Multiple Sclerosis is a chronic disease of the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord). Symptoms may be mild such as numbness in the limbs or severe such as paralysis or loss of vision. Most people with MS are diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 40, but the unpredictable physical and emotional effects can be life-long.

The insulation, called myelin, surrounding the nerves is damaged or destroyed. When this occurs, messages from the brain are lost or interrupted. This is what causes the various MS symptoms we experience such as vision loss, double/blurred vision, numbness, coordination problems, balance problems, etc. No one knows what causes MS nor is there a cure. There are treatments available which can help with the symptoms you may experience while you are learning to live with Multiple Sclerosis.

Multiple sclerosis is well named. Sclerosis comes from the Greek word skleros, which means hard. Multiple sclerosis refers to multiple areas of patchy scarring, or plaques, that result from demyelination--destruction of myelin, a fatty insulation covering the nerve fibers.

Multiple sclerosis is defined as an autoimmune disease; that is, the body's immune system is damaged by genetic or environmental factors or both into attacking its own tissues. In the case of MS, these tissues are the myelin covering the nerve fibers in the brain.

The symptoms, severity, and course of MS vary widely depending partly on the sites of the plaques and the extent of the demyelination. Experts generally group multiple sclerosis into four types: relapsing-remitting, primary-progressive, secondary-progressive, and progressive-relapsing MS. The latter three forms generally fall under the category of chronic-progressive MS.