Since I suffer from Multiple Sclerosis, I figure I should provide a brief primer on the disease.
I'd like this blog be more about my experiences with the disease, and the way it's changed my life and colored my perceptions and ideas, than about Multiple Sclerosis itself. And, of course, this will be THE place to find Wheelchair Kamikaze videos. I'll post information about significant developments in MS research, and also fill everybody in on my own history with the disease, but this won't be a repository of clinical information about all things MS.
Anyway, here's a brief rundown on the earthly paradise known as Multiple Sclerosis:
The first thing that you should know about MS is that having it sucks big fat hairy monkey balls. The biggest and hairiest you can imagine. Really, it does. Surprisingly, though, once the shock of learning you have it wears off, life goes on, albeit in a form that you never wanted or expected...
Multiple Sclerosis literally means "many scars", because the primary diagnostic manifestation of the disease is areas of scarring appearing in a patient's central nervous system (the brain and spine), which can be seen on MRI images.
The symptoms of MS include muscle weakness, numbness and tingling, visual problems, and cognitive deficits (such as memory loss, difficulty finding words, and problems with comprehension).
MS comes in four basic flavors: relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS), secondary progressive multiple sclerosis (SPMS), primary progressive multiple sclerosis (PPMS), and progressive relapsing multiple sclerosis (PRLS).
The vast majority of MS patients (about 85%) suffer from RRMS, which means their disease is marked by distinct relapses and remissions. During the relapsing phase, their symptoms flare up, and they can become quite disabled. After a period of days or weeks or months, these relapses subside, and are followed by periods of remission, during which their symptoms subside significantly, and their level of disability can be dramatically reduced. Each relapse can leave behind residual problems, which accumulate during the course of their disease. This accumulated disability can leave many long-term RRMS patients significantly impacted by their MS.
After a duration of years (typically 10 to 15) a high percentage of RRMS patients progress to the SPMS stage of the disease, in which they no longer suffer relapses and remissions, but their symptoms instead progress steadily over time. Instead of hills and valleys, think a gradual slope downwards.
About 10% of MS patients, myself included, are classified as PPMS. These patients never go through the RRMS stage of the disease, and therefore never experience relapses and remissions. Instead, their disease is progressive from the outset, and they ride the downward slope of disability progression for the duration. In general, PPMS is considered a more severe form of the disease, as patients accumulate disability much faster then RRMS patients.
PPMS differs significantly from RRMS/SPMS, so much so that many researchers think it may be an entirely different disease. While RRMS strikes women in much higher numbers than men, PPMS strikes men and women in equal numbers. Without getting too technical, the test results exhibited by PPMS and RRMS patients are often starkly different. Additionally, none of the treatments available for RRMS have any effect on PPMS. It is currently considered untreatable by mainstream MS physicians.
PRMS is the rarest form of the disease, and strikes about 5% of the MS population. It is marked by the steady progression of disability along with periods of relapse, when symptoms temporarily grow more severe. Like PPMS, PRMS is often more aggressive than RRMS.
Current treatments for MS (almost all directed at RRMS) all seek to either modulate or suppress the immune system, because it is thought that MS is an autoimmune disease, meaning that a patient's own immune system has gone awry and is attacking their own cells. While this hypothesis is widely accepted, it has never been proven, and the cause of MS is still a great mystery.
Being a hyper opinionated New Yorker, I have lots of takes on all of this, which I'll expound upon in future posts.
Did I mention that having MS sucks big fat hairy monkey balls?
