The multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic, often disabling, affecting the central nervous system. It is an attack of the immune system against the central nervous system.The symptoms of multiple sclerosis can be mild such as numbness in the limbs, severe or loss of vision. The progress and severity of this disease’s symptoms are unpredictable and vary from individual to individual. In this article, we will give a complete guide about the symptoms of ms in women.
What is Multiple Sclerosis?
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Multiple sclerosis, or MS, is a neurodegenerative disease of a chronic nature, which affects the central nervous system (which includes the brain, spinal cord, and optical nerves). Often disabling, multiple sclerosis appears to be. According to most experts, an autoimmune disease is the aggression operated by the immune system against the central nervous system.
Why is it called multiple sclerosis?
Multiple sclerosis is called this because, in the various areas where it is damaged (multiple), the myelin of those suffering from this disease develops scar tissue (sclerosis) in place of the normal tissue component.
Epidemiology: MS in Women
Multiple sclerosis is the most common autoimmune disease with central nervous system effects. Prevalence epidemiological studies have shown that multiple sclerosis is 2 to 3 times more common in women than in men.
Normally, most diagnoses of multiple sclerosis occur between the ages of 20 and 50, which means that the disease tends to arise at this stage in the human being’s life. This is most likely due to improved diagnostic techniques and increased knowledge of the disease.
Symptoms of MS in Women (Multiple Sclerosis)
In multiple sclerosis, damage to the central nervous system’s myelin interferes with the brain’s transmission of nerve signals. This alteration of nerve transmission causes multiple sclerosis’s primary symptoms, varying depending on where the damage occurs. During the course of the disease, some symptoms come and go, while others may be more lasting.
Common symptoms of multiple sclerosis include:
- Tiredness, fatigue, and weakness. Found in about 80% of patients, the sense of fatigue is such that it can seriously interfere with the activities of the affected person, both at work and home.
- Sense of numbness in the face, body, and/or extremities (limbs).
- Difficulty in walking, disturbances of coordination, and balance problems.
- Bladder disorders: They may include urgency to urinate, urinary incontinence, and difficulty in completely emptying the bladder ( urinary retention ).
- Visual disturbances: They can consist of blurred vision, nystagmus, optic neuritis, impaired color vision, pain in the eyes when moving, and loss of vision.
- For many people with multiple sclerosis, visual disturbances are the first symptom of the disease.
- Vertigo: They are related to balance problems.
- Sensitivity disturbances. They can consist of an alteration of touch and a reduction in sensitivity to heat, cold, and pain ;
- Pain: It affects just over 50% of patients and can consist of acute but transient sensations, tenuous but chronic sensations, heartburn, musculoskeletal pain, or tension.
- The sites most involved are the back, abdomen, and face.
- Cognitive disturbances: They affect more than 50% of patients and may consist of memory and learning problems, difficulty maintaining concentration, attention difficulties, calculation problems, inability to perform operations of a certain complexity, and problems in perceiving the ‘environment correctly;
- Sexual disorder: For male patients, erectile dysfunction and premature or absent ejaculation are reported. For female patients, on the other hand, difficulty in reaching orgasm and loss of sensitivity in the genital area.
- Mood changes and depression.
- Spasticity: It can include muscle stiffness and involuntary spasms that complicate movement.
- It is usually felt in the lower limbs. However, it can also affect the upper limbs.
- Other, less frequent symptoms may accompany these widespread manifestations of multiple sclerosis. Such as speech disturbances, hearing problems, and tremors.
Possible Causes Of Multiple Sclerosis In Women
To date, the causes responsible for the onset of the disease are still uncertain. Researchers argue that a combination of factors may be involved in the onset of multiple sclerosis. Studies are underway in immunology (the science that deals with the body’s immune system) and epidemiological and genetic studies to answer. Understanding the causes of multiple sclerosis will be of fundamental help in understanding how to deal with this disease from a therapeutic point of view and/or how to prevent it.
