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Joined: May 04, 2006 Posts: 3457 Location: Mid-Michigan
Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2007 11:21 am Post subject:
Hi Dom,
I sense that you are getting a real kick out of this one!
At this point I've read the abstract you supplied but my Acrobat reader is locking this new computer so I haven't been able to read the whole article.
I can say that I've wondered this from time to time. After all, on an external level they say that fever and inflammation are necessary parts of the healing process, therefore are a positive effect.
Something like this REALLY depends on your outlook of the MS process. I think we too often look at MS with too powerful of a microscope...get ourselves too close a tree and no longer can see the entire forest.
In this case I think looking at our arm with naked eyes is appropriate. A slice on the arm, a little infection, the injury turns bright red (inflammation), increases in temperature and swells. In a few days the tricks of the immune system work and eventually the only evidence of the injury is a scar (lesion).
In the case of MS the brain is much more delicate and the scar tissue is in itself part of the problem and in fact the entire healing process is what we call MS.
With that in mind, if someone is convinced that there really is some kind of pathogen instigating the immune attack, inflammation might be seen as beneficial. Personally I think I'd rather just accept the damage of the pathogen and leave the repair attempts of the immune system out of it. Obviously that's the idea of immune suppression. If there's something in there provoking the repair attempt, it's not as detrimental as the repair attempt itself.
If, as most people seem to believe, the immune system actions are unprovoked, the inflammation is part of a totally unecessary process and although beneficial in handling injury of some areas of the body, NOT the brain. Especially when the injury it's responding to might not even exist.
After reading the paper I still have to say that it seems like proclaiming that poking yourself in the eye is beneficial because it promotes the healing process
Bob _________________ Wife diagnosed with RRMS in Feb. 2006.
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