Multiple Sclerosis Management
Multiple sclerosis can become a physically limiting condition that may prevent a person from living normally. It is an ailment that can cause fatigue, vision and memory problems as just a few of other multiple sclerosis symptoms. Living a life faced with multiple sclerosis can be challenging and sometimes distressing experiences. But having multiple sclerosis should not mean the end of trying to live well. There are ways available that can help people with MS still live a more enriching life.
Although there is no known cure for MS at this time, it doesn’t mean as the end of the world for MS sufferers. There are certain treatments available that can help people cope up with their condition. Certain lifestyle changes can also help one better manage multiple sclerosis and enjoy life.
The first thing that you can do to live better with any condition like multiple sclerosis is to have yourself diagnosed. If you feel that you have symptoms that can be linked to multiple sclerosis, it would be better if you talk to your doctor immediately in order to discover early on if you do have multiple sclerosis. Once diagnosed, your doctor may then be able to provide you with the proper treatment that may help slow down the progression of the disease.
There are also ways in which you may be able to manage the symptoms that come with multiple sclerosis. Instead of feeling helpless and depressed when such symptoms arise, you can do something to cope up with them. If you experience some vision problems, you can take some medications which may help with your vision problems. If one eye is disturbing you, you can patch it up for a while and make do with your other eye. If you experience some difficulties reading small print, have a magnifying glass handy or you can use bigger prints when labeling things around your home.
If you experience muscle weakness, you can ask for some help from a physical therapist to help show you exercises that would help improve your strength and flexibility. And when you feel weak while walking, you can make use of canes and crutches or even scooters and wheelchairs to help you move around. When it is numbness that you have to deal with, try to be extra careful especially if you go near known sources of heat. Numbness can limit your sensitiveness to heat and you may not feel getting yourself burned when near a fire or in handling hot water.
Coping with the pain brought by multiple sclerosis might be one of the most distressing things about the condition. If not managed effectively, multiple sclerosis can really be a very painful condition. Pain management for MS includes physical therapy to help strengthen the body and help the sufferer learn about compensatory techniques to prevent the overuse of the muscles. There are a number of prescription as well as over the counter medications that may help on cope up with the pain brought by MS. It is best to talk with your doctor to give you the type of medication that will work best for you.
Understanding Multiple Sclerosis
Multiple Sclerosis is an unpredictable disease where the nerves of the central nervous system begin to degenerate. It can range from a benign condition to a rather disabling disease in some people.In Multiple Sclerosis, the myelin, which provides insulation for the nerves going to the brain and the spine, begins to degenerate due to inflammation.
Myelin is important because, aside from providing a protective covering to the nerves in the body, they also help improve the conduction of impulses between the nerves as well as maintain the health of the nerves.
As the myelin degenerates and eventually disappears, this protective covering on the nerves disappear, affect the effective transmission of nerve impulses as well as damage the nerves later on.
And as the myelin is damaged, the body is unable to completely repair the tissue back to its undamaged state, with scarring usually becoming permanent.
As more and more of the myelin disappears, certain functions of the nervous system such as vision, speech and memory as well as some motor skills are gradually impaired due to interferences with the nerve signals.
Despite extensive studies of the disease, the root cause of Multiple Sclerosis remains unknown. Although there are certain risk factors that have been identified lately, experts are still in the dark as to what actually causes Multiple Sclerosis.
Many experts believe that Ms might be caused by a combination of both environmental as well as genetic factors. There are some that believe MS to be an autoimmune disease, one in which the body’s immune system launches a defensive attack on its own tissues.
The first symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis are usually experienced by people aged between 20 and 40. MS seems to affect women more frequently than men. This disease is also known to be more prevalent in people living in temperate climates than people living in tropical regions.
The symptoms that may arise from Multiple Sclerosis may differ from person to person. It may range from mild or severe, long term or short term and may even appear and disappear quickly.
The symptoms that MS may show may also differ in intensity as well as in its character. Symptoms identified with Multiple Sclerosis include changes in sensation, abnormal muscle spasms, muscle weakness and impaired motor skills such as walking or even standing.
Advanced cases may also show difficulty in speech control, as well as other motor functions such as swallowing, visual difficulties, bowel and bladder problems and cognitive impairment.
Although there are several treatments for the disease, a total cure for Multiple Sclerosis is not yet known. Treatments for the disease include the use of certain drugs such as beta interferon which are derived from human cytokines and help in regulating the immune system.
There is also a treatment that makes use of a synthetic form of myelin basic protein called copolymer I which is used to treat relapsing or remitting MS.
For chronic or advanced MS, an immunosuppressant drug called mitoxantrone has recently been approved by the FDA for use but may also have its limits due to cardiotoxicity.
Multiple Sclerosis Treatment
The illness that is called MS or Multiple Sclerosis is a chronic and progressive illness which targets the different nerves in the brain, spinal cord as well as other parts of the central nervous system.
It is an autoimmune disease which translates to the body’s immune system targeting itself. It attacks cells, organs as well as tissues which are perfectly fine. If you have multiple sclerosis, you are not alone as it affects over 400,000 people in the United States alone and may possibly affect 2.5 million people worldwide. One trivia is that it affects 2-3 as many women as men.
Interferon beta-1B (Betaseron)
There are several treatment options for those who are suffering from Multiple Sclerosis (MS). One of which is the administering of the drug “Interferon beta-1b” or Betaseron. This is injected under the skin every other day. Interferons are substances which are manufactured by the body to help maintain the immune system.
