Benign multiple sclerosis (MS) describes a form of MS that a person may have for several years without experiencing any of the severe symptoms that the condition generally causes.
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.
Disease Course of MS Is Unpredictable
A person with benign MS will have few symptoms or loss of ability after having MS for about 15 years, while most people with MS would be expected to have some degree of disability after that amount of time, particularly if their MS went untreated.
Can I have multiple sclerosis for years and not know it? Yes. MS can go undetected for years. Research has suggested that many patients experience MS-related symptoms and signs several years before receiving a definite diagnosis of the disease.
Outlook. The outlook for benign MS isn't clear. Some people who are diagnosed with it never go on to have a more serious disease progression, while others do. Remember, just because you have mild symptoms when you're first diagnosed with MS doesn't mean that they'll stay that way.
Only a small percentage of people with MS receive their diagnosis after age 50. In some cases, these people have late-onset MS. But for some, the diagnosis represents a delayed identification of years — or even decades — of unrecognized symptoms.
These include fibromyalgia and vitamin B12 deficiency, muscular dystrophy (MD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease), migraine, hypo-thyroidism, hypertension, Beçhets, Arnold-Chiari deformity, and mitochondrial disorders, although your neurologist can usually rule them out quite easily.
MS can occur at any age, but onset usually occurs around 20 and 40 years of age. However, younger and older people can be affected.
MS can appear at any age but most commonly manifests between the ages of 20 and 40. It affects women two to three times as often as men. Almost one million people in the United States have MS, making it one of the most common causes of neurological disability among young adults in North America.
A person will only receive a diagnosis of benign MS if they have been without severe disabling symptoms of the disease for 15 years. However, this does not mean that a person cannot experience a relapse after this time and see their disease progress into a more severe form.
While there is no cure for MS (multiple sclerosis), there are some studies that suggest early, aggressive treatment should begin at the earliest signs of the disease for many patients.
Although more people are being diagnosed with MS today than in the past, the reasons for this are not clear. Likely contributors include greater awareness of the disease, better access to medical care and improved diagnostic capabilities. There is no definitive evidence that the rate of MS is generally on the increase.
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.
Factors that may trigger MS include: Exposure to certain viruses or bacteria: Some research suggests that being exposed to certain infections (such as Epstein-Barr virus) can trigger MS later in life. Where you live: Your environment may play a role in your risk for developing MS.
In many patients, over a span of 5 to 15 years, the attacks begin more indolently, persist more chronically and remit less completely, gradually transforming into a pattern of steady deterioration rather than episodic flares. This pattern is referred to as secondary progressive MS.
The youngest age of onset of MS in the medical literature is 2 years but the majority of children are diagnosed in their early teens. In 3 to 5 percent of cases, MS onset is before age 16; an onset before 10 years of age is extremely uncommon, with a reported incidence of 0.2 to 0.7 percent.
Sarcoidosis is another inflammatory autoimmune disease that shares some symptoms with MS, including fatigue and decreased vision. But sarcoidosis most commonly affects the lungs, lymph nodes, and skin, causing a cough or wheezing, swollen lymph nodes, and lumps, sores, or areas of discoloration on the skin.
Neuromyelitis optica (NMO) is a rare chronic disease that happens when your immune system attacks specific parts of your central nervous system. Experts previously thought this was a rare type of multiple sclerosis (MS) but now recognize it's a separate condition.
A multiple sclerosis (MS) self-assessment cannot diagnose MS, but it may help a person understand their symptoms and know when to contact a doctor. An MS self-assessment may focus on energy levels, physical sensations, vision problems, and more.
Spinal tap (lumbar puncture), in which a small sample of cerebrospinal fluid is removed from your spinal canal for laboratory analysis. This sample can show abnormalities in antibodies that are associated with MS . A spinal tap can also help rule out infections and other conditions with symptoms like MS .
This is related to hundreds of billions of dollars a year in additional health care costs. With MS, when you don't stay with your treatment, there's the chance that the disease will continue unchecked. That means your immune system can go on causing inflammation and damage in your central nervous system.
MS is a Silent Disease
For example, chronic pain, blurred vision, and sensory problems are only experienced by the individual with MS, and cannot be easily noticed by others.
Erica: Minimal MS Symptoms and No Relapses
Although many people with relapsing-remitting MS experience regular symptoms and have disease relapses following their diagnosis, others go years without experiencing “attacks,” according to the Cleveland Clinic.