommon, though they happen), breathing problems (due to muscles in a person’s chest not responding to or not receiving messages from nerves coming from the brain), hearing loss, and pruritus (itching and burning).
There are four main types of MS: relapsing-remitting, secondary-progressive, primary-progressive, and progressive-relapsing.
Relapsing-remitting MS is the most common type of MS. Usually people are diagnosed in their twenties or thirties. It is when you have attacks where your MS symptoms flare up. This is called a relapse. After a person has an attack, there is a time of recovery, where a person has few or no symptoms. This is called a remission, and it can last anywhere from a week to years. The disease cannot get worse during a remission. After ten to twenty years, relapsing-remitting MS usually changes into secondary-progressive MS.
Secondary-progressive MS starts out as relapsing-remitting MS. If a person is diagnosed with secondary-progressive MS, they probably already had relapsing-remitting MS for a decade or more. That is when the disease shifts. These small changes are difficult to recognize, but a person may notice that their relapses don’t fully go away. About 80% of people with relapsing-remitting MS eventually get secondary-progressive MS.
Primary-progressive MS is when your MS symptoms gradually get worse over time, without any relapses or periods of remission. The rate of remission varies with each person, sometimes with plateaus or temporary improvements, but the progression of the disease is continuous.
Progressive-relapsing MS is the least common of the four disease types, only happening in approximately 5% of people with MS. Like those with primary-progressive MS, people with progressive-relapsing MS experience the disease slowly getting worse from the beginning, in addition to occasional relapses like those experienced by people with relapsing-remitting MS. Since progressive-relapsing MS is progressive from the beginning, it may be diagnosed as primary-progressive MS, and then later changed to progressive-relapsing MS when a relapse happens. Although this disease type is progressive, each person’s symptoms and rate of progression will be different.
Being well with MS is an ongoing process that is different for everybody. Different patients manage MS in different ways. For many people, doing exercise helps them stay happy, healthy, and well. For others, spending time with family and friends helps the most with their emotional happiness. Being depressed, overly stressed, and uncontrollable laughing or crying can all happen when you have MS, and doing things you like can help control your emotions.
Kayla Montgomery was a senior in high school at Mount Tabor when she ran at Nationals in 201. She has MS and at the end of each race, her legs are completely numb and she collapses into her coach’s arms. When she was diagnosed, Kayla was worried that she wouldn’t be able to run anymore. she told her coach that she wanted to run for as long as she was able, and run she did. She won Nationals that year, even after falling. She could be a source of inspiration for many MS patients. Even if you don’t have MS, you can use her as inspiration to push through the hard things in life.