Balance problems and dizziness (vertigo, drunkard disease)

Most people with MS are regularly perceived to being drunk and having ' a bit too many'. This is all due to the balance problems that can be seen and the effect of 'dizziness' that is experienced. Something we would hardly realise or even think about is the complexity of our balance and our human ability to stand up straight without wobbling over. MS at a time was known as the 'drunkard disease' because of symptoms based on these points below.

For normal balance (just to clarify, on two legs not one!) there are different parts of the human body that work together; Information your brain receives and the replies it sends out can be late, incomplete or misleading. The messages being passed inside your brain can also be disrupted, which affects the way it processes balance information. we can put this into three groups to make things that tiny bit easier to understand! The input, processing and the output, not as simple as baking a cake unfortunately but regardless, here we go!

The input consists of three avenues and these are; vision - the symptoms left by ON can give confusing information to the brain that would try to understand incomplete or disrupted signals - the inner ear - which updates our brains of the angle and position of our heads, disruption or missing information can lead to balance issues- and sensory changes - if you can't feel things properly then signals needed by the brain to make us stay straight aren't received properly or at all - thus MSers tend to wobble around or remain completely stagnant for our own safety ( on a wheelchair, or using walking aids to help us walk straight, well just about).

Processing of the messages sent by the NS are vital for our brains to process the right information. Damage to the cerebellum ( at the base of the brain, see picture below) or the brain stem can lead to symptoms like vertigo ( slight movements making your body feel like it is on a rollercoaster) or nausea. Similar to the way a person who gets travel sick or sea sick would feel as their body finds it hard to process the information of being stable but moving ( on water or road) at the same time.

Output, as already stated the muscles respond in a delayed manner or not at all due to neurological damage and more specific symptoms ( which we still have to discuss) the muscles aren't able to respond to messages from the brain properly so the MSer with the damaged system thus looks drunk if anything. I look drunk all the time; I have an excuse for walking into things/ people or tripping to my right when taking a left in the corridor but I've never had a 'drink' in my life!

Usually when I do seem to be toppling over, something very much expected with MS I'm told I didn't eat enough food or told to slow down, it has been a very long time since I've rushed to do anything believe me!

Unfortunately, I try my best but all posts can't be so funny and entertaining, some like this have to be just plain and boring! Till next week guys!