Loved Ones who support someone with MS Community Group
This group is meant for those who help someone with MS. This would include family, good friends, spouses and caregivers. It is a place to exchange good ideas that may help us in caring for those we love that have this disease.
I have read many posts on the main boards, unfortunately, on how certain family members have called their loved ones with MS lazy. "You have not done anything but wash the dishes and do laundry how can you be exhausted?"
So what exactly is going on here...nerve fatigue.
Healthy or not people have mitochondria that produces ATP.
OK speaking English, we have "factories" that produce "gas" for energy. EVERYTHING a healthy or sick person does costs you energy or gas (ATP). Same way if you want to travel anywhere with your car you have to pay for gas.
The issue is for people with MS is that the myelin around the nerves is deteriorating for some reason. This myelin is what makes the signal from your brain to your muscles able to be sent fast.
OK English...kinda like your super highway withOUT lights and other stops. If this is all potholed or broken up then you may have to take a more expensive (gas /ATP wise) route to get to your...arm or leg to make it move.
It is a little more complicated in that sometimes your brain may have to send a signal 100 ..maybe 300 hundred times before it figures out a new detour to get it to where it needs to go.
So if you, a healthy person, walks around the block your signals are sent once and cost you lets say ...100 units of ATP or $10 in gas (just to make this easier to understand). However, since someone with MS has all the pot holes or down right collapses in their highway (without bridges) they may need 1000units of ATP or $100 in gas to send the signal 300 or more times. It would be to them that they may have sent out signals enough for you a healthy person to walk 3 miles. How tired would you be if you walked three miles? At the end of 3 miles would you be tired or lazy?
Now the issue with our ATP /gas is that we can't just refill when we run out. We have to wait until our mitochondria factories make more. So when we run out..we are fatigued until we rest and make more ATP. THIS is why people with MS get so tired very quickly. They have to not only send their signals hundreds of times more to get a simple job done but their bodies are sick. So they are producing more immune response, also with a gas cost. Plus for some reason some of the other hormones that help with energy (sex hormones and thyroid) seem to be low in many with MS. So again this can slow gas production and lead to less energy.
Did I explain this alright? Comments, anyone want to add anything to this please feel free to do so.
So what exactly is going on here...nerve fatigue.
Healthy or not people have mitochondria that produces ATP.
OK speaking English, we have "factories" that produce "gas" for energy. EVERYTHING a healthy or sick person does costs you energy or gas (ATP). Same way if you want to travel anywhere with your car you have to pay for gas.
The issue is for people with MS is that the myelin around the nerves is deteriorating for some reason. This myelin is what makes the signal from your brain to your muscles able to be sent fast.
OK English...kinda like your super highway withOUT lights and other stops. If this is all potholed or broken up then you may have to take a more expensive (gas /ATP wise) route to get to your...arm or leg to make it move.
It is a little more complicated in that sometimes your brain may have to send a signal 100 ..maybe 300 hundred times before it figures out a new detour to get it to where it needs to go.
So if you, a healthy person, walks around the block your signals are sent once and cost you lets say ...100 units of ATP or $10 in gas (just to make this easier to understand). However, since someone with MS has all the pot holes or down right collapses in their highway (without bridges) they may need 1000units of ATP or $100 in gas to send the signal 300 or more times. It would be to them that they may have sent out signals enough for you a healthy person to walk 3 miles. How tired would you be if you walked three miles? At the end of 3 miles would you be tired or lazy?
Now the issue with our ATP /gas is that we can't just refill when we run out. We have to wait until our mitochondria factories make more. So when we run out..we are fatigued until we rest and make more ATP. THIS is why people with MS get so tired very quickly. They have to not only send their signals hundreds of times more to get a simple job done but their bodies are sick. So they are producing more immune response, also with a gas cost. Plus for some reason some of the other hormones that help with energy (sex hormones and thyroid) seem to be low in many with MS. So again this can slow gas production and lead to less energy.
Did I explain this alright? Comments, anyone want to add anything to this please feel free to do so.
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My 6mo twin DD's are EBF and just started rice cereal on the first. Everything has been going fine except this morning one of them had a diaper rash (lots of redness around her anus). I read this as one of the signs of an allergy. BUT I did just buy a different brand diaper yesterday (which they have used randomly before w/no issues). Do you think its the cereal or the diaper? Im ready to start...
So staying away from glutamate ie MSGs. URL below has many research links on this topic.
http://www.dailystrength.org/groups/loved-ones-who-support-someone-with-ms/discussions/messages/14076608