MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS, THE HORRENDOUS, NOTORIOUS, UNINVITED, INTRUDER

PSALM 59:1 Deliver me from mine enemies, O GOD--

PSALM 62:1 Truly my soul waited upon GOD:  from HIM

cometh my  salvation.

My loving and late father sometimes had a comical saying to guests.

“Stay a week, or stay to you get weak!”  Multiple Sclerosis does both.  It stays until the weeks turn into years, and of course, by that time, one has become weak, weaker, and very often, weakest.

Multiple Sclerosis, known commonly as MS, is a chronic inflammatory disease of the Central Nervous System (CNS), the brain and the spinal cord.  Naturally, the Peripheral Nervous System (PNS), is also effected.  The inflammations usually cause swelling around the blood vessels in the brain and spinal cord. The disease damages the myelin sheath, the insulating material, that surrounds and protects the nerve fibers in the brain, spinal cord, and the optic nerves.  When any extremely minute part of the myelin sheath is distorted, or disturbed, nerve impulses are interrupted.  Those interruptions make the nerve signals move very slowly or not at all. Those interruptions range from slight to chronic malfunctions.  The myelin usually is so severely scarred, that the nerves fail to recognize the mobility stimuli.  The myelin is lost in multiple areas, leaving plaques (scars) called sclerosis.  That is how the name, “Multiple Sclerosis”, came to be known.  Sclerosis prevents the brain and spinal cord from coordinating and working normally.

Medically, and presently, the exact causes and cure are unknown.  It is thought to be an autoimmune disease.  It is definitely not contagious.  It is not directly inherited, but there may be some genetic factors.  Eventually, and probably through DNA screenings, pertinent factors will be identified.

MS is characterized as; “relapsing-remitting,”  “primary progressive“, “secondary progressive”, “progressive relapsing“, and “remissions or recovery”. Damages in any one will cause some forms of exacerbations presently, there is not a cure, but there are some injections that can slow down the rate of relapses.  The exacerbations, may be associated with plaques that prevent conduction of nerve impulses in the CNS.  That is how the common lingo of MS is coined to me, “the uninvited intruder”.  It comes in frequently, disguised, and unscheduled, for a while.  It finds a good hiding place, causes chaos, and discord to the maximum.  It breaks into one’s body and very uninvited, without remorse, takes over to destroy everything possible, like it owns the place.

With MS, it is what sometimes can not be seen for periods of time that hurts.

The sneaky, incredible, MS intruder is very busy and active, even when one feels well.  It is the master of disguise, until it is ready to reveal its visual damages to the patients and others.