Damaged nerve fibers in the spinal cord and brain can cause painful muscle spasms, including in the legs. Vision problems : Some people may experience double or blurred vision or a partial or total loss of vision.
This usually affects one eye at a time. Inflammation of the optic nerve can result in pain when the eye moves. Vision problems are an early sign of MS.
Gait and mobility changes: MS can change the way people walk due to muscle weakness and problems with balance, dizziness, and fatigue. Emotional changes and depression: Demyelination and nerve fiber damage in the brain can trigger emotional changes.
Learning and memory problems: These can make it difficult to concentrate, plan, learn, prioritize, and multitask. Pain: Pain is a common symptom in MS. Neuropathic pain is directly due to MS. Other types of pain occur because of weakness or stiffness of muscles. There is also a higher risk of urinary tract infections , reduced activity, and loss of mobility. In the later stages, people may experience changes in perception and thinking, as well as sensitivity to heat.
MS affects individuals differently. For some, it starts with a subtle sensation, and their symptoms do not progress for months or years. Sometimes, symptoms worsen rapidly, within weeks or months. A few people will only have mild symptoms, and others will experience significant changes that lead to disability. However, most people will experience times when symptoms worsen and then get better. Find out more about the early signs of MS here. Scientists do not really know what causes MS, but risk factors include:.
Genetic factors: Susceptibility may pass down in the genes, but scientists believe an environmental trigger is also necessary for MS to develop, even in people with specific genetic features. Smoking: People who smoke appear to be more likely to develop MS. They also tend to have more lesions and brain shrinkage than non-smokers. Other viruses that may play a role include human herpes virus type 6 HHV6 and mycoplasma pneumonia.
Vitamin D deficiency: MS is more common among people who have less exposure to bright sunlight, which is necessary for the body to create vitamin D. Some experts think that low levels of vitamin D may affect the way the immune system works. Vitamin B12 deficiency: The body uses vitamin B when it produces myelin.
A lack of this vitamin may increase the risk of neurological diseases such as MS. Previous theories have included exposure to canine distemper, physical trauma, or aspartame, an artificial sweetener, but there is no evidence to support these. How does MS affect women? Click here to find out more. No single test can confirm a diagnosis, so a doctor will use several strategies when deciding whether a person meets the criteria for a diagnosis.
If the doctor diagnoses MS, they will need to identify what type it is and whether it is active or not. The person may need more tests in the future to check for further changes.
Learn more here about the tests for diagnosing MS. There is no cure for MS, but treatment is available that can slow the progression of the disease, reduce the number and severity of relapses, and relieve symptoms.
Some people also use complementary and alternative therapies, but research does not always confirm the usefulness of these. These work by changing the way the immune system functions. A doctor may give some of these by mouth, by injection, or as an infusion. How often the person needs to take them and whether they can do this at home will depend on the drug.
In addition, MS is a highly individualized disease, which means that treatment and management of the condition can vary from person to person. For example, there are a variety of potential triggers that can lead to a relapse, but these triggers often look different depending on the person. Ultimately, there is still more to learn about the intricacies of MS, but scientists continue to make advancements in our understanding of this condition every single day.
In people with MS, the immune system mistakenly attacks the central nervous system, effectively damaging:. With MS, the damage that happens to the nerves, myelin, and myelin-producing cells makes it difficult for the nerves of the central nervous system to send and receive messages.
In turn, this leads to decreased functioning within the central nervous system, causing a wide variety of neurological symptoms. There are certain common MS symptoms , but the symptoms each person experiences can vary depending on the disease stage, disease progression, and more.
This can include:. According to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society , MS symptoms can vary or fluctuate over time — and no two people with MS will have the exact same set of symptoms with the same exact timing. There are four main types of MS. Each type is determined by differences in relapse, remission, and symptom severity:. MS is an immune-mediated disease that is characterized by damage to the nerves within the central nervous system.
Although many healthcare professionals define MS as an autoimmune disease, research suggests that it may not entirely fit the current criteria for an autoimmune condition. However, the long-term consequences of immunosuppression on disease course are unknown because most published clinical trials end after two years of observation, an insufficient period of time to address the long-term consequences of these treatments. Therefore, it is critical to identify the specificity of these bands.
Ultimately, it may be proven that CSF oligoclonal IgG bands play a neuroprotective rather than a pathologic role [ — ]. Eriguchi is the recipient of a fellowship from Japan Brain foundation. No royalties have accrued to Dr.
