Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a condition that can affect the brain and spinal cord, causing a wide range of potential symptoms, including problems with vision, arm or leg movement, sensation or balance. It's a lifelong condition that can sometimes cause serious disability, although it can occasionally be mild.
Benign MS is a mild course where an individual will have mild disease after having MS for about 15 years. This occurs in about 5-10% of patients.
There's no cure for multiple sclerosis, but benign MS is the mildest form of the condition.
You may have to adapt your daily life if you're diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), but with the right care and support many people can lead long, active and healthy lives.
Your journey from diagnosis to living well with MS
Diagnosis can take months. This period of 'not quite knowing' is often referred to as 'limboland'.
Between 1 and 2 in every 10 people with the condition start their MS with a gradual worsening of symptoms. In primary progressive MS, symptoms gradually worsen and accumulate over several years, and there are no periods of remission, though people often have periods where their condition appears to stabilise.
A remission can last for weeks, months, or, in some cases, years. But remission doesn't mean you no longer have MS. MS medications can help reduce the chances of developing new symptoms, but you still have MS. Symptoms will likely return at some point.
Many people with MS may live for 25 to 35 years or longer after their diagnosis. Survival is improving in MS patients, but chronic medical conditions such as heart disease, lung disease, depression, or diabetes may lower life expectancy in MS.
Life expectancy with multiple sclerosis varies from patient to patient, but the average lifespan is 25 to 35 years after diagnosis. The most common causes of death in MS patients result from secondary complications such as chronic urinary tract infections and compromised swallowing and breathing.
One of the first questions many people have when they're diagnosed with MS is: “Will I still be able to drive?” The good news is that most people with MS continue to drive as normal.
Those symptoms include loss of vision in an eye, loss of power in an arm or leg or a rising sense of numbness in the legs. Other common symptoms associated with MS include spasms, fatigue, depression, incontinence issues, sexual dysfunction, and walking difficulties.
The term benign MS is sometimes used to describe a version of relapsing remitting MS with very mild or no attacks separated by long periods with no symptoms. 'Benign' means 'something doesn't cause any harm'.
There's currently no cure for multiple sclerosis (MS), but medicines and other treatments can help control the condition and ease some of the symptoms. Treatment for MS depends on the stage of the disease and the specific symptoms the person has.
As a comparison, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) says that benign MS occurs in 10 percent to 20 percent of MS patients.
MS varies from patient to patient so that each individual has their own set of symptoms, problems, and their own course. There are people who have MS so mildly that they never even know that they have it.
Observation of MS patients indicates that relapses also tend to diminish after that age, and that subsequent disease progression may not be immune-mediated, as it tends not to be associated with MRI-detectable inflammatory activity.
About 15% of patients will never necessitate assistance with ambulation, while 5-10% will do so within 5 years, and another 10% will do so in 15 years. Average patient will take about 28 years from the point of diagnosis to necessitate assistance while walking, and will be about 60 years of age.
The study found that people with MS lived to be 75.9 years old, on average, compared to 83.4 years old for those without. That 7.5-year difference is similar to what other researchers have found recently.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is difficult to diagnose, and, as yet, it has no cure. However, according to new research, it may be possible to slow its progression without some of the health risks associated with current treatments.
Does MS always progress? Every person with MS is unique and will experience the condition differently. MS is considered a progressive condition. This means that symptoms change over time, and it may progress to another type of MS.
Most symptoms develop abruptly, within hours or days. These attacks or relapses of MS typically reach their peak within a few days at most and then resolve slowly over the next several days or weeks so that a typical relapse will be symptomatic for about eight weeks from onset to recovery.
Pulmonary complications.
MS can weaken the muscles that control the lungs. Such respiratory issues are the major cause of sickness and death in people in the final stages of MS.
It's felt that most people experience the severest disabilities of MS within five years of diagnosis. After that point, their disabilities don't continue to worsen significantly. Therefore, if no additional disabilities appear within the first five years, then they are unlikely to occur in the future.
Protect nerves from damage
These include clearing up debris left over from myelin attacks, making sure nerves have the energy they need, and improving transport of important molecules in the nerves. By finding treatments that prevent nerve loss, we could slow or stop the progression of MS.