What are typical symptoms of MS?
Symptoms of MS are unpredictable and vary from person to person and from time to time in the same person. For example: one person may experience abnormal fatigue, while another may have severe vision problems. A person with MS could have loss of balance and muscle coordination making walking difficult; another person with MS could have slurred speech, tremors, stiffness and bladder problems. Even severe symptoms may disappear completely and the person will regain lost functions. In severe MS, people have partial or complete paralysis on a permanent basis. What causes these symptoms? MS symptoms result when inflammation and breakdown affect myelin – the protective fibers of the central nervous system (the brain and spinal cord). Myelin is destroyed and replaced by scars of hardened “sclerotic” tissue. These are called plaques and they appear in multiple places within the central nervous system. Myelin is often compared to insulating material around an electrical wire: when the insulatin
