Author: Romella Durrani

Imagine you are a woman in her 30s and have spent your whole life in Alberta. You have a range of health concerns that are unpredictable, and you are beginning to experience muscle weakness, numbness and tingling in your limbs, loss of coordination and balance, loss of vision, and you feel your memory and cognitive abilities have declined in recent years, beyond what is expected for your age. You go to your doctor and get diagnosed with a disease called Multiple Sclerosis, also known as MS. Your doctor explains to you that MS is a neurological autoimmune disease that causes the immune system to attack the protective insulator (myelin sheath) that is wrapped around your neurons. This protective layer functions like the protective insulator around electrical wires, which allows signals to pass through faster and more efficiently. When this protective insulator is lost or damaged, like in MS, this is termed as demyelination, which causes your nervous system to malfunction.