Multiple Sclerosis

MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS (MS)

Very interestingly, MS responds favorably to Chiropractic care. Let's discuss this common neuropathy in more detail:

From the MAYO Clinic;

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a potentially debilitating disease in which your body's immune system eats away at the protective sheath that covers your nerves. This interferes with the communication between your brain and the rest of your body. Ultimately, this may result in deterioration of the nerves themselves, a process that's not reversible.

Symptoms vary widely, depending on the amount of damage and which particular nerves are affected. People with severe cases of multiple sclerosis may loose the ability to walk or speak. Multiple sclerosis can be difficult to diagnose early in the course of the disease, because symptoms often come and go; sometimes disappearing for months.

Although multiple sclerosis can occur at any age, it most often begins in people between the ages of 20 and 40. Women are more likely to develop multiple sclerosis than are men.

Signs and Symptoms of MS: vary widely, depending on the location of affected nerve fibers. Multiple sclerosis signs and symptoms may include:

>Numbness or weakness in one or more limbs, which typically occurs on one side of your body at a time or the bottom half of your body
>Partial or complete loss of vision, usually in one eye at a time, often with pain during eye movement (optic neuritis)
>Double vision or blurring of vision, diplopia, nystagmus
>Tingling or pain in parts of your body
>Electric-shock sensations that occur with certain head movements
>Tremor, lack of coordination or unsteady gait
>Fatigue, dysarthria, intention tremor, ataxis, bladder dysfunction
>Dizziness
Most people with multiple sclerosis, particularly in the beginning stages of the disease, experience relapses of symptoms, which are followed by periods of complete or partial remission. Signs and symptoms of multiple sclerosis often are triggered or worsened by an increase in body temperature.

WHY? MS is an autoimmune disease, where the body's immune system attacks its own tissues. In multiple sclerosis, this process destroys myelin, the fatty substance that coats and protects nerve fibers in the brain and spinal cord. Myelin can be compared to the insulation on electrical wires. When myelin is damaged, the messages that travel along that nerve may be slowed or blocked.

Doctors and researchers don't understand exactly why multiple sclerosis occurs in some people and not others. A combination of factors, ranging from genetics to childhood infections, may play a role.

RISKS: These factors may increase your risk of developing multiple sclerosis:

Age:
Although multiple sclerosis can occur at any age, it most commonly begins in people between the ages of 20 and 40.

Sex:
Women are about twice as likely as men are to develop multiple sclerosis.

Heredity:
The risk of multiple sclerosis is higher for people who have a family history of the disease. For example, if one of your parents or siblings has had multiple sclerosis, you have a 1 to 3 percent chance of developing the disease ¡ª as compared with the risk in the general population, which is just a tenth of 1 percent.

But the experiences of identical twins show that heredity can't be the only factor involved. If multiple sclerosis was determined solely by genetics, identical twins would have identical risks. But that's not what happens. An identical twin has only a 30 percent chance of developing multiple sclerosis if his or her twin already has the disease.

Infections:
A variety of viruses have been linked to multiple sclerosis. Currently the greatest interest is in the association of multiple sclerosis with Epstein-Barr virus, the virus that causes infectious mononucleosis. How Epstein-Barr virus might result in a higher rate of MS remains to be clarified.

Race:
White people, particularly those whose families originated in northern Europe, are at highest risk of developing multiple sclerosis. People of Asian, African or Native American descent have the lowest risk.

Geographical factors:
Multiple sclerosis is far more common in countries with temperate climates, including Europe, southern Canada, northern United States, New Zealand and southeastern Australia. The risk seems to increase with latitude. There are between 250,000 and 350,000 MS suffers in the U.S. alone.

A child who moves from a high-risk area to a low-risk area, or vice versa, tends to have the risk level associated with his or her new home area. But if the move occurs after puberty, the young adult usually retains the risk level associated with his or her first home.

Other diseases:
People are very slightly more likely to develop multiple sclerosis if they have one of the following autoimmune disorders:

>Thyroid disease
>Type 1 diabetes
>Inflammatory bowel disease

DIAGNOSIS:

Clinical signs are often missed at first because they are so subtle. The general rule over the decades that has guided clinicians is that the diagnosis of MS is not secure unless there is a history of remission and relapse and evidence on examination of more than one discrete lesion of the CNS (central nervous system). With the advent of modern imaging devices, most notably the MRI, their capacity to identify clinically inevident lesions has obviated the heretorfore exclusive dependance on clinical findings as the criteria for a diagnosis. In fact, the MRI is now considered diagnostic for MS. About 90% of the time, the spine is involved.

Note the white colored areas in this brain MRI. This is dispositive proof of MS and its demyelinating process.

 In these MRI pictures of the lateral thoracic spine, note the closeup with the subtle but present whitish coloring of the spinal cord. This is diagnostic evidence of MS in the thoracic region of the spinal cord.

TREATMENT:

In the chiropractic office, we first recommend a wholistic approach that includes a throrough case history, clinical examination, possible use of a vitamin regime and, barring contra-indications, manipulation of the spine. The adjustments to the spine (here at BSCs we utilize "Diversified" technique), activate the EPSPs (excitatory post synaptic potentials) of the unharmed nerve tracts and that action seems to relieve not only the concomittant back pain that often accompanies the patient but helps restore, somewhat, lost functions such as sensory and motor. We don't claim to cure a patient of this disease but chiropractic manipulative reductions of the spine seem to hyper-activate the nerve tracks not affected by the MS plaquing.

Dr. Haberstroh is a Boston Chiropractor and a Somerville Chiropractor.