In 2006, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). A couple months later, my life was turned upside down.

Despite how difficult those years were, I experienced things that helped me discover the connection between inflammation and MS relapses. And that discovery changed everything. Overtime, it helped me figure out how to manage my MS and eventually stop it’s progression.

First, a little background information…

• MS is a progressive, disabling disorder with symptoms ranging from fatigue and vertigo to pain and physical paralysis.
• An autoimmune disorder, MS is the result of the body’s immune system mistakenly attacking and damaging the nerves in the body’s central nervous system.
• The immune system attacks the nerves with inflammation, the same response that the immune system uses to attack threats to the body, such as infection and disease.
• These attacks on the nerves are referred to as relapses and can result in a worsening of current or creation of new MS symptoms.
• We don’t know what causes MS and there is no cure.

Looking back at my statement, about me discovering that inflammation causes MS relapses, it may seem a little confusing because the background information states that we already know that inflammation attacks the nerves of MS patients, causing MS relapses. Therefore, hasn’t this already been discovered?

Yeah but, it’s a bit more complicated than that. In the human body there are two nervous systems, the central and peripheral nervous system, and each one has its own inflammation.

• The central nervous system (CNS) is comprised of the brain, optics nerves, and spinal cord.
• The peripheral nervous system (PNS) involves the rest of the body, outside the CNS.
• Neuroinflammation is the inflammation that operates within the CNS.
• Peripheral inflammation is the inflammation that operates within the PNS.
• In the case of MS, it’s neuroinflammation in the CNS that is mistakenly attacking the nerves in the CNS.

Ok…still with me?

What I discovered is that peripheral inflammation in the PNS can cause MS relapses, by activating neuroinflammation in the CNS, which then mistakenly attacks the nerves in the CNS.

Now, the brain is protected by the blood-brain barrier (BBB), a network of tightly locked blood vessels that keep pathogens and toxins away from the brain. Neuroinflammation is on one side of the BBB and peripheral inflammation on the other, so it’s hard to imagine one being able to activate the other……but they can.

It turns out, peripheral inflammation can activate neuroinflammation across the BBB, in one of two ways:

• Chronic peripheral inflammation can activate neuroinflammation by sending signals through the vagus nerve, this is known as the inflammatory reflex.
• The BBB can also become disrupted by chronic peripheral inflammation, letting the inflammatory compounds produced by the peripheral inflammation to physically cross into the CNS, activating the neuroinflammation.

And what is chronic inflammation? I knew you’d ask.

• Thought to be the result of an unbalanced immune system, chronic inflammation occurs when the immune system malfunctions mistakenly flooding the body with inflammatory compounds that can cause damage to whatever healthy tissue it encounters.
• Chronic inflammation is considered a key feature of MS and other autoimmune disorders.

So, people with inflammatory disorders, like MS, can have an episode of peripheral inflammation, prompted by something like an infected cut on the hand, that can turn into an episode of chronic peripheral inflammation, that then triggers an episode of neuroinflammation, that then attacks the nerves in the CNS, causing an MS relapse.

Yeah, it’s a lot.

When my life was turned upside down, I developed medical issues I had never had before. This was due to the MS treatments I was prescribed. Being immunosuppressants, they weakened and damaged my immune system, which caused the development of my new medical issues.

The first new medical issue was Sinusitis (ie. inflammation of the sinuses), caused by my new hypersensitivity to particulate matter in the air (ie. pollen, dust, smoke, chemicals…etc.). At the time, I was also dealing with foot drop, my first MS symptom. Within minutes of my sinuses becoming inflamed, my foot drop would worsen. I’d use an anti-inflammatory nasal spray to calm down the sinus inflammation and within minutes my foot drop would improve. With episodes occurring many times a day, I made the connection that inflammation causes MS relapses.

It wasn’t long before I acquired the next medical issue and then the next….etc. Each new issue showed the same connection between inflammation and MS relapses. Overtime, I found solutions to help prevent, as well as, manage these inflammation triggers and in turn effectively manage my MS, to the point of stopping its progression.

Now, I discovered that Inflammation causes MS relapses around 2007. Nobody believed me, except my allergist. Unfortunately, I also couldn’t find any research at the time to support a connection between peripheral and neuroinflammation. But I knew that there had to be one. I finally found the research supporting the connection in 2023, when I started working on this blog.

If I hadn’t discovered that inflammation causes MS relapses when I did, and acted to protect myself, I would have ended up in a long term care facility before I turned 30 yrs old

I share this information, in the hopes of helping others.

-Jen, aka. Power Chair Dorothy

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References

Bettcher, B. M., Tansey, M. G., Dorothée, G. et al. (2021). Peripheral and central immune system crosstalk in Alzheimer disease — a research prospectus. Nature Reviews Neurology, 17, 689–701.

Daneman, R, & Prat, A. (2015). The blood-brain barrier. Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in Biology, 7(1), PMID: 25561720; PMCID: PMC4292164.

Haase, S., & Linker, R.A. (2021). Inflammation in multiple sclerosis. Therapeutic Advances in Neurological Disorders, 14, PMID: 33948118; PMCID: PMC8053832.

Harvard Health (2018). Understanding Inflammation: A Harvard Medical School Guide.

Huang, X., Hussain, B., & Chang, J. (2021). Peripheral inflammation and blood-brain barrier disruption: effects and mechanisms. CNS neuroscience & therapeutics, 27(1), 36–47.

Kempuraj, D., Thangavel, R., Selvakumar, G. P., Zaheer, S., Ahmed, M. E., Raikwar, S P., Zahoor, H., Saeed, D., Natteru, P. A., Iyer, S., & Zaheer, A. (2017). Brain and Peripheral Atypical Inflammatory Mediators Potentiate Neuroinflammation and Neurodegeneration. Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience, 11(216), PMID: 28790893; PMCID: PMC5522882.

Murta, V. and Ferrari, C. C. (2013). Influence of Peripheral Inflammation on the Progression of Multiple Sclerosis: Evidence from the Clinic and Experimental Animal Models. Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience 53:6-13. 

Pahwa R, Goyal A, Jialal I. Chronic Inflammation. [Updated 2023 Aug 7]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2024 Jan.

Sun, Y., Koyama, Y., & Shimada, S. (2022). Inflammation From Peripheral Organs to the Brain: How Does Systemic Inflammation Cause Neuroinflammation? Frontiers in aging neuroscience, 14, 903455.

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Not in Kansas Anymore (www.notinksanymore.com) is a site/blog authored and managed by Jen, aka. Power Chair Dorothy (pwrchr-dorothy). This site/blog is intended to provide educational and research information, and to share the author’s journey.

The author of this site/blog is not a medical physician and this site/blog does not provide medical advice. This site/blog contains information that should not be used in place of a visit, call, consultation or the advice of your physician or other qualified health care provider. If you choose to apply or implement any information posted at this site/blog, you do so at your own risk.