Multiple sclerosis
Imagine your right leg getting pins and needles and going pretty much to sleep. For three weeks. That’d suck by itself. You get an MRI of your brain done to establish a baseline. You then visit the hospital for the day to have an infusion of methylprednisolone, which completely knocks you flat. Not a happy day.
Then a few months later you’re walking through the mall in Civic and your leg catches fire. No, we’re not talking spontaneous combustion, but it feels like there are a few patches on your leg that are on fire. Back to the neurologist and another MRI. Now that you have two MRI scans of your brain, a comparison can be made between the original and the latest. And there they are, lesions in your brain, indicating scarred tissue on the myelin sheath of your nerve cells.
You have just been diagnosed with MS, multiple sclerosis.
With MS, the body’s own immune system attacks the tissue surrounding the nerve fibres in the brain, spinal cord, and optic nerves. This covering is made of a fatty substance called myelin. Myelin insulates the nerves and helps them send electrical signals that control movement, speech, and other functions. When myelin is destroyed, scar tissue forms, and nerve messages are not transmitted properly.
What can be done if you have MS? Unfortunately, not a lot at this stage. There are a number of treatments out there, but none of them are ideal. You’ll never really be sure if the drug is keeping the MS at bay, or if you’ll experience further symptoms tomorrow.
We need to kiss goodbye to MS. One day, we’ll do it.