Latest studies are showing it may be a hardening of the arteries style disease vs an auto immune.

http://www.msnews.com/health/disease...mmune-disease/

Hmmm.... I know I know we get a new theory once a week, but this was fascinating.

What say you?

I'm all for finding the cause or causes for MS, as long as it leads to a cure of sorts or a vaccine.

I'd like to know the physiological components of this theory.What do they base this on? Why then do MRI pics show immune cells in the brain surrounding the myelin during an attack? If this theory is correct, would they test patients' blood vessels to see if they indeed are experiencing athlerosclerosis?
More questions than answers, which is the journey all of us are on, it seems

I hope the scientists take this other path, and see if something else like that is what causes MS. More research just like this must be done. My cousin has MS, and I the epson barr virus as a child. My immune system isn't good. I also think that pathogens in our environment may play a factor. There can never be enough research. I hope they find the cure, prevention, and adequate treatment, for those that suffer with this. ginnie

A few years ago, on this forum or elsewhere, there was a presentation that MS may not all be auto-immune, but some kinds could be chemical. I have carried this one step further, to think that one form of chemically initiated MS could be from Porphyria, the second disease I was dx'd with. Porphyria could produce a chemical assault on the brain, but does not seem to make myelin scars in everyone; an "expert" estimated 17% of those with Porphyria have the white spots shown on MRI.

As for athersclerosis, I have been tested for this over the years. When young and having MS symptoms, very clear arteries--a doctor who did a test said "I wish I had your arteries, like a teenager's." Then later, in old age, I have slight athersclerotic narrowing, or whatever you call it as it has not been discussed at length with me, but it is slight. I was tested for this because of my third disease, Polycythemia Vera, which produces "thick blood." I have to thin my blood with phelbotomies and now p32 and aspirin, but I don't have significantly narrowed arteries. I do have pain in my microvessels in my feet if I let the blood particles get too many. Very bad pain there but nothing else of vascular pain.

It is fascinating to me that Dr. Swank, whom I saw 24 years ago, believed that we with MS have slow moving blood. Blood particles stick together more readily, and one can see this on a microscope. He showed me my blood particles sticking and moving slowly,
and confirmed my previous MS dx. For a while he was treating MS patients with transfusions from normal-blooded relatives. He insisted on relatives or very close friends to avoid contaminated blood. I was too sick at the time to go through the hoops to drive to Portland and have my husband go with me, and my husband was working at that time, and it would have been a hardship, so I never tried this. One also had to take Benadryl to avoid allergic response to even the relative's matched blood (Irv's and mine were a match) and I knew I would become ill from Benadryl. Later my becoming ill from Benadryl was explained, because people with Porphyria can't usually take it (I can take Zyrtec instead).
Dr. Swank said that some MS patients who had not been walking started to walk, even wearing "heels", after the transfusions, but they lasted only about five months. Not a cure.
Swank was such a wonderful researcher and got little support for doing it. He got more support in England and was doing research there, and my blood was sent there, among others, for his research. But I don't think he completed that. He died at about 97 a few years ago, a great man who was appreciated by patients but not enough by other doctors.

Hmmm, metabolic disorder. I know I had off the charts high triglycerides a couple years after dxd with MS. I had to take meds for awhile but have it under control with diet now. My HDL and LDL were completely normal. Anyone else?

msarkie, I have high triglycerides and low good cholesterol. The low good cholesterol is common to most patients with Polycythemia Vera, my third disease. No one knows why.
Or if they do they aren't telling. Porphyria is called a metabolic disease, although it's also called a blood disorder, and neurovisceral disoder....I therefore don't contemplate MS as a singularity any more and can't which which did what in every case.

I too had high triglycerides and HDL, although I have lowered these considerably by cutting fat in my diet. Still, now that my numbers are down (not quite "normal" yet), I am still having MS symptoms that are persistent. Could it be that once the damage is started, it doesn't go away, even if the original problem is corrected?

Linda

Some damage to nerves is permanent. I guess I should say damage to brain or spinal cord, felt in the nerves. Some of it heals. But being on a low fat diet is very important for some kinds of MS, like mine. I was a patient of Dr. Swank who made the very low fat diet for MS well known. I probably will never get rid of high triglycerides. I can't take any of the meds that do that.

my first recognizable sign was polycythemia. They spoke of donating blood to throw it away, and other interventions. I quit smoking (see other thread) and it went away. My MD said she rarely saw that condition just go away.

Its been a round robin of medical BS. From low BP to skin conditions to dry eyes. I hate this stupid disease.