Pregnancy and Multiple Sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis and pregnancy going together were once discouraged. It seems that doctors were concerned that pregnancy poses a danger to women with multiple sclerosis. That is why women with MS were discouraged to get pregnant. The debilitating effects of multiple sclerosis may be considered a restraint to how a mother will be able to care for a newborn child.
Can I have a baby? Should I?
But that belief is already outdated. The outlook of pregnancy and MS seems brighter. Doctors believe that pregnancy may even provide some help to women with MS.
Not only that, newer and better MS therapies now make it possible for women to stay physically active, making them more able to care for newborns. Although there might still be challenges that women with MS would face with pregnancy, it is not altogether being discouraged unlike years ago.
Does pregnancy affect MS?
Some women suffering from MS might have their own concerns about getting pregnant. This will include concerns of multiple sclerosis causing some complications during their pregnancy. Currently, there has been no evidence shown that MS may cause any pregnancy problems such as miscarriage, stillbirth, premature delivery, etc.
There are also no links found between fertility problems or congenital abnormalities and multiple sclerosis. This means that women with MS can also have the same chances of having a normal and healthy pregnancy just like any other woman at the same age.
Will MS symptoms get worse during pregnancy?
Women suffering from multiple sclerosis may also worry about complicating their condition by trying to get pregnant. The answer to this concern is “no”. Women with multiple sclerosis experience some form of relief for most or even all of their MS symptoms during pregnancy.
In fact, the pregnancy seems to have a protective effect on the women. The probable reason for this might be that a pregnancy reduces immune activity in the body and helps increase the natural steroid levels in the body. Pregnant women seem to experience also a slight decrease in MS relapses especially during the second and third trimester of their pregnancy.
Can I take MS medications during pregnancy?
But when women start to consider getting pregnant, they should also be advised that some treatment used in MS might have some effects during pregnancy as evidenced through animal studies. MS medications such as Tysabri and interferon drugs are considered as Category C drugs, which means that they have caused considerable harm to fetuses in animal studies.
The Category B drug used to treat multiple sclerosis, glatiramer acetate, have not caused any harm on fetuses in animal studies. But the drug has not yet been made to undergo human trials so doctors do not yet know its actual effects on a pregnant woman with MS.
To be on the safe side, women are advised to stops using such medications throughout pregnancy. It is important for women to discuss their pregnancy first with their doctor to determine if the medications taken for treating MS may be considered as safe or not.
Pill Reduce Relapses in MS Patients
According to the report, the study of which was led by researcher Dr. Giancarlo Comi of Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in
Three years on the said clinical trials, 67 percent of the 173 patients who took FTY720 orally were free of relapses. 89 percent of the patients were free of any disease activity while 75 percent of the patients were found not to have developed new lesions or see their previous lesions getting any larger, as confirmed from their MRI scans. Dr. Comi further added, “The first-line treatments for MS, beta interferon and glatiramer acetate, reduce the relapse rate by only about 30 percent, so this is a significant development for people with MS.”
FTY720 works by binding itself into the receptors on immune cells and isolating them in the lymph nodes. This reduces the ability of the immune cells to cause damage to the nerve cells that is associated with symptoms of multiple sclerosis. Side effects reported by patients included headache, cold and flu symptoms.
Source: healthday.com
Positive Experiences Decrease Depression Symptoms in MS Sufferers
Depression is one of the things that most of the multiple sclerosis sufferers have to deal with. It is said to be prevalent in people with chronic diseases such as MS.Although there are people with MS who ultimately lead a relatively normal life, there are still many of them who have to deal with the symptoms and the treatments for the disease which can sometimes bring about added stress emotionally as well as psychologically.
In an article in the Science Daily website, researchers from two universities have discovered that people with MS who strive to increase positive experiences in their lives resulted in a decrease of symptoms of depression and a more improved overall quality of life.
In this study of people living with MS, Alexa Stuifbergen, a nursing professor and an associate dean of research at the University of Texas in Austin and Lorriane Phillips, assistant professor in the University of Missouri Sinclair School of Nursing, were able to determine the extent of how positive experiences can greatly improve the health of people living with multiple sclerosis.
The researchers found out that the higher number of positive experiences can be associated with fewer depression symptoms and functional limitations.
In the study, the participants were asked to record the frequency of positive experiences in their lives. This exercise later on revealed that study participants with a higher number of reported positive experiences also reported lower levels of depression symptoms.
