With all of the news this year on the Covid 19 pandemic, the immune system has been in focus for a lot more people. From keeping an eye on what we eat, to increasing our exercise, to making sure that we have a good night’s sleep – for the vast majority of us, the immune system is a great defence system for our bodies.
But in some people, it is their immune system which can cause a problem for them and actually make them ill. When the immune system starts to attack the body itself this can cause all sorts of problems.
One of the conditions that is caused by the immune system attacking part of the body is Multiple Sclerosis, known as MS for short. What happens in the body of someone who has this condition, is the protective layer surrounding he nerves, called myelin is mistaken by the immune system for an invading pathogen and attacked.
This then causes enormous amounts of damaging scars to form over time on the myelin and sometimes on the nerves themselves. Symptoms of this can vary, depending on which part of the body has been most damaged, but include tingling, vision problems, numbness, bladder release problems and incontinency and difficulty with movement.
Although there is no cure at the present time for this, many people are doing a lot of research – things like paid clinical trials like these https://www.trials4us.co.uk/ , and research into new medications mean that hopefully soon the condition will be easier to manage and may even be cured in the not too distant future.
