Posted: Friday, February 24, 2012 3:00 am | Updated: 8:05 pm, Tue Feb 21, 2012.

The Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Society reports that most people with the illness have a normal or near-normal life expectancy and that most do not become severely disabled.

There also are medications that have been shown to reduce the number of relapses and “modify” or slow down the underlying course of MS, the society said.

Multiple sclerosis is a chronic, often disabling disease that attacks the central nervous system (CNS), which is made up of the brain, spinal cord, and optic nerves, according to a report from the MS Society.

Symptoms may be mild, such as numbness in the limbs, or severe, such as paralysis or loss of vision. The progress, severity, and specific symptoms of MS are unpredictable and vary from one person to another. New treatments and advances in research are giving new hope to people affected by the disease, the society said.

Relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS), the kind which afflicts Melany McQueeny, a Mount Olive Middle School teacher, is the most common disease course at the time of diagnosis. About 85 percent of people with MS are initially diagnosed with RRMS, compared to 10-15 percent with progressive forms.

Relapsing-remitting MS is defined by inflammatory attacks on myelin (the layers of insulating membranes surrounding nerve fibers in the central nervous system). During the attacks, activated immune cells cause small, localized areas of damage.

MS is different from muscular dystrophy (MD), a group of disorders that cause progressive and irreversible wasting away of muscle tissue. Although muscular dystrophy has some symptoms in common with MS, like weakness and problems with walking,  muscular dystrophy affects the muscles directly while MS affects the central nervous system, the society said.

MS is not contagious and is not directly inherited.

Phil Garber

Originally posted here:
Hope for multiple sclerosis victims