Like others, I don't think we all got here the same way. I think we have a malfunction in common but probably not all caused by the same thing or things. There are also plenty of people with allergies who don't have MS or another "defined" autoimmune disease. If there are those for whom allergies played into MS I suspect that a breach in the blood-brain barrier is part of the equation. It just seems too simple unto itself but despite any specuation about causation, I do think it makes sense that allergies could at least exacerbate symptoms.

FYI, after this thread appeared I did a quick search for MS and allergies and was interested to see 2 articles from PubMed. However, note that they were both from the '50s!!!! Here's one of them -- the article begins "For the past ten years there has been an increasing acceptance of the theory that allergenic reaction is a causative factor in multiple sclerosis..."

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/art...?artid=1521914

As with the other search, over 2,000,000 hits were returned. I didn't have time to look but hopefully there's something in a more medically oriented publication that's more recent!