About Multiple Sclerosis

First off, what IS Multiple Sclerosis? It is a chronic neurological disorder of the Central Nervous System. (CNS) The Brain and Spinal cord. There are many cells that make up this system, but the ones that are affected, are the nerve cells.

Human nerve cells are made up of tiny fibers known as axons that extend throughtout the body in gossamer webs that crisscross in extremely complex patterns, carrying neurological messages to different parts of the body, and ultimately connecting the central nervous system to other vital organs such as sensory, the heart, lungs, and practically every other part of the body.

Nerve fibers are made up of really sensitive tissues, and they need a special coating to protect them. This protection is a white fatty tissue, called the myelin sheath. These sheaths protect the fibers from abuse and help quicken the transfer of nerve impulses along them, like the electrical wire coating protects the wire within.

For reasons that so far, are unknown, patches on these sheaths are attacked and stripped away. The oligodendrocytes and astrocytes, star shaped neurological cells, arrive to repair the damage caused by the immune system of the human's own body, but in repairing, they cause scar tissue, called gliotic plaques to form.

These plaques become hard and sclerotic, which is a hardening or thickening of cellular tissue, and begin to interfere or obstruct the flow of impulses that pass along the nerve cells.

Normally impulses travel approximately 225 miles an hour along axonal pathways. When a section of myelin sheath is destroyed, nerve impulsesare slowed down to half that speed or less.

If a sclerotic plaque is small, say, the size of a pinhole, the disturbances will produce only a single function of the body. If large, an inch or longer, it may disturb many functions at once. If a plaque heals, and then another forms somewhere else in the CNS, the symptom produced will change, along with the location in the body. If several plaques are active at the same time, there will be multiple symptoms, affecting many different parts of the body.

If one or more plaques are in the brain, fatigue may occur, with slurred speech, dizzyness, and muscle weakness. The type of symptoms produced, basically,depends on the size of the sclerotic plaque, where the plaque is located in the CNS, and how many there are.

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