When one considers the progressive debilitation that accompanies the disease, it is understandable that reversing MS is desirable. A form of medication or therapy capable of reversing multiple sclerosis would be popular among those patients who had succeeded in slowing down the progression of the disease and wanted to regain whatever ability they had lost.
If the attestations of a number of people who have adopted non-conventional therapies are to be believed, reversing MS is possible. These people are women and men who have suffered from MS for years and then learnt about the implication of factors like nutritional deficiencies, infections and genetics in triggering MS. They have subsequently set about adopting therapies that address these factors. Many of them speak of having put an end to the progression of their MS. They also claim to have regained some or all of the ability they had previously lost.
The disabilities associated with progressive MS can be traced back to the lesions that develop in patients’ nervous tissue as a result of demyelination. If patients on certain non-conventional therapies actually experience the reversal of these disabilities, then it seems likely that the damaged tissue is being repaired. One would therefore be justified in speculating that these patients were reversing multiple sclerosis slowly but surely.
Reversing MS Using Stem Cell Therapy
Within the realm of conventional medicine, there is evidence that reversing at least some of the disability that results from MS is possible. MS is known to be characterized by the body’s immune cells attacking the nerve cells’ myelin sheaths.
Medical scientists in Chicago conducted a clinical trial involving a form of therapy designed to prevent demyelination. The scientists recruited 23 patients in the early stages of the relapsing-remitting form of MS. These patients had been unresponsive to the interferon beta on which they had been put for about half a year.
Stem cells were taken from the patients’ bone marrow. Subsequently, all their immune cells were destroyed. The stem cells were then re-injected into their bodies, where they developed into immune cells that did not perceive the nerve cells’ myelin sheaths as a threat. As a result, they did not attack them. 17 of these patients improved over the course of three years. Their disability was reversed by at least one point on the standard disability scale. In that time, none of the patients deteriorated in health.
The results of the trial are cause for hope on the part of MS patients. Not only did the stem cell transplants halt the progression of the patients’ disability, but they also encouraged the repair of the already existing damage. This suggests that stem cell transplants hold future promise for MS patients. However, it remains to be seen how widely this form of treatment can be used. It is tremendously invasive and exposes the body to great vulnerability. Additionally, it is bound to be highly expensive.
