Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Month is an annual event in the US in March. The campaign helps boost awareness of multiple sclerosis through education and information and supports those affected by the condition. Multiple sclerosis is a chronic condition that causes the nervous system to degenerate and exhibits many symptoms, such as blindness and paralysis. Although this condition has no cure, treatments can help you manage the symptoms and interrupt the progression. Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Month is a noble endeavor that supports and informs those affected.
Learning more about Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
As hinted above, MS damages the central nervous system (CNS) that contains your brain, spinal cord, and optic nerves. An auto-immune disorder, MS dents the myelin sheath, the protective layer that encircles the nerve cells. Due to MS, these nerve cells suffer from inflammation and damage. Eventually, the transmission of information from the brain to the body becomes impaired, leading to different symptoms. The unpredictable disease doesn’t affect the two people the same way, but the most dominant symptoms include coordination and balance challenges, fatigue, weak muscles, eyesight problems, and cognitive issues. In rare cases, paralysis or death can also occur. You already know by now that it’s an incurable ailment. However, treatments can help you survive better.
According to MyBioSource’s data, more than 400,000 Americans suffer from this chronic condition. However, the good thing is the treatments have been able to promise superior outcomes for more than 20 years. Some treatment options include corticosteroids, glatiramer acetate, teriflunomide, humanized monoclonal antibodies, DNA vaccines, transformed peptide ligands, and stem cells.
Multiple Sclerosis and COVID-19 risks
There has been clear communication from the beginning of the pandemic that anyone with comorbidities or co-existing medical conditions is more vulnerable to contracting the virus infection with severe effects. Since viruses attack the immune system, you can easily assume that your auto-immune disorder puts you at a high risk of disease. However, it’s essential to know that this condition is not responsible for an increased COVID-19 risk. Instead, age and medications are additional factors that contribute to the higher infection risk. A 2021 study that surveyed 219 people discovered that coronavirus infection impacted MS patients less than the general population. But hospital admissions with MS patients were higher. The experts also informed that the severity of the illness didn’t increase among MS patients.
Another 2021 survey involved 1,626 MS patients investigating what makes them vulnerable to coronavirus severity. One of the main factors was disability level. Other than this, those who contracted the virus and faced critical situations were either old or obese or had heart issues. Then, some patients taking corticosteroids also met poor infection outcomes. One of the worrying things is mortality rate in MS and coronavirus patients has been high compared to the others. But there is an understanding that there could be other reasons behind such consequences that they have yet to study and understand. These could be general health, societal, medical, or other reasons.
MS treatment and COVID-19 risk consideration
If you see, certain medications feature in the risk factors. For example, a drug that checks the growth of a protein called CD20 can pose a challenge. Some examples of these drugs are rituximab (Rituxan) and ocrelizumab (Ocrevus). Since this disease includes using disease-modifying therapy (DMT), one may ask if those drugs make them more susceptible to the virus or its severity because they regulate the immune system to check the disorder’s progress.
Because everyone is different, the treatment’s benefit or risk and its effect on an MS patient with infection may vary. One of the studies in 2022 went through 16 observational pieces of research that covered coronavirus, MS, and DMTs. The finding revealed that anti-CD20 medication could contribute to severe illness from the virus infection. Other therapies didn’t show such signs. However, the National MS Society informs that MS patients can continue with their DMTs unless their physicians recommend otherwise. If someone catches the infection, they must consult their neurologist or doctor regarding their therapy.
At the same time, individuals can take a few steps to alleviate the risk factors. Vaccination can be one of the best protections against infection, the severity of the illness, hospital admission, and fatality. The National MS Society urges MS patients to remain updated with their vaccine doses. The vaccines are safe for them. However, some drugs can reduce the vaccine’s efficacy. They are cladribine, ocrelizumab, alemtuzumab, rituximab, and ofatumumab. The health experts suggest that anyone on these medications should speak to their doctors to plan their vaccination to avoid the drug’s interactions with its effectiveness.
You can increase your chances of staying healthy while managing your MS condition by being informed and talking to your doctor for guidance. So, make sure you don’t go by hearsay. If you read something, take your doctor’s opinion and follow the instructions after doing your research.