Do you have benign MS?Among all the types of MS, benign ms is probably the most controversial one. When you look over the medical statistics, you immediately find out that around 10 to 20% of all MSers supposedly started with this form of the disease but it is also estimated that half (or more) of us eventually have progression of the disease and no longer have this type of MS. Basically this means that there are approximately between 5 to 10% of folks with this notorious type of the illness out there and all I can think about (and hope) is that they have been lucky enough to find a good neurologist that hasn’t dismissed them telling them they have nothing to worry about or, even worse, have misdiagnosed them. There is also a lot of debate on the topic of exactly how to define this particular form of MS, but some researchers propose a definition as:
A study on this particular form of MS was presented by Lisa Costelloe, MD, from St. Vincent’s University Hospital in Dublin, Ireland, at the 23rd Congress of the European Committee for the Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ECTRIMS) back in 2007 and found that “The majority of patients diagnosed with benign multiple sclerosis (MS), based on an Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) score of 3 or less after a disease duration of 10 years, continue to progress after an additional 20 years.” HOW IS A TYPICAL ATTACK OF BENIGN MS MANIFESTED? In the majority of cases, the flare ups or relapses tend to produce sensory symptoms, which go away and leave very little, or no residual damage or disability. You must remember that besides some quite serious symptoms of MS, there are also those “little” nuisance symptoms like:
A lot of times, people would experience these and other MS symptoms but never get a clear picture of what is happening to them. Furthermore, since these “symptoms” could vary a lot and appear/disappear at different times, only a trained neurologist is going to be able to tell you what’s the best thing you can do and, only he/she, can put you early on — which is the very best time to get on a disease-modifying drug — since there is no way to predict who will have mild MS and who needs to start therapy as soon as possible. Investigators in Europe are pooling their imaging expertise in an ongoing collaborative MS research project called MAGNIMS. A report from this project that came out in Neurology back in 2009 warns against assuming mild MS is truly benign ms. MAGNIMS researchers found cognitive impairment in up to 45 % of people who had been designated as “benign.” They concluded that testing to rule out cognitive problems is essential before a person is considered to have truly benign MS. This is also one of the main reasons why people’s complaints are easily mistaken with something else and never treated for MS. Today, there is more and more evidence that those of us that have a confirmed MS diagnose can have a direct impact on our disease by changing our living habits. For those folks with a possible MS response, a look at the following page on nutrition and diet may really be of help to get you started in the right nutrition path of health and wellness even if you don’t develop “full blown” MS in the future the improvements you can make to your diet and nutritional habits would benefit you greatly.
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