Managing MS

People with a chronic illness, neurologic or otherwise, are often faced with the dilemma of whether they should let their coworkers, family and friends know about how they are feeling and even if they carry the diagnosis.   This is a highly personal decision.  On the one hand, allowing others “in” can help you get the […]

Many types of conditions tend to occur together, without one causing the other.  For example, people with migraine are more likely than the general population to suffer from depression and people who suffer from depression are more likely to experience migraine.  Yet, migraines do not necessarily cause depression, and depression does not necessarily cause migraines. 

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is caused by the attack of the patient’s immune system on the coating of nerve fibers (myelin) in the Central Nervous System (brain and spinal cord). We also know that the nerve fibers themselves can be damaged, which causes even greater disability.   Researchers have identified a molecule in the spinal fluid

More than just ok for MS patients, Ozempic may actually be beneficial to those who would have developed it. Recent studies have shown the potential neuroprotective effects of diabetes and weight loss drugs (called semaglutides) in different neurologic conditions, such as Parkinson’s Disease (https://becarelink.com/the-meds-americans-crave-for-weight-loss-may-benefit-patients-with-early-parkinsons-disease/). A study presented at a MS conference (Actrims) in 2024 showed

A recently published study suggests that MS patients are likely to have greater disability progression if they also carry diagnoses of other autoimmune disorders, such as Crohn’s disease, Ulcerative Colitis, and Type 1 Diabetes. The gold standard tool of measuring disability in MS is called the Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS).  The scale ranges from

The most well-known type of Multiple Sclerosis is Relapsing-Remitting MS (RRMS) in which the patient experiences a distinct onset of symptoms and significant improvement of the symptoms as the flare remits.  As this is a chronic disorder, repeated flares can cause permanent damage and therefore long-term and permanent disability.  The longer someone lives with MS,

There has been a longstanding debate as to whether depression, which is noted exceedingly frequently in MS patients, is caused by the disease state (in other words biologically distinct from depression that occurs in other neurologic and psychiatric conditions) or is a co-morbidity of MS (meaning that MS and depression tend to occur together but

PET scans (Positron emission Tomography) is an imaging technique often used to detect the spread of cancer or changes in the brain associated with Alzheimer’s Disease. A recent publication reports that PET scans can reveal unsuspected smoldering inflammation in patients treated with disease-modifying treatments (DMT).  The existence of ongoing low-grade inflammation may help explain why