Essay: Lara Rogers
ESSAY: LARA ROGERS HOW DOES ONE TAKE ON MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS? Multiple Sclerosis is a debilitating disease that has many unknowns. Because of those unknowns, such as the cause or the cure, many people are left suffering in a difficult and uncertain position. Nearly one million people in the United States have been diagnosed with MS, and it is affecting over 2.5 million individuals across the globe (National MS Society). The unfortunate reality is many people with this disease know that their symptoms are only going to get worse because there is currently no cure to terminate the disease completely. With more research, advancement in technology, and a greater understanding of the cause of Multiple Sclerosis, it might be possible to find a cure for the disease. So, what is Multiple Sclerosis and how does it impact a person? Multiple Sclerosis is an immune response and neurological-related disease that affects the body’s central nervous system. When the T Cells invade, it causes an immune response reaction that impairs the nervous system. There are five main phases of how the T Cell moves across the membrane that causes neurological damage in the central nervous system. The first phase is Activation, where the T cells develop and become activated. Then in the second phase, Adhesion, the T cell connects to the adhesion molecules. The cell and molecule join together to become a cell complex in phase three (Attraction) where they are then pushed out into other places in the body during stage four, Invasion. During Invasion the cell complex can invade the central nervous system and disrupt communication by breaking down. In Reactivation, stage five, the immune system attacks the antigens that the cell complexes have created. This causes inflammation in the nervous system and impairs myelin (Brodkey, Ben-Zacharia, and Reardon). The impairing of the myelin is what causes neurological processing to be incorrect, leading to different types of symptoms common in Multiple Sclerosis. In essence, the immune system attacks the body’s central nervous system, causing damage or inflammation to myelin (National MS Society). There are four main types of MS that patients tend to have: Clinically Isolated Syndrome (CIS), Relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS), Secondary Progressive MS (SPMS), and Primary progressive MS (PPMS). Clinically Isolated Syndrome is the first stage of MS; meaning individuals experience neurological symptoms of MS for at least twenty-four hours. In spite of that, patients who experience CIS might not be officially diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis based on whether or not the patient has lesions on the brain. Lesions can indicate both that another episode is likely, and the person could suffer from Multiple Sclerosis long-term. The most common type of MS is Relapsingremitting MS. An individual with RRMS suffers relapsing attacks creating neurological symptoms. These symptoms may be short-term or long-term depending on the extent of the attack. After a relapse, the patient goes into periods of recovery called remissions. This cycle is repeated over and over again throughout the patient’s lifetime. Secondary progressive MS (SPMS) is when a patient experiences relapsing initially and then continues to see a decline in the function of the neurological system. It often leads
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