● Bladder or bowel problems
● Walking (gait) difficulty
● Vision problems, including blurred vision, poor contrast or color vision
● Cognitive changes, including difficulty learning or remembering new information, organizing and problem solving, difficulty with focus, and difficulty accurately perceiving their environments
● Emotional changes, including bouts of depression or clinical depression, mood swings, irritability, and episodes of uncontrollable laughing or crying
Understanding the Risk Factors
Because MS is not a disease the healthcare community reports, exact figures on patients living with MS are unknown, but this disease affects at least 2.3 million people worldwide. The cause of this disease is still largely unknown, but there are several risk factors that have been identified, including:
Gender: MS is at least two to three times more common in women than men, suggesting that hormones may play a significant role in susceptibility to MS.
Age: Most people experience the onset of MS symptoms and receive a diagnosis between the ages of 20 and 50, although the illness can strike young children and older adults.
Ethnicity: MS strikes patients of almost all races and ethnicities, but is most common in people of Caucasian or Northern European ancestry. Interestingly, MS is almost unheard of in some populations, including the Inuit, Hungarian Romani, Australian Aborigines and New Zealanders.