In this particular case, the diminishing activity of some specific white blood cells is desired in order to tone down the cells responsible for the disease. What Betaseron does is it decreases the rate of relapse as well as slows down the development of new lesions on the patient. It also delays the progression of disability.
Corticosteroids (methylprednisolone, prednisone, dexamethasone)
For primary progressive as well as progressive/relapsing Multiple Sclerosis Treatment, there is no treatment that is currently approved however there are disease modifying therapies which may possibly reduce the progression of MS. These will be beneficial for the patient who is seeking available medical relief.
There are short-term treatments with corticosteroids such as prednisone, methylprednisolone, dexamethasone and some others. These are able to aid in the periods of acute relapse and the mechanism by which corticosteroids work is by decreasing the body’s defense system reaction to the myelin contained in a person’s central nervous system. This will eventually hasten the recovery from acute attacks and will essentially prevent further damage to the blood-brain barrier.
The various treatments for MS significantly focus on decreasing the rate as well as the severity of relapse while reducing the number of MS lesions. It delays the progression of the disease while being able to provide symptomatic relief for the MS patient. These are just some of the drugs which have been developed. Further research into the illness will probably reveal new and better drugs for the relief of all sufferers of MS.
Eye Scan May Help Diagnose, Treat MS
Recent study shows that a short and simple eye scan not only appears capable of determining signs of multiple sclerosis earlier, but might also provide a way to track progression of the illness, and the effectiveness of new drugs in development.
Dr. Peter Calabresi, lead author of the study and director of the John Hopkins Multiple Sclerosis Center, sees the study as “so compelling” that every MS center would be using the procedure in three to five years.
The findings, which involve a technology called optical coherence tomography (OCT), are published in the October issue of Neurology journal.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a disease of the central nervous system wherein the myelin-the protective covering of the nerves-is damaged.
Many studies into the disease have focused on the damage to the myelin, but it has become evident that the axon, or nerve fiber, is also damaged in individuals with MS. The research shows that the axons are damaged earlier in the disease than originally thought.
In fact, according to the study authors, axon degeneration resulting from “demyelination” and from inflammation is thought to be responsible for much of the permanent disability that comes with MS.
Conventional MRIs have long been used to measure decreases in the brain’s volume, an indication of how many neurons are dying.
However, MRI technology is not only expensive and uncomfortable, it is also misleading. It doesn’t take into account the brain inflammation that is also a character of the disease. Additionally, brain shrinkage happens relatively late in the disease, when treatments become less effective.
OCT gauges the thickness of retinal nerve fiber, which becomes the optic nerve and is affected early in the course of MS. This test would specifically look into the nerve’s damage, as opposed to more general brain damage.
The cost of the eye exam costs only a fraction of a conventional MRI. As researchers have noted, the test is also user-friendly, inexpensive, and less time-consuming for the patient.
The researchers conducted the study by using the eye exam to scan the layers of nerve fibers in the retina of 40 people with different stages of MS.
Meanwhile, fifteen healthy volunteers served as control participants. It has found out that there is a strong association between retinal fiber thickness and how much the brain had atrophied.
However, optical nerve damage can also be used to indicate other ailments such as glaucoma, which would need to be ruled out.
Further studies are currently being done involving the OCT.
Prevalence of Multiple Sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis or MS is a disease that targets the central nervous system, which means basically your brain and spinal column. The disease damages the myelin sheath that surrounds and protects the nerve cells.
Because of the damage, the nerve cells are not able to send properly and effectively messages between the body and the brain. This results to a number of problems including weakening of the muscles, depression, visual problems, difficulties with speech, sensations of numbness, trouble with coordination and balance, and thinking and memory problems.
The main cause of the disease has yet to be determined as well as an existence of a cure. There are medications and therapies that will slow down the progress of the disease and help control the symptoms but a full blown cure does not exists. But despite these conditions, people with MS have almost the same life expectancy as those without the disease.
It is estimated that the world has about 1.11 to 2.5 million cases of MS. In the U.S. alone, the number of people who have been diagnosed with MS ranges from 250,000 to 350,000. Among the states that have the highest cases of the disease are Vermont, Washington, Minnesota, Wyoming, and Montana & Idaho.
Northern USA belongs to the list of high frequency zones where MS is found to occur at 50-120 per 100,000 population. Countries also included in the list are Europe, Canada, Russia, Israel, New Zealand and South-East Australia. The prevalence signifies that the disease is more likely to occur in temperate climates than in tropical regions.
Western Europe is said to have 350,000 cases of MS. Meanwhile, Canada estimated that about 50,000 people have MS in their country with Alberta having the highest rates at 313 incidence per 100,000 population and followed by British Columbia at 93 cases per 100,000 population.
Other European countries that face a rather high prevalence rates of MS cases include Germany, Greece, Italy, Norway, Poland, Romania, Scotland, Spain and Swtizerland.
A recent study also found out that the ratio of women to men with MS is 4 to 1 in the year 2000, an increase from the 2 to 1 female to male ratio way back in the 1930s.
Moreover, most of the cases of MS manifests between the ages of 20 and 40. It seems that the age of 15 is the minimum age before for the symptoms of MS to occur. There have been very few reported cases where MS began to manifest itself in patients aged 15 or younger.
MS was first identified by the French neurologist, Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot way bad, in 1868. And since then, medical science has advanced a lot. But it was only about 10 to 15 years ago that the they were able to make a breakthrough in MS treatments. They found out that beta interferon 1b (Betaseron) was effective in the treating patients with a “relapsing, remitting” form of MS.
