Neurologists tell us that MS is an auto-immune disorder. We know people with MS have scarring in the brain. lots of individual people say the scarring in the brain is down to all sorts of things and auto-immune issues don’t really come into it. In truth, in over 150 years of ms having a name researchers still can’t say what causes the condition. On the whole I think it helps save my sanity not to explore how this situation has arisen. I don’t believe all these researchers are stupid so why have their efforts been so woefully unfocused so far?
“Follow the money” is usually fairly good advice when investigating most gnarly questions and I don’t imagine it’s any different here. But this thought pattern doesn’t get me anywhere so I won’t continue expending energy on it.
The closest anyone can come to defining MS is calling it multi-factorial, some sort of a combination of disordered immune activity, congenital vascular defects, reactions to infectious agents in the air we breathe and the food we eat, viral triggers and… the list goes on!
Whatever may bring it about, MS can be considered a disease of inflammation in the brain.
Uncertainty seems to be all we can be certain about with MS but at least people are looking… in a variety of places.
Since the 1830s a vein running through the centre of lesions in the brain has been noted in post mortem studies of MS’d brains. This suggests MS is a vascular disorder where cerebral blood flow is restricted or at the very least not optimal for a happily functioning brain.
What I have chosen to take from this somewhat muddy, unresolved and frankly disappointing situation of indefinite research that seems to take us no further along a treatment route (except perhaps interminable antibiotic protocols) is that there are many other things I can do to try and make my life a little better.
It took me a while to reach this point and I still sometimes howl at the moon at the injustice of less than useful MS research. But if there’s one thing MS has given me it’s an understanding that life isn’t fair so, nowadays I focus on what I can change around me.
- Exercise of any sort possible every single day. We’re not talking team sports although go for your life if that’s your bag.
- I’m pleased when I can do either press ups on the stairs, standing for any length of time, moving limbs generally,
- I think I’ve mentioned the rebounder elsewhere
- Trying to increase how long I can hold the plank for,
- some Pilates movements – building a core is helping me walk it’s at the foundation of all movement,
- Exercise bike at various resistances and dancing (not in front of anyone though!)
I’d imagine dancing would be good exercise as it involves controlled, coordinated movement in step with someone else. Table tennis is supposed to be a good game for involving brain and limbs and eyes and asking them to work in concert.
I’m hoping increased muscles generally and in the trunk particularly will contribute to keeping walking. Also, further exertion for muscles would demand extra bloodflow which should eventually increase circulation around the brain, I’m choosing to believe.