What is it
Multiple sclerosis, or multiple sclerosis, is a chronic inflammatory disease with an autoimmune nature.
It affects the central and peripheral nervous system at the level of myelin, the sheath that lines the nerves. Myelin is important to ensure the appropriate nerve conduction velocity.
Terminal patients with multiple sclerosis have, in fact, nerve conduction rates even five times lower than normal. This causes serious motor and cognitive problems.
Onset and symptoms
At the onset there are mild symptoms, often underestimated, including transient blurring of vision, difficulty peeing, muscle weakness of one or more limbs, paresthesias, ie alterations in the sensitivity of a part of the body, especially the limbs.
Multiple sclerosis, which can affect different parts of the nervous system, is clinically characterized by a wide variety of signs and symptoms.
Among them are:
- vision problems
- partial or complete loss of balance
- asthenia (ease of fatigue especially in the lower limbs)
- loss of sensitivity to touch
- defects in bladder and sphincter control
- difficulty speaking
- paresis
- cognitive problems
Course and prognosis
The course can be extremely variable from one subject to another, however there is generally intermittency of clinical manifestations, in which periods with symptoms are interspersed with apparent remissions.
Given the relapsing and chronic nature of the disease, the patient shows a greater tendency to worsen over the years, this is because with the passage of time the lesions caused by the disease accumulate and worsen.
Like the course, the duration is subjectively variable. Multiple sclerosis is generally not a fatal disease, except for very rare so-called fast-acting malignant cases, and the average survival is over 30 years.
Most patients after decades of full-blown illness work and have a relatively normal life.
Causes
Multiple sclerosis is a multifactorial disease, in other words both environmental triggers and genetic predispositions participate in its genesis.
The autoimmune nature of this disease has been highlighted: for reasons not yet well clarified by scientific research, an immune response against the myelin of the nerves is triggered, and this first causes a local inflammation at the nervous level, with relative swelling of the surrounding tissues. Then the definitive and irreversible destruction of myelin.
Treatment
There is no specific therapy and medications are administered during acute episodes for relapse prevention.
In acute episodes, corticosteroids are used to reduce inflammation. They reduce the duration of attacks and accelerate the remission of symptoms.
However, corticosteroids do not have a noticeable effect on the long-term course of the disease.
Other drugs used are beta-interferons and immunosuppressants that have the function of reducing the intensity of the immune response against the nervous system.
Joycelyn Elders is the author and creator of EmpowerEssence, a health and wellness blog. Elders is a respected public health advocate and pediatrician dedicated to promoting general health and well-being.
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