suspected cause of MS or other neurological problems

New diagnosis and before diagnosis
1

My husband became ill at the beginning of last year and was diagnosed as an atypical relapsing remitting ms sufferer and has been on beta interferon since november . I know it probably wont make any difference to the outcome of his illness but I really want to know what has caused it . I also know that MS is different for everyone but I cant find anyone that reports the same symptoms as his. As both he and myself had peculiar illnesses before his diagnosis I am wondering if this was just a coincidence . He was 64 which is considered ‘old’ for a new discovery although he was a young 64. At first I thought it might be the memory foam mattress topper which we had both been using before we started getting ill - it had an awful smell. I had it tested by trading standards after reading peoples experiences of getting ms because of the toxins in it. There were many toxins in it but nothing that exceeded the legal limits. He had a flu jab but I didnt . I just wondered if anyone else has thought about the possible cause or just accepted that it may be genetic,

I believe that finding the causes would help greatly in finding the best treatments and perhaps even a cure one day

2

Here’s a link to the MS Society’s factual summary of what is known about the causes of MS. Jos, the main part of this MSS site is a really good source of info generally.

In other words, it’s complicated! I suspect that many of us have our private views on what triggered our MS. I certainly do (shingles!), although I accept that it takes a perfect storm of things to have gone wrong (wrong genes, wrong environment, wrong exposure to the wrong things at the wrong moment) for a person to be left vulnerable to that final straw that breaks the camel’s back and triggers the condition. It is natural to look for the smoking gun. But the truth is that it is probably never that simple.

One thing’s for sure, it seems to me: a person can neither bring MS upon himself, nor avoid it. No sin of omission or commission will either cause it or evade it, as far as we know. In the end it comes down to sheer bald-headed bad luck, I think.

Alison

3

Thank you so much Alison , very eloquently put and thank you for the link

Jos