h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Talking about virus my ruddy pc has been zapped by bugs been try fix it for over 3 hours i am getting to old for all this repair lark

"my mother has MS and it's attacking her heart been told to exspect she go any time"

Princess, I don't know where you're getting your information, but whoever told you that wants shooting. MS does *not* attack the heart. It's a condition where the immune system attacks the myelin coating on nerves in the central nervous system - that's brain and spinal cord. Blood pressure and heart beat are controlled by the autonomic nervous system, which is not affected by MS. MS reduces the patient's lifespan by an average of 6 years, according to the W.H.O., but it is *not* terminal. Whenever somebody says a friend or relative 'died of MS', what they really died of was complications arising from having MS.

I guess the problem is that most people don't know anything about the condition. Unfortunately that includes GPs. I'm lucky to have a GP with a number of patients suffering from MS, anything from mild MS to bed-ridden.

Whatever your mother is suffering, Princess, I hope the doctors are wrong in their prognosis. I know the pain of losing a parent. You are in my thoughts.

Hi Megachedda. I too always preferred the older music. I don't even listen to much of that these days. Here's a quote for you:

"Y'know, parents are right about the music their kids listen to: most of it *is* junk. And kids are right about the music their parents listen to: most of that's junk too."

I can't remember who said it.

And, as a kid, I always tried to join in adult conversations.

TRiG.

For earwax problems, warm a little olive oil, pour it in and....can't remember! One of my grandads remedies that I should have paid more attention to.

cheerful Dragon

My mother is dieing due to Multiple Sclerosis she is bed bound can't move one part her body can't eat has to be fed by tube into belly button has to be cared for 24/7 by the lovely staff in a nurse home she can't talk can't move one part her body don't you say that MS can't kill a person cause it can as it is now attcking her Heart and our Doctors and specailist know more about it than you do and you've not had to nurse your own mother watch the ms take her slowly the MS in liverpool have took mum out in her wheelchair to parties when she could move her body but not now and the crazy thing about loosing mum she's only 61 thats young not old she very ill and i know more about MS than you do as my nan had it and so did my auntie Don't you say you know about multiple sclerosis cause you don't my mum is dieing and no doctor can stop it i am so that you say the doctors are fibbers when you don't know zero about me or what we have gone through with mum being seriously ill well i do and i care about my mum and if she has to die to be pain free then i've accepted it now mum gone and in its place is someone i don't know but i still love her as she gave me life.

It sounds to me like your mother has primary progressive MS. Yes, that does affect a person's ability to move, eat, speak, etc. It can even affect their cognitive ability. I know of one woman who's in a home receiving constant care because she can't take care of herself and she's not even 50. She can't even recognise her own family. .

As for me saying that MS doesn't kill, OK, I'll rephrase that. It's *very rare* for MS to be directly responsible for a patient's death. A quote from the MS Society website: "It is very unlikely that MS lesions will lead to death. If your MS symptoms become very severe, they may affect other bodily systems. And in very rare instances, where a lesion occurs on the part of the brain that regulates breathing and consciousness, a person could die if medical care is unavailable." A lot of the people I've spoken to who have said that a relative died of MS admitted, when asked further questions, that it wasn't the MS that was responsible, but some kind of illness that arose from it. As an example, a woman told me her aunt died of MS, and it turned out it was a kidney infection from a catheter that killed her, not the MS.

As for how much I know, OK, I don't have primary progressive. Right now I have relapsing-remitting MS, which doctor's are trying to control with injections of beta-interferon. I know that it's likely that my MS will switch to secondary progressive within the next 10 years. When I was diagnosed I joined the MS Society and found out all I could about the condition. Please don't tell me I don't know anything about MS, because I probably know as much as you do. I just don't know your mother's case history, and it sounds like she's one of a very small minority whose MS is attacking an area of the brain that controls her heart. (MS does *not* attack the heart, BTW, just the nerves in the brain and spinal cord.) I apologise if I offended you, it's just that I know a lot of people who *have* been given bad information by doctors who don't know what they're talking about, or who just don't think what they're saying.

One final request. Please put some punctuation in your posts. That last one was very hard to read.

Ladies, my heart goes out to both of you. It is so easy to be misunderstood on these flippin boards and I think this is such a difficult subject to discuss in this forum.

All I think I understand is that MS sounds awful. Like so many of these kinds of illnesses it isn't the disease that kills it is the symptoms that disease brings with it.

Love you both and take care

Sorry to butt in and change the subject when it's something so serious, but I've just become a great-auntie for the first time.

Traveller in Time not an uncle in the foreseeable future
" must be exciting

And indeed must make you feel 'old' "

It does indeed! A great-auntie at 24! I'm the youngest of four though, which is why I've got a niece old enough to give birth!

You're 24? Now that amkes me feel old. Being an only child means greatauntdom will never be mine. I feel a bit sad about that.

Marry someone who's already a great-uncle?

Great, another thing to add to my already ridiculously long list of requirements! No wonder I'm single.

Well, at a push an uncle would do - after all, nieces and nephews may eventually have babies!

Staying single is a good way of keeping young or is it me? Watching your children grow and hearing your partner creak really does make you feel old.

Yep, watching children grow certainly brings it home! Madam is starting school in September, I'm dreading the day I first help her into the uniform!

Traveller in Time on top
"if you feel old when you look at your gey hairs < A1080271 > the society is FrontPaged "

Congrats, Omega!

I just became a double half second cousin yesterday - but I doubt it's the same baby