What is MS: We explain Multiple Sclerosis
Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune disease that impacts the nervous system, brain, and spinal cord. When you live with MS, your own immune system attacks the axons (or white matter) of neurons, preventing neurons from communicating efficiently with each other. The axons of neurons are lined with myelin. Myelin wraps around the axons, insulating them, allowing electrical information to travel down the axon quickly so that particular information can get to neighboring neurons.
The immune system can attack myelin anywhere in the brain and spinal cord, resulting in a host of potential symptoms. Sometimes the damage isn’t too bad, and myelin can heal leading to a person’s symptoms being better. But with repeated attacks, not only is the myelin sheath damaged but so is the axon underneath it. The axon then becomes scarred and neurons can’t share electrical information with each other. When neurons can’t communicate with each other, the person’s symptoms become severe and permanent.
Multiple Sclerosis: A Demyelinating Disease
What does that mean exactly? In neurology, when myelin breaks down, we call that demyelination. Multiple sclerosis not only attacks the myelin sheath but also destroys oligodendrocytes, the cells responsible for creating and maintaining myelin. As the disease progresses, the body isn’t capable of repairing myelin.
The speed at which neurons communicate is what allows us to react to things swiftly and decisively without planning it or previously thinking about it. It’s what allows us to move our arms and legs seemingly without any thought. It’s what allows us to speak, communicate, and quickly respond when someone asks us a question. Neurons’ ability to communicate efficiently is what allows us to think and formulate our own opinions.
Common Multiple Sclerosis Symptoms
The slow down in speed at which neurons communicate causes dysfunction in every part of your nervous system. People with MS most commonly experience:
Problems with their muscles: weakness, trembling, tightness, and spastic, ultimately leading to paralysis
Numbness and tingling as well as sharp, shooting pains, or burning sensations
Bowel issues
Difficulty with speaking and lose their ability to walk
Struggle with cognitive issues, like their thinking and memory
Often times in multiple sclerosis, no physical, mental, or cognitive function is spared because myelin is found in our brains, spinal cord, and nerves.