It's MS Awareness month, do you know what MS is?
By MamaRain
@MamaRain (18)
Canada
March 13, 2007 5:33pm CST
Hey people,
Just thought I'd start an educational discussion on this seeing it's MS awareness month people should be made aware!!! haha
Do you know there's a new Messenger thing through the NMSS website where money from banners on your MSN Messenger goes to help the MS movement towards figuring the illness out and finding a cure?!?! Check it out!
MS is short for Multiple Sclerosis and Multiple Sclerosis literally means more than one scar. The scars are on the brain and spine and the scars make it harder for messages from the brain to reach muscles etc... The disease's cause is unknown it is not agenetic illness. It is believ ed that whatever the true cause is there are genetic susceptibilities but liek I said it is not CAUSED by genetics so if you think you and your loved ones are safe because no one in the fam has it think again!
Thoughts ont he cause are possibly something environmental e.g. pollution or perhaps due to some infection or multiple infections which causes the body's immune system to go haywire! See the scarring is caused by your own body in MS. For whatever reason for people with MS have "attacks" aka "relapses" where the body's immune system sends out the white blood cells aka t-cells to fight an infection only it's not an infection they go to fight it decides to attack the protective voating ont he nerves int he brain and spine. WHy it goes to specific locations is unknown why it doesn't just wipe everything otu at once unknown... so much very unknown. But anyhow it eats away the protective coating kind of liek a mouse chewing the insulation off of wires in your home like on a lamp chord. Then the messages don't go through to the lightbulb all the time well same for folks with MS... One moment they can be like you or other healthy folks and then next moment they could lose sight or hearing or use of a limb or bladder or bowel etc...
Anywho any questions? Any comments? Let's discuss...
Oh yeah and people do die from MS and numbers are up 50% this year alone ;)
4 people like this
4 responses
@MamaRain (18)
• Canada
14 Mar 07
Well it used to be (in North America) that it was like 1 in 100,000 had it then 65,000 and now... hold on to your hats... 1 in 1,000 why? because it's very hard to diagnose and now doctors and diagnostic tools have gotten better!!!!
Also generally the age was thought to be 20-55 for dx now... there's a pediatric MS clinic in my city and several others in North America. Other countries have lower numbers and honestly as diagnostics become available and doctors in other places learn how to recognize it numbers are growing in other places as well!
So not commonly recognized (as people are very ignorant about it/of it) but on the rise as far as being diagnosed EVERYWHERE!
1 person likes this
@sherrir101 (3670)
• Malinta, Ohio
14 Mar 07
I was diagnosed 10 years ago. I have relapsing/remitting MS. It hits when it wants to. I have had probably 4 relapses in 10 years. The first was the scariest.
Did you know that the area that you live has to much do with it also?
That heat can bring a person with MS literaly to their knees (if their knees can support them).
Fatigue is not a joke with MS.
You are right about MS. It is not there one moment, and could be there the next!
Thank you for this discussion.
1 person likes this
@Shaun72 (15959)
• Palatka, Florida
26 Jun 07
This is a good why to write it. I have had multiple sclrosis for over 5 years now that I know of. Mine is almost in the second stages. I know the part of it doesn't run in my family, I have a friend that has it also and no one in her family has it. i have one older cousin who has it but that is it.
1 person likes this
@mugzy528 (800)
• United States
7 Jul 07
I Was Diagnosed last June with MS And I know it can Kill People from all the complications and everything. People need more info on this alot of people I know do not even know what MS is so I have to explain it to them. I Think they need some commercials on tv or something I mean they have them for psoriasis and that is not a Deadly disease like MS.
