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What is Multiple Sclerosis or MS?
Multiple Sclerosis is a chronic demyelization and often disabling disease of the central nervous system that causes unpredictable symptoms ranging from severe disability including numbness, inability to walk, impaired vision, cognitive dysfunction, bladder and bowel problems, extreme fatigue to total paralysis or blindness.

Who contracts MS?
Young adults between the ages of 20 and 40 and it is twice as common in women as men, perhaps related to hormonal factors. The incidence of MS is ten times higher for those living above the 40th parallel, worldwide. - Most scientists think the cause of MS is "multifactorial". The person's genetic heritage, gender, birthplace, age and environment contribute to susceptibility, resistance, and pattern of the course of MS.

It is not an inherited disease, in the strict sense, but certain susceptibility does run in families.
One theory suggests a common viral infection in your early teens results in the development of an immune response (autoimmune reaction) when one becomes an adult. In this autoimmune process, immune cells mistake myelin for a foreign invader and attack it.

MS affects nearly 500,000 people with 200 new cases reported each week in the US and over 2 Million people worldwide.

MS is thought to be an autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system (CNS). The CNS consists of the brain, spinal cord, and the optic nerves. Surrounding and protecting the nerve fibers of the CNS is a fatty tissue called myelin, which helps nerve fibers conduct electrical impulses.

In MS, myelin is lost in multiple areas, leaving scar tissue called sclerosis. These damaged areas are also known as plaques or lesions. Sometimes the nerve fiber itself is damaged or broken.

Myelin not only protects nerve fibers, but makes their job possible. When myelin or the nerve fiber is destroyed or damaged, the ability of the nerves to conduct electrical impulses to and from the brain is disrupted, and this produces the various symptoms of MS.

People with MS can expect one of four clinical courses of disease, each of which might be mild, moderate, or severe.

MS Quick Facts • MS is a chronic, unpredictable neurological disease that affects the central nervous system. • MS is not contagious and is not directly inherited. • MS is not considered a fatal disease. • The majority of people with MS do not become severely disabled. • There is no cure for MS yet, but drugs can help slow the course and/or symptoms in some patients.

Primary-Progressive
Characteristics: People with this type of MS experience a slow but nearly continuous worsening of their disease from the onset, with no distinct relapses or remissions. However, there are variations in rates of progression over time, occasional plateaus, and temporary minor improvements.
Frequency: Relatively rare. Approximately 10%.

Secondary-Progressive
Characteristics: People with this type of MS experience an initial period of relapsing-remitting disease, followed by a steadily worsening disease course with or without occasional flare-ups, minor recoveries (remissions), or plateaus.
Frequency: 50% of people with relapsing-remitting MS developed this form of the disease within 10 years of their initial diagnosis, before introduction of the "disease-modifying" drugs. Long-term data are not yet available to demonstrate if this is significantly delayed by treatment.

Progressive-Relapsing
Characteristics: People with this type of MS experience a steadily worsening disease from the onset but also have clear acute relapses (attacks or exacerbations), with or without recovery. In contrast to relapsing-remitting MS, the periods between relapses are characterized by continuing disease progression.
Frequency: Relatively rare. Approximately 5%.