What is Multiple Sclerosis?
Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is an inflammatory disease of the Central Nervous System (CNS) - that's the brain and spinal cord. Predominantly, it is a disease of the "white matter" tissue. The white matter is made up of nerve fibers which are responsible for transmitting communication signals both internally within the CNS and between the CNS and the nerves supplying rest of the body.
In people affected by MS, patches of damage called plaques or lesions appear in seemingly random areas of the CNS white matter. At the site of a lesion, a nerve insulating material, called myelin, is lost. Clinically, MS is a hard condition to characterize because it is very unpredictable and variable. Depending on which areas of the CNS are affected and how badly they are damaged, the type and severity of symptoms can vary greatly (Silberberg, 1988).
No two people get MS in exactly the same way and the expression of each individual's disease is as unique as their fingerprints. However, the different courses of the disease, both within an individual and within the whole population, principally differ in their timing, location and severity. Underneath similar processes (including demyelination and sometimes other forms of nerve degeneration) are going on.
Although recent research indicates that the biochemical make-up of lesions may vary between different forms of the disease, this is not the reason why people with MS have such widely differing symptoms - it's because nerve damage to one site usually causes completely different symptoms than damage to another (Rudick, Goodkin, 1992).
In general, people with MS can experience partial or complete loss of any function that is controlled by, or passes through, the brain or spinal cord.
Disease begins most commonly with acute or sub acute onset of neurologic abnormalities...............
