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Multiple Sclerosis Multiple Sclerosis Basics

MS 101

Summary & Participants

Multiple sclerosis is a chronic and complicated disease with no cure but with several effective therapies. Join experts as they discuss how the disease affects the body and the ways it is diagnosed.

Medically Reviewed On: July 19, 2006

Webcast Transcript

ANNOUNCER: Multiple sclerosis occurs in about 400,000 people in the US and about 2.5 million around the world. It's a disease that causes a wide variety of symptoms that can worsen over time.

FREDERICK MUNSCHAUER, MD: Multiple sclerosis is a disease characterized by inflammation of the brain or spinal cord. We actually don't know what causes multiple sclerosis, but it's important to recognize that the disease is an inflammatory disease. We do feel that it is probably autoimmune. Now what do we mean by that? An autoimmune disease is a disease where the body senses that a protein that is within the body is actually a protein that came from out of the body and the immune system tries to attack it and destroy it.

ANNOUNCER: In MS, the immune system attacks the coating around the nerves, called myelin.

VINCENT MACALUSO, MD: The myelin sheath is critical for the nerve conduction impulse to make it through the length of the nerve to the next nerve. When the body's immune system attacks this nerve and strips away the myelin, the impulse can no longer be conducted to the next nerve.

ANNOUNCER: Symptoms experienced by individuals with MS vary and are dependent on the location of inflammation in the nervous system.

VINCENT MACALUSO, MD: If it happens in your optic nerve, you get an optic neuritis and you get visual loss. If it happens low down in your spinal cord and it interrupts the reflex arc that controls your bladder, then you have bladder dysfunction.

FREDERICK MUNSCHAUER, MD: The majority of people with MS will experience bouts of symptoms either related to vision, coordination, strength, sensation, or bladder and bowel. And over time, those symptoms can accumulate. You may not completely heal from each one. And later on in MS, usually about five to ten years into the disease, some people may even have trouble just remembering things as quickly as they used to or being able to solve multiple problems simultaneously. MS rarely is a disease that causes frank dementia, but it can slow you down. You'll get the right answer, but it'll take you a little bit longer.

ANNOUNCER: Symptoms don't always lead right to a diagnosis of MS and can often be mistaken for other conditions. This is why a careful patient evaluation is necessary.

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