Multiple Sclerosis – BACK PAIN BLOG UK…

MS AWARENESS WEEK – 24^TH – 30th April – This year the focus will be on mental health and MS.

For the first time they have joined forces with other MS charities to deliver a united message for #MSAwarenessWeek.They want to share a wide range of your stories about mental health for the media and on our social accounts.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a condition that affects your brain and spinal cord. In MS, the coating that protects your nerves (myelin) is damaged. This causes a range of symptoms like blurred vision and problems with how we move think and feel.

More than 130,000 people in the UK have MS. In the UK people are most likely to find out they have MS in their thirties, forties and fifties. But the first signs of MS often start years earlier. Many people notice their first symptoms years before they get their diagnosis.

If you’d like to know more and share your experiences email pressofffice@mssociety.org.uk.

They will share more in the coming months on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram or find out more by going here.

What is MS?

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a condition that can affect the brain and spinal cord, causing a wide range of potential symptoms, including problems with vision, arm or leg movement, sensation or balance.

It’s a lifelong condition that can sometimes cause serious disability, although it can occasionally be mild.

In many cases, it’s possible to treat symptoms. Average life expectancy is slightly reduced for people with MS.

It’s most commonly diagnosed in people in their 20s, 30s and 40s although it can develop at any age. It’s about 2 to 3 times more common in women than men.

MS is one of the most common causes of disability in younger adults.

Symptoms of multiple sclerosis

The symptoms of MS vary widely from person to person and can affect any part of the body.

The main symptoms include:

fatigue
difficulty walking
vision problems, such as blurred vision
problems controlling the bladder
numbness or tingling in different parts of the body
muscle stiffness and spasms
problems with balance and co-ordination
problems with thinking, learning and planning

Depending on the type of MS you have, your symptoms may come and go in phases or get steadily worse over time (progress).

Getting medical advice

See a GP if you’re worried you might have signs of MS.

The symptoms often have many other causes, so they’re not necessarily a sign of MS.

Let the GP know about the specific pattern of symptoms you’re experiencing.

If they think you could have MS, you’ll be referred to a specialist in conditions of the nervous system (a neurologist), who may suggest tests such as an MRI scan to check for features of MS.

Find out more about diagnosing MS

Types of multiple sclerosis

MS starts in 1 of 2 general ways: with individual relapses (attacks or exacerbations) or with gradual progression.

Relapsing remitting MS

Between 8 and 9 of every 10 people with MS are diagnosed with the relapsing remitting type.

Someone with relapsing remitting MS will have episodes of new or worsening symptoms, known as relapses.

These typically worsen over a few days, last for days to weeks to months, then slowly improve over a similar time period.

Relapses often occur without warning, but are sometimes associated with a period of illness or stress.

The symptoms of a relapse may disappear altogether, with or without treatment, although some symptoms often persist, with repeated attacks happening over several years.

Periods between attacks are known as periods of remission. These can last for years at a time.

After many years (usually decades), many, but not all, people with relapsing remitting MS go on to develop secondary progressive MS.

In this type of MS, symptoms gradually worsen over time without obvious attacks. Some people continue to have infrequent relapses during this stage.

About two-thirds of people with relapsing remitting MS will develop secondary progressive MS.

Primary progressive MS

Between 1 and 2 in every 10 people with the condition start their MS with a gradual worsening of symptoms.

In primary progressive MS, symptoms gradually worsen and accumulate over several years, and there are no periods of remission, though people often have periods where their condition appears to stabilise.

What causes multiple sclerosis?

MS is an autoimmune condition. This is when something goes wrong with the immune system and it mistakenly attacks a healthy part of the body – in this case, the brain or spinal cord of the nervous system.

In MS, the immune system attacks the layer that surrounds and protects the nerves called the myelin sheath.

This damages and scars the sheath, and potentially the underlying nerves, meaning that messages travelling along the nerves become slowed or disrupted.

Exactly what causes the immune system to act in this way is unclear, but most experts think a combination of genetic and environmental factors is involved.

Treatments for multiple sclerosis

There’s currently no cure for MS, but a number of treatments can help control the condition and ease symptoms.

The treatment you need will depend on the specific symptoms and difficulties you have.

It may include:

treating relapses with short courses of steroid medicine to speed up recovery
specific treatments for individual MS symptoms
treatment to reduce the number of relapses using medicines called disease-modifying therapies

Disease-modifying therapies may also help to slow or reduce the overall worsening of disability in people with a type of MS called relapsing remitting MS, and in some people with types called primary and secondary progressive MS, who have relapses.

Unfortunately, there’s currently no treatment that can slow the progress of primary progressive MS, or secondary progressive MS, where there are no relapses.

Many therapies aiming to treat progressive MS are currently being researched.

Source: NHS MS Society

It’s Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Week on the 24th-30th April, 2018.

Multiple sclerosis is a neurological condition that affects the nerves in the brain and spinal cord. ‘Sclerosis’ means scarring or hardening of tiny patches of tissue. ‘Multiple’ is added because this happens at more than one place in the brain and/or spinal cord. MS is not a terminal condition but it is one that you will live with for the rest of your life. It isn’t infectious or contagious so you can’t pass it on to other people.

MS is the most common condition of the central nervous system affecting young adults. Over 100,000 people in the UK have MS which is about one in every 600. It is nearly three times more common in women than in men. Most people are diagnosed in their 20s and 30s but it can be diagnosed in younger and older people. Although the effects of MS can vary greatly from person to person, the condition is often categorised into one of three broad types.

There is a wide range of possible symptoms but you usually experience only a small number around the time of diagnosis and you may never experience them all. Symptoms vary from person to person and from day to day. This can make your MS rather unpredictable and can take some getting used to.

Some of the most common symptoms around the time of diagnosis are fatigue (a kind of exhaustion which is out of all proportion to the task undertaken), stumbling more than before, unusual feelings in the skin (such as pins and needles or numbness), slowed thinking or problems with eyesight.

Many of these symptoms may be invisible to other people. This may upset you if you’re feeling very unwell but others think you look OK. You may need to explain that your MS is causing difficulties, rather than assuming that others can detect this.

The MS Awareness Week is an important date on the MS Trust Charity calendar as it helps raise awareness of this debilitating condition.

To help raise awareness they have launched Be Bold in Blue campaign and a new project to help young people affected by MS, with posters and cards to help spread the word during MS Awareness Week.

Being Bold in Blue can be as simple as encouraging people to dress up in blue for a donation or getting sponsored to wear blue nail polish for the week (popular with the men!). You could even take on a really bold fundraising challenge like dying your hair blue and then shaving it all off!

Organise a cake sale at work and ask everyone to donate £1 to dress in blue for the day
Hold a Be Bold in Blue quiz night at a pub or a collection day in your local shopping centre
Fundraise at school by organising a sponsored silence or fun run

However you decide to Be Bold in Blue, you can be sure that the money you raise will make a real difference. Since 2011, together they have raised over £105,000 to support people with MS by providing information they can trust and training the MS health professionals they need. Head to the website to get your Be Bold in Blue fundraising kit.

It’s not too late to organise an event or to just Be Bold in Blue from the 24th-30th April. To celebrate MS Awareness Week they are also launching a brand new YouTube channel called MSTV for young people aged 11 to 17, who are affected by MS. The channel will feature videos to help you understand MS, you can subscribe to it on the MS Trust website.