This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

I was trying to avoid it because it really does seem mean spirited when explained.

Of course you remember that Ian said that if faced with the choice of sharing a two man sub with you or Harry, Harry would win.

Next step: Harry said that he would instead allow you the honor.

Next step: As if that would be a terrifying experience, in capital letters (screaming) I told Ian that he should reread the instruction manual of the two man sub to see if it was possible to operate it solo (when I wrote it I had engineer "Scotty" from the Enterprise yelling it).

To make matters worse (or better!) if Ian was really desperate I offered my farting boxer as an alternative.

Ian didn't respond so either he didn't get it or it was too rude, crude and socially unacceptible for even Ian to respond to.

OK, now I'll apologise but I thought it was just hilarious

Bob

I guess I need to share another of my many, many wonderful characteristics...I am extremely thick-skinned! And I love humor--any form and even if the joke's on me. So, carry on....

Hi Chris,
Although I don't like mean spiritedness I'm the same way. It seems you understand that although my picking on you was intended to be fun at your expense, it wasn't intended to be mean spirited. I'm glad you have thick skin because I'll surely test it again at some point!
Bob

I have herd there is a juice that will clear that right up.

Hi Cure,
I'm chuckling, but it's probably not a good time to "go there"

Not to change the subject (yeah, right!) but in regards to your earlier posting in this thread Sure, it's probably just a matter of semantics but if everyone produces MRTC's, couldn't it also be said that everyone has MS and in the majority of cases the body keeps the situation in check?
Bob

I personally think that it requires the MRTC's to enter the CNS and cause repeated damage before they are stopped, for it to be called/diagnosed as MS. And not to forget the other stuff apart from T-cells which we dont know about, but that we have hints is also causing damage.

Gullian Barr, CIDP and many other conditions I would guess involve (many) MRTC's that never make it in large numbers into the CNS, and they are definitively not MS.

Hate to sound like a broken record, but I think its the faulty BBB which makes all the difference, and then leads to the CNS damage providing an MS diagnosis. I guess you could say the BBB "keeps the situation in check".

I don't think you sound like a broken record and I absolutely agree with you.

I don't think it's contrary to that thought process that I also feel evidence shows that the MS disease process is a long one and that the permeable bbb is only the first step which has been identified and recognized by researchers and that there are things prior to that which haven't been identified and recognized.

In other words, I agree that sealing the bbb would offer results which most MS sufferers would find completely satisfactory but it also wouldn't be resolving what originally led to the permeable bbb.

Of course that drastically loses importance after people with MS no longer suffer progression but I think it's still important to recognize that sealing the bbb does nothing to answer the familial clustering of autoimmune* diseases or clustering of autoimmune* diseases in a single person which is part of the disease process which is prior to the permeable bbb.
Bob

*I'm not using the term "autoimmune" as descriptive but as a recognized label for this "family" of diseases.

I agree that it doesnt solve is WHAT causes the BBB. But I may think that it may take us one step closer to the culprit, and hopefully more treatments.

I am sure I have read one theory that its an auto immune function that causes the more permeable BBB (ie damage). But if we get more scientists looking at the damage to the BBB, maybe, just maybe we will find a real Auto immune culprit (not myelin reactive T-Cells) that is causing the disease process. And that would also help explain why helminths would help.

I agree that it doesnt solve is WHAT causes the BBB. But I may think that it may take us one step closer to the culprit, and hopefully more treatments.

I am sure I have read one theory that its an auto immune function that causes the more permeable BBB (ie damage). But if we get more scientists looking at the damage to the BBB, maybe, just maybe we will find a real Auto immune culprit (not myelin reactive T-Cells) that is causing the disease process. And that would also help explain why helminths would help.

Hi Cure,
I think you might be humoring me with the reference to helminths, but I appreciate it anyway!

I will use that as a lead-in to express my longest held and nearest and dearest analogy, that the autoimmune (or family of diseases if you don't like the term autoimmune) process is like a tree. It has a trunk leading to over 80 branches (the different diseases) and the MS branch continues out to termination with the permeable bbb, inflammation, lesions, myelin loss, axon loss and brain atrophy being the outermost twig.

Swat around at those outermost twigs all you'd like (as researchers have done for years) but the hardest blows aren't going to have any effect on the trunk, and rocking the trunk is what is required for a "cure".

The helminths.....if further research indeed continues to prove their relationship to these diseases, the helminths seem to fit in at the base of the trunk of the tree and stand to have an equal effect on allergy, asthma and the autoimmunes simultaneously.

Bob