Symptoms

MS symptoms vary greatly from person to person and from time to time in the same person.

These include blurred or double vision; unusual fatigue; problems with walking caused by stiffness, weakness, or imbalance; sensory problems like numbness, tingling, and pain; problems with bladder and bowel control; changes in sexual function; emotional changes and changes in memory and thinking. While some individuals will experience only one or two of these symptoms, others may experience most or all of them at one time or another.

For some people, MS is characterised by periods of relapse and remission while for others it has a progressive pattern. For everyone, it makes life unpredictable.

At this point in time there is no known cause or cure for MS. However there have been significant steps forward in the research for treatments and understanding the injury and repair processes over the past decade.

In addition to demyelination, research indicates that damage may also occur to the nerve fibres (axons) themselves. Because this damage is seen in active, inflammatory lesions, researchers have suggested that the immune attack in MS may also target nerve cells directly, not just the myelin and oligodendrocyte cells. Evidence further indicates that this damage may occur early in the course of MS, reinforcing the importance of early treatment.