Papal Visit Purim Millennium Snow in Jer. Perhaps the worst thing about multiple sclerosis is not the daily injections of medications, pain or disability - but the unpredictability. An attack of the neurological, autoimmune disease can occur anytime, forcing the patient to put his life on hold, get short-term steroid treatment and hope that his normal neurological function will return instead of leaving him with deficits. Any feeling of weakness, fatigue or numbness raises the fear that yet another attack is about to begin.
Some people have only one attack in their lifetime.
Many others have such a mild condition that they don't need ongoing care, will live to be 80, and die of something else. Even with patients who have progressive MS, it could take 10 or 15 years before they have to get around in a wheelchair. Although MS has been diagnosed in over 350,000 Americans and about 5,000 Israelis the disease is poorly understood among the public. Fifty-three percent of the 500 people asked knew little or nothing about the condition and some erroneously thought it was infectious or causes immediate death. Eight out of 10 MS patients here are reluctant to reveal that they are sufferers, even to close friends or relatives.