Is MS considered a form of cancer?

Question

I wasa looking at the Montel show the other day and he had people with MS on his show.

Answer 1

No, it is not a form of cancer.

For Patterson589, MS doesn't stand for "Muscular" Sclerosis. It stands for Multiple Sclerosis.

And my husband has MS (as does one of his cousins).

MS is an auto-immune disease. Picture the coax cable your TV cable or internet run through. It has a 'covering' made of rubber, or whatever that stuff is, and inside that covering are many wires.

When the cable covering is damaged in a way that leaves the wires inside exposed, those wires can 'cross' and short, obviously causing all kinds of problems.

With MS, you have nerves running through your body. The nerves have a 'covering' called the Myelin (or myelin shieth). The Myelin would be the 'covering' of the wires in the coax. The nerves are the "wires" inside.

In an auto-immune disease, the body literally attacks itself, because for whatever reason, the body "thinks" that something in particular is a foreign body, and attacks it. With MS, the body sees the Myelin as the foreign body, and attacks it... eating away at it until the nerves are exposed.

Once exposed, the nerves can "short", causing the symptoms MS patients experience, from numbness, slurred speech, drop foot, to fibromyalgia and MS Tremor (similar in some ways to a seizure). What symptoms a person will have, and to what degree depends on where the Myelin is damaged... what part of the body those exposed nerves affect.

(Edit/Addition: As another responder correctly mentioned, these damaged areas along the nerves are called "lesions". They appear as white 'dots' or 'spots' on imaging.)

Also, there are 4 main types of MS, Relapsing-Remitting, Primary Progressive, Secondary Progressive, and Progressive-Relapsing.

Edit/Addition:

The responder mentioning that some cancer drugs work in slowing down the process of MS is correct. The three main ones are the "ABC drugs": Avonex, Beta-Interferon, and Copaxone. And they're discovering new possibilities all the time.

My husband started Avonex ~6 yrs ago, and was on it ~5 yrs. He recently switched to Copaxone, and it seems to be working better.

It is also correct that MS is an incurable disease, but isn't necessarily something to fear. There are those who have/had chronic progression of the disease, such as Annette Funicello and Richard Pryor, but thankfully most of the MS patients my husband and I know don't fall into this category. Many can live normal lives with proper diet, exercise when possible, and medication to help with symptoms.

I personally have not found evidence that cancer is an auto-immune disease. There is speculation on both sides, and the jury is still out for the most part.

I did a lot of reading about MS while dating my husband, and the same for cancer in recent years (I've had 4 family members die of cancer since 2000 and one is battling it now). In my understanding of the information I read, auto-immunity is the body attacking itself, whereas cancer is the culprit 'going after the body'. However, medical science is yet unclear on how some cancers begin, so that could be the key.

Being told "If you smoke, you will get lung cancer" does not appear to be the body "seeing" one of its own 'parts' as foreign, and attacking it as though it was a virus, bacteria, etc. If smoking (tar and/or nicotine) causes some kind of reaction in the cells of the lungs which in turn causes cancer to grow, that's not auto-immunity. Some develop skin cancer as a result of spending too much time, for too many years, in the sun. The UV rays cause skin damage that can develop into cancer - and again, this does not fit the definition of auto-immunity.

However, I won't argue that cancer as a whole is something we just don't fully understand yet. My mother had uterine cancer, an uncle had prostate cancer, the origin of an aunt's cancer was never known because of the extent the cancer had covered every organ, and a cousin is currently fighting a liver cancer. They all varied/vary in age, the youngest being early 30's, the eldest being late 70's. What caused them to develop cancer? No one knows. So again, that could be the key.

But back to MS. For the asker, I don't know if you were simply watching Montel and was curious, or if you or someone close to you has been diagnosed with MS, but if you want to know more about any disease, your best defense (especially in cancer) is early detection, hitting it head on, and just as important, become as knowledgeable as you can through research. The more you know, the more able you will be to fight whatever comes your way.

Answer 2

MS and cancer have something in common. Both disease are the body attacking itself. Also many of the drugs that are used to treat cancer work very well in MS patients. The hospital I work at piloted the studies of MS patent's receiving chemo

Answer 3

No, it is not a form of cancer but an auto immune disease. My sister-in-law was diagnosed with it. It is very hard to diagnose but they found lesions on her brain. It gets worse as time goes on and some people have minor symptoms while others have it much worse. My SIL takes daily injections to slow down the process but there is no cure for it.

Answer 4

Absolutely NO ! If you need further info check with your local Multiple Sclerosis Society. You probably have heard of lesions that occur with MS patients. They have nothing to do with cancer.

Answer 5

There is hope. I have tried to contact Montel. I don't know what his motivation is.

Read my testimonials on MS.

Answer 6

Musculr Sclerosis is a degenerative muscular disease, which can be researched, online, by accessing Google, Yahoo search, hotbot, etc. and entering the keyword "muscular sclerosis." be well.

Answer 7

no, MS is more of a neurological disorder