The proponents of the study stated that people with MS incorporating positive experiences and behaviors in their daily lives may be able to limit the risks as well as the costs that may be associated with treatments for depression aside form their disorder. The positive activities mentioned are easy to perform and would provide a lot of good to the lives of people with MS.
The study also mentioned that health care professionals dealing with MS patients should try to encourage them to participate in simple positive activities on a daily basis such as talking with neighbors, smelling the flowers, writing letters etc. The author of the study added that these simple positive activities may also be adopted by other people with other chronic illnesses.
Caffeine Prevents Multiple Sclerosis Like Disease in Mice
Caffeine has been seen to prevent a multiple sclerosis-like disease from developing in experiments with mice. According to an article from the Science Daily website, researchers from Cornell University gave caffeine equal to drinking six to eight cups of coffee in human terms daily to a mice model and protected them from developing experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis or EAE, the multiple sclerosis type disease in mice.
Caffeine is widely known adenosine receptor blocker. It is this effect of caffeine that led researcher to believe to make it effective in preventing the development of EAE in mice. Multiple sclerosis is a disease that occurs when the body’s own immune system attacks and does some damage to the body’s central nervous system, notably the nerves in the brain and the spinal cord. The scientists believe that the infiltration of the immune cells into the central nervous system is associated with molecules of adenosine in the body.
Adenosine is a compound widely present in the body that is known to play an important role in the various biochemical processes such as energy transfer, suppression of arousal and sleep promotion. The researchers from Cornell University found out that mice that lacked the enzyme CD73 which was necessary to synthesize extracellular adenosine in the body seem to be protected from developing EAE, the mouse form of multiple sclerosis. Further studies indicated that the said enzyme’s ability to synthesize extracellular adenosine plays an important role in the development and progression of EAE in mice. This helped explain the presence of adenosine near the cells in the central nervous system.
In order for adenosine to affect a cell, it first has to bind to its receptor in order for it to help the immune cells to gain entry into the central nervous system. To test this idea out, the researchers turned to caffeine, a known adenosine receptor blocker. The caffeine has the ability to bind into the same receptors as adenosine, thereby blocking the compound’s ability to affect the cells in the central nervous system. Mice that was given caffeine in their drinking water showed protection from developing EAE.
The results of the study, according to Dr. Jeffrey H. Mills, a postdoctoral associate in the laboratory headed by Dr. Margaret S. Bynoe, the results of the study may be the first step on a series of studies that may lead to the development of adenosine-based therapies for treating multiple sclerosis in the near future.
Source: sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080407162405.htm
Eye Test Peers Into Heat-Related Multiple Sclerosis Symptoms
A unique new tool has been helping researchers to understand the link between body temperature and the severity of symptoms brought about by multiple sclerosis. Researchers from UT Southwestern Medical Center makes use of a bodysuit riddled with tubes where water circulates to heat up or cool down a patient’s body temperature to study one aspect of MS that is called Uhthoff’s phenomenon.
The Uhthoff’s phenomenon was named after a German ophthalmologist who discovered in 1889 that people, after undergoing strenuous exercise or under hot weather, experience temporary vision problems. It has been found that MS patients display such symptoms along with fatigue and problems with coordination. These symptoms seem to worsen in patients with MS who are in the heat.
Researchers have long known about the Uhthoff’s phenomenon but found no way of being able to objectively measure its severity or how it is related to a person’s body temperature. The study of the researchers at UT Southwestern have been able to demonstrate that as the body temperature increases, so does the severity of an eye movement disorder called internuclear opthalmoparesis, or INO. This disorder is characterized by one eye not synchronized to work with the other. When a person with INO looks rapidly from one object to another, the other eye seems to move slower or with both of them not moving at the same speed.
The remodeled bodysuit was used with a pill-like thermometer that measures core body temperature when swallowed and an infrared camera to track eye movements. The study was conducted to include eight patients with MS who also experience INO, eight patients with MS but with no INO and eight healthy subjects. Warm water going though the tubes of the bodysuit can raise a subject’s body temperature by one half degree Celsius while cool water is able to bring it down to one half of a degree.
The study showed that increasing the a subjects body temperature also affects the relative motion of both eyes. Cooling the body, on the other hand, made the eyes synchronize better with each other. This test has been able to monitor INO that could provide researchers with a sensitive test that could determine an MS patient’s response to other heat related symptoms of the disease. The said test can also be used to try out the effectiveness of new therapies that specifically target a number of MS related symptoms.
Source: sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080320103240.htm
