Wow.

Hey, all you parents with MS, I have to tell you this. I'm the only kid out of 6 in the same litter with MS. No one in my whole extended family has it.

Please, please, please don't feel guilty about the genetic possibilities. Nothing wrecks me more than when I catch my dad weeping about my condition because a few years ago, he read an article that suggested a paternal genetic link.

I don't blame him, or my mother for any of this! Don't let yourself go to that bad place, it's not worth it!

Caveat: I do blame them for not giving me a new Firebird on my 16th birthday. Tightwads.

No one in my immediate or extended family has MS either. We do have autoimmune issues in the family and my endocrinologist told me that the genetic predisposition for me was simply the autoimmune tendency. How it manifests one way or another is entirely different story!

I personally think there's not going to be just one answer fits all but absolutely, this study will definitely be very helpful. There are certainly a lot of people who DO have MS running in the family.

I think I'm first in the family to have MS, although my Father had Polio as a kid. There must have been a genetic link somewhere, though, because, even though my Brother didn't have it, his DD, my Niece, may have it.

Of course, you all know, my DD has it, but is in total remission (Thank You Lord), at this time.

Thanks, Nappy, but of course I feel guilty.

Both of my parents have passed away, or else I could participate in the genetic study. I have a strong suspicion my Mom had MS. She had a lot of the classic symptoms of what would have been fairly mild MS. She finally had foot drop that got worse over her last two decades of life.

She had falls, problems with speech, fatigue and hand strength among other things.

My half niece (from my Dad) has MS, a really bad case.

I hope and pray our sons don't get it but if they do, that it will be mild and they'll have good medicines to treat it.

interesting I have asked everyone in my family no one can recall anyone having MS, strokes, heart attacks yes, MS no

By the way Frank, I miss your psychedelic peace sign!!

It's so sad when you keep hearing stories of all sorts of relations with MS. The guy who did my last MRI told me he has a friend who has MS and both his friend's sisters do too. Wow...3 siblings all with MS. I really hope they find this cure soon!

This has always been one of my pet peeves with MS. Just a few years ago when I was diagnosed it was rare to find much information and the few articles I did find were, imo, insultingly optimistic. Since it is such a charged topic when this topic came up on the boards it often resulted in hurt feelings rather than productive dialog.

My personal thoughts are that since MS strikes young women of childbearing years and until recently there was nothing to offer us the Docs were relieved not to have any research to back what only makes sense, to me...that there is often a familial link.

We can make our own decisions about whether or not to have children, if we haven't been blessed with them already, but rather than just gloss over it we have the need and the right to know more realistic stats on the possibility of passing it on even if it never happens.

I truly believe that accepting and thoroughly researching this connection, that is present in so many families, is one of the keys to making advances. Its about time.

Just a little anecdote. One of my girlfriend's husband is a great neurologist and he told me that years back when he was in med school one of their cadavars was a woman who had a "stroke" back in her 20s. It left permanent damage to her gait but if I remember correctly she lived the rest of her life without any other issues until she got much older and had eye problems which were attributed to her age. Upon autopsy she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. Before MRI it was anyone's best guess, imo.

FYI, here are the stats as they appear on the NMSS website. Of course, we don't know exactly how they were derived or how old this is -- remember that the 1.5 million worldwide/400,000 U.S. stats are from 1975.

"The average person in the United States has about one chance in 750 of developing MS. But relatives of people with MS, such as children, siblings or non-identical twins, have a higher chance—ranging from one in 100 to one in 40. The identical twin of someone with MS, who shares all the same genes, has a one in three chance of developing the disease."

A friend of mine just had a Grandson with Cystic Fibrosis, which is an inherited disease. Both parents have be carriers and pass on a certain gene, but even then I think there is only a 25% chance that their children might get CF. They have one healthy child already.

There is absolutely no history what-so-ever of Cystic Fibrosis cropping up on either side of their large families (even though both parents must have inherited the gene and been carriers).

Maybe MS is like that, and doesn't even necessarily need a trigger.

I think it's strange that Muscular Dystrophy and Multiple Sclerosis were both "discovered" in the early-mid 1800's. There is some speculation that MS symptoms might have presented a few times earlier in history . . . but they have been documenting illnesses/diseases/autopsy results since the beginning of time, and there is no evidence that MS was ever observed at autopsy until two independant doctors "discovered" it at virtually the same time in the 1800's.

Well, I suppose it might take me off the hook if they determine it's mostly genetic, but of course I worry for my kids.

Cherie