Five Advance Warnings of Multiple Sclerosis

Five Advance Warnings of Multiple Sclerosis

First things first, a quick check-in with regard to how much you know about multiple sclerosis (MS):

• Do you know what causes it?
• Do you know how it happens?
• Do you know how it can be fixed?

If your answer to the above questions is “no”, then take solace in the fact that modern science doesn’t know either.

What we do know is that it’s an autoimmune condition, and that it results in the degradation of myelin, the “insulator” of nerves, in the central nervous system.

• How exactly this is brought about remains unclear, though there are several leading hypotheses including autoimmune attack of myelin itself, or disruption to the production of myelin.
• Treatments look to reduce/mitigate inflammation, and/or treat other symptoms (which are many and various) on an as-needed basis.

If you’re wondering about the prognosis after diagnosis, the scientific consensus on that is also “we don’t know”:

Read: Personalized medicine in multiple sclerosis: hope or reality?

this paper, like every other one we considered putting in that spot, concludes with basically begging for research to be done to identify biomarkers in a useful fashion that could help classify many distinct forms of MS, rather than the current “you have MS, but who knows what that will mean for you personally because it’s so varied” approach.

The Five Advance Warning Signs

Something we do know! First, we’ll quote directly the researchers’ conclusion:

❝We identified 5 health conditions associated with subsequent MS diagnosis, which may be considered not only prodromal but also early-stage symptoms.

However, these health conditions overlap with prodrome of two other autoimmune diseases, hence they lack specificity to MS.❞

So, these things are a warning, five alarm bells, but not necessarily diagnostic criteria.

Without further ado, the five things are:

1. depression
2. sexual disorders
3. constipation
4. cystitis
5. urinary tract infections

❝This association was sufficiently robust at the statistical level for us to state that these are early clinical warning signs, probably related to damage to the nervous system, in patients who will later be diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

The overrepresentation of these symptoms persisted and even increased over the five years after diagnosis.❞

~ Dr. Céline Louapre

Read the paper for yourself:

Association Between Diseases and Symptoms Diagnosed in Primary Care and the Subsequent Specific Risk of Multiple Sclerosis

Hot off the press! Published only yesterday!

Want to know more about MS?

Here’s a very comprehensive guide:

National clinical guideline for diagnosis and management of multiple sclerosis

Take care!