I am here for a little support.

[Rainbowreflect]

My brother was diagnosed with MS about 6 years ago. He is doing well for the most part.
A few weeks ago my sister started have some problems with facial paralysis, blurred vision & dizziness. She has had numerous test over the last few weeks & now they are thinking MS.
Most everything I have read says that MS is not genetic. My mother did say she recently read something about this being reconsidered by some experts. Has anyone read or heard anything about this?
My sister is seeing her doctor tomorrow for the test results.
I am really worried about her.

[I_Make_Mistakes]

1. I don't know anything particularly about MS but, I want to offer my

best wishes to you and your family. I clicked in/out and came back to say, good wishes to you and your family. These chronic illnesses just frustrate the living heck out of me!

[ProfessorGAC]

2. My Take (I Have MS)

The conventional wisdom is that there is no direct genetic link, that is established in the data.

However, there are a few things to keep in mind:

1) There is a geographic link in MS. The farther from the equator one lives, the greater the chance of getting MS. Since a brother and sister would likely have been raised in pretty much the same geographic location (not always, obviously), then that factor has equal influence on both siblings.

2) The most recent mechanisms for MS is that of an autoimmune disease. Since siblings are likely to have, at least somewhat, similar immune response systems, then there might be a familial proclivity for MS. Since the analysis of the data looks for broader genetic links, the lack of a genetic factor might be washed out when using a narrower dataset of siblings, vs. all family members.

(As an example, i have an uncle with MS. He contracted it almost 40 years ago. There is a very low likelihood of someone like me getting MS because an uncle had it, from a genetic point of view. The odds of me getting it because a family member had it, are nearly the same as me getting it just because a set proportion of the whole population gets it. But, if i had an older sister with it, the odds may in fact, be higher. This is what the experts your mom heard from are thinking, as well.)

3) Another element in the proposed mechanism is that there appears to be linkage to the diseases one gets during childhood, how that disease ran its course, and how the system reacted to it at that time. Since it's likely that your brother and sister both had similar childhood diseases, if their respective immune systems responded in highly similar fashions, the odds for MS would also increase.

One thing to note: Your sister should get in as soon as possible. In another post here in this group, i linked to a relatively new study that pretty convincingly establishes that the meds work more effectively, the sooner one starts using them. This seems obvious, since getting on any medicine sooner would seem to be better, but this is a case of sooner is not only better from a time perspective, but that the medicine actually blocks the mechanism of progression better.

Hope that helps some.
The Professor

[Rainbowreflect]

3. Thanks for the info.

My sister has been talking a lot with my brother & if MS is the diagnosis she will get going meds ASAP. I think that is a big part of why my brother is doing so well. He has a great doctor who not only got him going on the latest "western meds" but also uses many alternative medicines. He does acupuncture, massage, diet, exercise & supplements.