You may have to adapt your daily life if you're diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), but with the right care and support many people can lead long, active and healthy lives.
Some research suggests that vitamin D may have potential benefit for people with MS . Relieve stress. Stress may trigger or worsen your signs and symptoms. Yoga, tai chi, massage, meditation or deep breathing may help.
Depending on the type, MS can also involve remissions and flares, so people with certain types of MS often feel better for a while before symptoms appear again. In rarer cases, a person may lose their ability to walk and talk. The first symptoms of MS typically emerge between ages 20–40 .
Many people with MS may live for 25 to 35 years or longer after their diagnosis. Survival is improving in MS patients, but chronic medical conditions such as heart disease, lung disease, depression, or diabetes may lower life expectancy in MS.
Contents. Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a condition that can affect the brain and spinal cord, causing a wide range of potential symptoms, including problems with vision, arm or leg movement, sensation or balance. It's a lifelong condition that can sometimes cause serious disability, although it can occasionally be mild.
A person with benign MS will have few symptoms or loss of ability after having MS for about 15 years, while most people with MS would be expected to have some degree of disability after that amount of time, particularly if their MS went untreated.
In fact, the majority of people with MS will not become severely disabled. Many people with MS choose to use wheelchairs or scooters from time to time or to do certain things, perhaps because of symptoms like fatigue or weakness, or to conserve energy. People often find this gives them more freedom rather than less.
As you get older, MS becomes more of a progressive disease. You might notice your MS symptoms start to get worse just as you reach menopause.
Most symptoms develop abruptly, within hours or days. These attacks or relapses of MS typically reach their peak within a few days at most and then resolve slowly over the next several days or weeks so that a typical relapse will be symptomatic for about eight weeks from onset to recovery. Resolution is often complete.
We know early treatment improves long-term health and wellbeing by slowing down the build up of irreversible damage and reducing the number of relapses people experience. Starting MS treatment early is best but if you start later it can also have some benefits.
Most people with MS can expect to live as long as people without MS, but the condition can affect their daily life. For some people, the changes will be minor. For others, they can mean a loss of mobility and other functions.
The cause of multiple sclerosis is unknown. It's considered an immune mediated disease in which the body's immune system attacks its own tissues. In the case of MS , this immune system malfunction destroys the fatty substance that coats and protects nerve fibers in the brain and spinal cord (myelin).
The early signs and symptoms of MS can be the same for women and men. One of the more obvious first signs of MS is a problem with vision, known as optic neuritis. This is often because it's a more concrete symptom as opposed to vaguer neurological symptoms like numbness and tingling.
MS can appear at any age but most commonly manifests between the ages of 20 and 40. It affects women two to three times as often as men. Almost one million people in the United States have MS, making it one of the most common causes of neurological disability among young adults in North America.
Most people are diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 50, although MS can occur in young children and older adults.
Lifetime risk of MS by relationship to someone with MS:
Parent - 1 in 67. Child - 1 in 48. Relatives that were less closely related had a lower risk. The lifetime risk in the general population is about 1 in 330.
Research tells us exercise can help you manage multiple sclerosis symptoms, including fatigue, and problems with balance and walking. Exercising can also: improve your mood. improve your overall health when your MS is mild.
The Social Security Administration (SSA) recognizes MS as a chronic illness or “impairment” that can cause disability severe enough to prevent an individual from working.
Summary. Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a disease of the central nervous system that can affect the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves. Common symptoms include fatigue, bladder and bowel problems, sexual problems, pain, cognitive and mood changes such as depression, muscular changes and visual changes.
Can I have multiple sclerosis for years and not know it? Yes. MS can go undetected for years. Research has suggested that many patients experience MS-related symptoms and signs several years before receiving a definite diagnosis of the disease.
your genes – MS isn't directly inherited, but people who are related to someone with the condition are more likely to develop it; the chance of a sibling or child of someone with MS also developing it is estimated to be around 2 to 3 in 100.
Although the person with MS knows from their experience that their MS symptoms started after or alongside a stressful period of time, there is no direct evidence that stress causes MS — although it might trigger it.