Multiple Sclerosis Symptoms
and Causes

Cervical spine MRI with enhancement showing multiple sclerosis.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a nervous system disease that affects your brain and spinal cord. It damages the myelin sheath, the material that surrounds and protects your nerve cells. This damage slows down or blocks messages between your brain and your body, leading to the symptoms of MS.

SYMPTOMS:

Earlier stages: occasional dizziness, mood swings or depression, numbness in the fingers and feet, weakness in the hand and feet, loss of balance, nausea and vomiting, muscular stiffness, tremors, slurred speech, and difficult breathing.

Later stages: difficulty in walking, a staggering gait. Later still: spastic movements, paralysis, extreme fatigue, and bowel and bladder incontinence.

Symptoms flare up and then nearly disappear for a time. Yet, the problem keeps worsening over a matter of weeks, but sometimes slowly over decades.

CAUSES:

Multiple sclerosis is a progressive, degenerative disorder of the central nervous system. The nerves are covered with a coating called myelin. MS destroys this covering, leaving scar tissue (called plaques) in its place. Eventually the nerves themselves become sclerotic (hardened) and stop functioning.

Possible causes, according to Natural Remedies Encyclopedia, include an autoimmune attack on the white blood cells of the myelin sheaths, malnutrition or poor diet, stress, possible food allergies (lead, mercury etc.) chemicals (industrial chemicals, pesticides, etc.) toxins from bacteria and fungi in the body, and vaccinations.

Diet appears to be a primary factor: heavy consumption of meat, sugar, refined grains, and rancid oils.

Overwork, emotional stress, fatigue, pregnancy, acute respiratory infections, chemical poising and poor diet are known to precede the onset.

MS usually begins between 25 and 40; it is twice as often in women more than men. In America alone 350,000 people have MS. It is the most common acquired disease of the nervous system in young adults.