Rodriguez or Mayo Clinic to date, but both have rights to receive future royalties. National Center for Biotechnology Information , U. Journal List Autoimmune Dis v. Autoimmune Dis. Published online May Author information Article notes Copyright and License information Disclaimer. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
This article has been cited by other articles in PMC. Abstract Multiple sclerosis MS is an inflammatory demyelinating disease of the central nervous system CNS with varied clinical presentations and heterogeneous histopathological features. Introduction Studies using imaging, serology, pathology and genetics, and patient response to anti-inflammatory treatments indicate that multiple sclerosis MS is primarily an inflammatory demyelinating disease of the central nervous system CNS with varied clinical presentations and heterogeneous histopathological features.
Is MS an Autoimmune Disease? Antigen: Specificity of Antibodies Found in MS After several years of research, confirmation of the antigen-specificity of antibodies in MS is still lacking. Open in a separate window. Figure 1. Figure 2.
An Alternate Hypothesis for MS Pathogenesis An attractive hypothesis to explain the immune-mediated pathogenesis of MS is that it is induced by an infectious agent. Experimental Evidence for Virus-Induced Demyelination Experimental infection of laboratory animals with various viruses induces demyelination in the CNS. Figure 3. References 1. Epidemiology of multiple sclerosis in US veterans.
Age at onset. Sex ratio in offspring of patients with multiple sclerosis. The New England Journal of Medicine. Multiple sclerosis in US veterans of the vietnam era and later military service: race, sex, and geography. Annals of Neurology. Sex ratio of multiple sclerosis in Canada: a longitudinal study. Lancet Neurology. Parent-of-origin effect in multiple sclerosis: observations from interracial matings. Multiple sclerosis. Lassmann H. Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis and multiple sclerosis.
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An electrophoretic study of the protein components in cerebrospinal fluid and their relationship to the serum proteins. The Journal of Clinical Investigation.
Rodriguez M. Have we finally identified an autoimmune demyelinating disease? Transfer of multiple sclerosis into severe combined immunodeficiency mice by mononuclear cells from cerebrospinal fluid of the patients. Failure to transfer multiple sclerosis into severe combined immunodeficiency mice by mononuclear cells from CSF of patients. Lo R, Feasby TE. Multiple sclerosis and autoimmune diseases. Warren S, Warren KG. Multiple sclerosis and associated diseases: a relationship to diabetes mellitus.
Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences. A reappraisal of the epidemiology of multiple sclerosis in Olmsted County, Minnesota. Neuromyelitis optica and non-organ-specific autoimmunity. Archives of Neurology.
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Homogeneity of active demyelinating lesions in established multiple sclerosis. Barnett MH, Sutton I. The pathology of multiple sclerosis: a paradigm shift. Current Opinion in Neurology. Plasmapheresis in acute episodes of fulminant CNS inflammatory demyelination.
A randomized trial of plasma exchange in acute central nervous system inflammatory demyelinating disease. Journal of Clinical Apheresis. Relation between humoral pathological changes in multiple sclerosis and response to therapeutic plasma exchange.
The Lancet. Multiple sclerosis: oligoclonal bands still yield clues about multiple sclerosis. Nature Reviews Neurology. A prospective study on the predictive value of CSF oligoclonal bands and MRI in acute isolated neurological syndromes for subsequent progression to multiple sclerosis. Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.
Amato MP, Ponziani G. A prospective study on the prognosis of multiple sclerosis. CSF oligoclonal band status informs prognosis in multiple sclerosis: a case control study of patients. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry. Isoelectric focusing of IgG eluted from multiple sclerosis and subacute sclerosing panencephalitis brains. Oligoclonal IgG in multiple sclerosis and subacute sclerosing panencephalitis brains. Journal of Neuroimmunology. Cerebrospinal fluid and serum oligoclonal IgG bands in rabbits with experiment allergic encephalomyelitis.
Neurochemical Research. Journal of Experimental Medicine. Serum autoantibody responses to myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein and myelin basic protein in X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy and multiple sclerosis. Elevated levels of antibody to myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein is not specific for patients with multiple sclerosis. Anti-ganglioside antibodies in multiple sclerosis.
Journal of the Neurological Sciences. Antibodies to glycosphingolipids in patients with multiple sclerosis and SLE. The Journal of Immunology. Multiple Sclerosis. Sriram S, Steiner I. Experimental allergic encephalomyelitis: a misleading model of multiple sclerosis. The disease modifying therapies for MS work by various mechanisms, with different therapies having different mechanisms of action.
These mechanisms include: Interfering with the activation of T cells Turning down the inflammation and immune activity Blocking the movement of immune system cells Depleting the numbers of immune system cells Limiting entry of immune cells into the CNS While much has been learned about the immune response in MS and the mechanisms that cause inflammation and damage, continued research is underway to better understand the MS disease process including disability progression, and develop treatments that can stop progression, reverse disability and ultimate cure MS.
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