Women are up to three times as likely as men to have relapsing-remitting MS. The risk for MS in the general population is about 0.5%. If a parent or sibling has MS, your risk is about twice that or about 1%.
While MS is not contagious or hereditary, MS susceptibility is increased if a family member has MS. The average risk of developing MS in the United States is roughly 3.5 in 1,000, or less than half of one percent. For first-degree relatives (such as a child or sibling), the risk increases to three or four percent.
Contents. 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.
Multiple sclerosis is more common in women than men, and the disease is mostly diagnosed in adulthood. White people are more often affected than Asians or Latin Americans, while rates of MS are higher among Black people than white people.
Multiple sclerosis is caused by your immune system mistakenly attacking the brain and nerves. It's not clear why this happens but it may be a combination of genetic and environmental factors.
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.
Although more people are being diagnosed with MS today than in the past, the reasons for this are not clear. Likely contributors include greater awareness of the disease, better access to medical care and improved diagnostic capabilities. There is no definitive evidence that the rate of MS is generally on the increase.
The prevalence of MS in Australia has increased from 103.7 per 100,000 people in 2017 to 131.1 per 100,000 people in 2021. This increase in prevalence is most likely due to changes in exposure to known MS risk factors.
You're not born with symptoms of MS. If you develop MS it's usually diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 40. However, it can also develop earlier or later than that. There's currently no way to tell whether someone will develop MS later in life.
Disease Course of MS Is Unpredictable
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.
There is no cure for multiple sclerosis. Treatment typically focuses on speeding recovery from attacks, reducing new radiographic and clinical relapses, slowing the progression of the disease, and managing MS symptoms. Some people have such mild symptoms that no treatment is necessary.
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.
MS can occur at any age, but onset usually occurs around 20 and 40 years of age. However, younger and older people can be affected.
Neuromyelitis optica (NMO) is a rare chronic disease that happens when your immune system attacks specific parts of your central nervous system. Experts previously thought this was a rare type of multiple sclerosis (MS) but now recognize it's a separate condition.
But studies which have investigated whether stress causes MS have been mixed. 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.
After many years of saying that MS is not passed down the generations, new research now says the opposite. Although past studies have suggested that genetic risk factors could increase the risk of developing the disease, up until now, there has been no evidence that the disease is directly inherited.
FAQs about MS prognosis and life expectancy
Multiple sclerosis itself is not usually lethal, but it can increase the risk of long-term complications, such as infections or trouble swallowing, that can potentially shorten survival. On average, longevity is about five to 10 years shorter in people with MS.
Vision problems, like blurred or double vision. Dizziness and a lack of coordination. Trouble walking, feeling unsteady, a loss of balance.
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Median survival time from onset of symptoms to death was 42 years. When expected survival rates are compared with those of the Australian population, there is approximately a 10% reduction in survival time in multiple sclerosis patients, after 20 years or more from disease onset.
Every week in the U.S., about 200 people are diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, or MS. According to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, four times as many women have MS as men, and more and more women are developing it.
These include fibromyalgia and vitamin B12 deficiency, muscular dystrophy (MD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease), migraine, hypo-thyroidism, hypertension, Beçhets, Arnold-Chiari deformity, and mitochondrial disorders, although your neurologist can usually rule them out quite easily.
Early MS symptoms may include blurred vision, numbness, dizziness, muscle weakness, and coordination issues.