At this point, I believe there is something "mechanical" going wrong, and demyelination, exacerbations, psuedo exacerbations, 'triggers' (mono, accidents, stress), etc. are just how the underlying damage reveals itself.

Kinda' like a TIA is warning for a stroke, or angina is for a heart attack . . . our "mechanics" are faulty and we get warnings that we need repair by getting an exacerbation or symptoms. Since they haven't figured out what is actually wrong, our bodies just keep causing more damage to themselves, appearing as lesions. We blame the lesions for the problem, but I think they are mostly just the result of the problem.

A comparible example might be hardening of the arteries. For instance, if they hadn't figured out that cholesterol/plaque build-up causes hardening of the arteries, people would have kept having unnecessary heart attacks. I believe that if they could figure out where MS damage "stems from", mechanically, we might be able to stop having relapses, lesions, etc.

I think they are spending too much time on trying to manage the resulting damage (reducing inflammation, etc.), instead of trying to figure out what caused it and fixing that.

Just my latest theory.

Cherie