March Marks MS Awareness Month While Making Strides in Searching for a Cure

(KNSI) – March is a month set aside to raise awareness about a disease that’s left more than nine million people worldwide in pain and with difficulty moving.

MS Society Specialist Kameron Artley gave a bare-bones description of how the illness harms the body. “MS, or multiple sclerosis, is a central nervous system disease that disrupts the flow of information from the brain, to the body and sort of back and forth through the destruction of what is known as the myelin.”

Myelin is an insulating sheath around many nerve fibers that increases the speed at which impulses are conducted. Some symptoms included feeling numbness, tingling, mood changes, memory problems, fatigue, blindness, and paralysis. The disease can be hard to diagnose and generally takes an MS specialist or neurologist to make a diagnosis.

Artley tells KNSI News doctors have made huge strides in treating MS. For instance, in the 90s, there were only three injectable options for treatment. Today, there are 25 and some are in pill form. “We’ve progressed more in our research in the last five years than we did the seventy years that have preceded it.”

Walk MS St. Cloud is at Apollo High School on April 28th and helps cover the cost of life-changing science. There is no registration fee and no fundraising minimum to participate.

The MS Society ultimately hopes to help find a cure one day.

March has been selected as MS Awareness Month because the MS Society started on March 11th, 1946.

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