Multiple Sclerosis Informative Speech

Imagine you are nine years old and helping unpack groceries with your mother. In an instant everything changes. Your mom drops what she is holding and is now frozen on the ground. Her left side is paralyzed and there is nothing you can do except sit with her and wait for it to be over. You tell yourself it will be over soon, that the doctors will find a cure soon. This wasn’t the first attack and it wouldn’t be the last. She has Multiple Sclerosis, but nobody would know that until months later. At that moment the attacks were random and confused doctors. Even after she was diagnosed, doctors had no cure, only treatments that we prayed would help. That was my mother and my family. The summer of 2012 was scary and there was no cure to help her.

Let me start off by explaining what MS is. Multiple Sclerosis is when, for reasons scientists are not yet sure of, a person’s immune system attacks the myelin that covers and protects the spinal cord and nerve fibers in your brain. After the myelin is damaged, the nerve fibers then are attacked by the immune system as well. This causes nerve damage, fatigue, vision loss, poor balance, and more unpleasant side effects. Multiple Sclerosis itself isn’t necessarily the cause of death, however, it 's the complications of MS that take a great toll on one’s health. Pulmonary Involvement, Severe Infections, Sepsis, Aspiration Pneumonia, and suicide are some examples of death causing complications. Overall, patients younger than 40 are 3.7 times the average risk of an early death. Those who are 40-59 years old have 2.9 times the

Through studying MS, researchers are finding ways to better protect our Myelin against attacks such as through a process called remyelination. Recent studies have led many scientists to believe that CD8+ T cells, whose job is to protect good cells and kill dangerous ones, play a role in the myelin damage. However, more research is needed to learn more about MS and what causes it. Not all studies agree that DD8+ cells cause the attacks, but instead some think that they tone down the attacks. Overall, there is many answers for scientists to find. Through learning how MS happens we may be able to learn how to stop it and return the freedom and health of those