World Multiple Sclerosis Day

Tomorrow is focusing on multiple sclerosis with the goal of raising awareness and research.

You may know someone living with multiple sclerosis (MS).  Multiple sclerosis affects your central nervous system.  That includes your brain, spinal cord and optic nerves.

It is a chronic disease.  Your central nervous system controls just about everything that you do.  The disease basically affects communication between your brain and the rest of your body.

This can be a slow disease and your symptoms can vary.  Some common symptoms include:

• Fatigue
• Memory issues
• Mood
• Mobility
• Numbness
• Pain
• Tingling
• Vision impairment 

There are approximately  2.9 million sufferers of the disease worldwide.  Onset often occurs between the ages of 20 and 40.  

Unfortunately there is little known about the origins of multiple sclerosis and it can be hard to diagnose. If you have symptoms, your health professional will use many strategies to come to a diagnosis.

You may feel discouraged by all this news but there are some new treatments. The medicines won’t cure it but can help with symptoms and reduce relapses.

You should speak with your medical provider but some names of medicines are Fingolimod (Gilenya), Diroximel fumarate (Vumerity), Ozanimod (Zeposia), Ofatumumab, Novartis (Kesimpta), Ponesimod (Ponvory).  These are all newly approved by the FDA.

Private Home Health Care knows that multiple sclerosis is a difficult disease.  We remain hopeful that with current medicines and ongoing research the world can provide help for those who live with it.