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.

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

No one in Jim's family has ms. BUT, let's remember that way back they would pass symptoms off as arthritis or something like that. Who really knows? Look how hard it is to diagnose today.

http://www.nationalmssociety.org/abo...ics/index.aspx

It says there is a 1 in 750 chance of someone getting MS in the US.

It says there is a 1 in 40 chance of your child getting MS if a parent has MS.

When I was dx. in '92 the NMSS was saying there was a 1 in 1,000 chance of someone in the US of getting MS. They too said there was a 1 in 100 chance of passing MS to your kids. MS is on the increase and they don't understand why. The NMSS now says too it doesn't matter which parent has MS.

EDITED: to say I don't know if this has been brought up...I was going to double check and I accidentally hit the wrong key...

I have it coming from both sides. My mom had MS and so did my grandmother (Dad's mom). So I've always figured there was a genetic element to it.

On the plus side, no one else in my family has gotten this. My dad and uncle, my brother, and my cousins have avoided it. I guess I won the lotto with getting it.

Actually the stats are from around 2005, not 1975.

And, this information has been known for quite a while, just getting closer to what the markers might be.

Bill, I don't know what to tell you -- the woman I spoke with at the NMSS told me that the statistics are from 1975. As per my thread about being upset with the statistics, that was the specific nature of my call.

This article supports that the last actual survey was in 1975 so is what you're saying that they increased the estimate in 2005? If that's the case, I'd like to know what it was before if you have it.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/40510.php