Post Schizophrenia Risk Increases When Small Genetic Differences Combine
(Psych Central News) When combined, single DNA letter difference in two separate genes may increase one’s risk for developing schizophrenia, according to Johns Hopkins researchers. Scientists have had a difficult time pinpointing the causes for psychiatric diseases such as schizophrenia and autism, because these disorders may be triggered by several small genetic changes that alone may not trigger

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IMHO I think MS is like that.

MS has many triggers and it's NOT all in our heads. For instance falling on my butt, in the garage, and injuring my leg, was a trigger for an MS exaserbation. It can be mental stress or physical stress....It can be environmental, hereditory and other factors.

It's like Schizophrenia, as in, you are destined for it, just as you are MS, in my humble opinion.

PBS did a documentary called Ghost in Your Genes. It talks about this very thing - how genes can be switched on and off by triggers. To me, it makes a lot of sense and really believe that epigentics plays a bigger role in disease than we realize, MS included. Somehow, one or more of our genes/genome/epigenome got switched on or off or a combination of on and off.

My whole life is watching for triggers now, triggers for Porphyria, which can be some drugs, some foods, and environmental toxins. Avoiding triggers is the only available help.
I hadn't thought that MS has triggers but now that I think of it, this was part of Swank's theory. He thought fatty foods triggered an autoimmune response which attacked myelin.
And I have never done well if I go off the Swank diet, except in one respect. I can eat more eggs than he recommended. But saturated fat is always a trigger for imbalance and eventual staggering. So I just avoid it.

I think our forest fire here this summer, which spread toxic fumes that lasted for months, triggered spasm and eventual seizure in my eyes. I was having blind episodes of several seconds, with painful spasm and what one medical person thought were seizures, where my eyes turned up. These episodes were brief and are gone now. Toxins are a big trigger for me, especially toxins in smoke.

I haven't got my mind wrapped around all the scientific jargon--science was never my best subject. But whenever someone asks how long I've had MS, I always think "I've probably ALWAYS had it", especially since my dad had it. That it was always lying in wait. I first started having symptoms after an EXTREMELY stressful time in my life, physically and emotionally.

Me too, Blessings, except that Science was one of my best subjects..

Me, too, B2Y. And now that I look back I know my Dad had it even though we didn't know it then. Just too many coincidences. Plus he had so many other things going on health-wise that MS was just never investigated thoroughly.

Hindsight is always 20/20. Just thinking back on earlier days......I would have never, ever thought I'd be 50 and dealing with MS.

Stressful and emotional things will bring MS to the forefront.....and quickly.

Sorry everybody, I'm looking through some really old posts and had a question about this.

In Nov 2011 I was burned by a chemical in a very sensitive area, was in the hospital, off work more than a month, still have scars. A few months after this happened I had a major, the worst, family emergency. Then in July 2012 my PN totally kicked in, maybe it started as early as April. I had a lot of brain fog and attributed it to PTSD (at least that's what the PCP said). That was the worst year in my life, and probably will be the worst I'll ever have.

My latest theory is that whatever I have is an autoimmune reaction to the trauma. While the burn may not have actually caused the PN, it caused whatever I have to come out of it's hiding space.

Thoughts?

Chaos, I believe that trauma/stress can bring things to the surface that might not ordinarily appear.

When my severe visual exacerbation happened (the one that got me the MS diagnosis) in 2005 I had been through several traumatic events in the months prior. My Dad passed away in January, my Mom passed away in March and in April I was deathly ill with two back to back bouts of bronchitis. I don't think I was that sick even when I had Mono. It took several months to recover. Then in October I had the visual exacerbation and it was downhill (MS-wise) from there.

I used to be convinced that any heavy duty stress, mental or
physical, was the cause of MS, but later realized that it was
a trigger.