Immunological causes
It is now accepted that multiple sclerosis contributes to a neurodegenerative process mediated by the immune system at the central nervous system (an abnormal response of the body’s immune system directed against the myelin of the CNS ).
Environmental causes
Multiple sclerosis is known to occur more frequently in areas far from the equator. Scholars are investigating many factors, including geographic, demographic (age, gender, and ethnicity) variations, infections, and more, to understand the reason for this evidence.
This suggests that exposure to environmental factors before puberty would predispose the person to develop multiple sclerosis subsequently. People who live much closer to the equator are exposed to a large amount of sunlight throughout the year. As a result, they tend to have higher levels of naturally produced vitamin D.
Causes of Infection
Virus or infectious agent may cause multiple sclerosis.
Genetic Causes
Multiple sclerosis is not a hereditary disease. Having a first degree relative, such as a parent or sibling, affected by the disease increases an individual’s risk of developing it.
Studies have shown a higher prevalence of some genes in populations with higher rates of multiple sclerosis. Common genetic factors have also been found in some families where there is more than one affected person.
Some researchers hypothesize that multiple sclerosis develops due to a genetic predisposition that leads the immune system to react to some environmental agent, which triggers an autoimmune response in the organism’s exposure.
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How To Diagnosis Multiple Sclerosis in Women
Currently, there are no laboratory analyzes or instrumental tests that can determine whether a person has multiple sclerosis. Typically, doctors use different strategies to check it.
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The classic strategy undertaken to arrive at a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis includes a careful examination of the medical history (anamnesis), a neurological examination, a blood test, lumbar puncture (analysis of spinal fluids), and some instrumental tests, including an MRI of the brain and spinal cord and the so-called evoked potential test.
How is Multiple Sclerosis Treated?
Currently, no cure allows you to recover from multiple sclerosis. That deals with regulating food and pharmaceutical products – which have been shown to slow the disease’s course (they are the so-called multiple sclerosis modifying drugs. ).
Furthermore, we must not forget the existence of medicines and therapies that effectively control the so-called attacks. And treatments useful for the management of certain typical symptoms of multiple sclerosis.
For some time now, the medical-scientific community has been trying to understand the causes of multiple sclerosis and find a more specific cure. Thanks to advances in medicine, research in this direction is taking important steps. However, question marks still remain.
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Multiple Sclerosis Modifying Drugs
Multiple sclerosis-modifying drugs can have the following effects:
- Slow down the course of the disease and the progressive disability that follows.
- Decrease the frequency and intensity of so-called attacks.
- Reduce the accumulation of lesions (damaged areas) in the myelinated nerve fibers of the brain.
These drugs clearly require a medical prescription and have various side effects, sometimes even significant ones.
Medicines
Among the drugs used in the management of symptoms of multiple sclerosis, the following are noted:
- Medicines to reduce muscle spasms and stiffness (e.g., the muscle relaxants baclofen and tizanidine ).
- Medicines to reduce the sense of chronic fatigue (e.g., amantadine, methylphenidate hydrochloride ).
- The dalfampridine, which serves to improve the walking speed.
- Medicines for erectile dysfunction, depression, chronic pain, and bladder and bowel problems.
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Physiotherapy
Physiotherapy for multiple sclerosis patients includes stretching. And muscle strengthening exercises, with the ultimate goal of relieving motor and coordination problems and the sense of weakness.
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Frequently Asked Questions on Symptoms of MS in Women
What is The first Symptom of Multiple Sclerosis( MS)?
The first symptom of multiple sclerosis (MS) can vary from person to person, but often includes issues with vision, such as blurred or double vision, due to inflammation affecting the optic nerve.
What are the Most Common Symptoms of MS?
The most common symptoms of MS include fatigue and problems with walking, blurred or double vision, numbness or tingling, muscle weakness, and problems with coordination and balance.
What Age Group of People are Most Affected by MS symptoms?
Multiple sclerosis (MS) commonly presents its initial symptoms between the ages of 20 and 40, with most diagnoses occurring in individuals in their late 20s and early 30s.
