Can an injury trigger a new attack to someone with multiple sclerosis?

Scientists do agree, however, that an injury can trigger a new attack. Often the attack is localized in the area that has been injured. One patient, in complete remission and without symptoms, got up from bed in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and stubbed his right toe on a chair.

At first he had pain only in the toe. But the next morning there was numbness and tingling in the right foot, which spread up the right leg to waist level over the next twenty-four hours. That wasn't a particularly serious attack, but neither was the injury.

More serious injuries can have more serious results. When the injury is the patient's fault there is little to resolve. But when the injury is caused by another person, directly or indirectly, tough legal questions are raised.

I have been involved in several lawsuits in which patients stood to gain a lot by proving the injury triggered a new attack or made existing multiple sclerosis (MS) symptoms permanently worse. The key element in such cases is the time sequence. If an injury is followed by a new MS attack or a worsening of old damage within two or three weeks, it may be accepted as the precipitating factor.

A delay of a month or more casts doubt on the injury as a precipitant for the attack. One patient, in complete remission, was in an auto accident in which she hit her head and was knocked unconscious. This was followed a few days later by loss of vision in both eyes and weakness in the legs.

The damage improved, but she never fully recovered. She won a large award in court. Another patient who was injured in an auto accident had new MS symptoms three months later.

This longer delay was the main factor in the patient's loss of the lawsuit and failure to collect damages. Interestingly, the Veterans Administration has a policy of accepting MS as a service-related illness if onset occurs within seven years after discharge from the service. Still, it should be emphasized that the triggering of a new attack by an injury is a rare occurrence and not an explanation for most MS attacks.

In many cases the question is, which came first, the injury or the MS attack? Sometimes an injury is the result of the patient's neurological difficulty, not the cause. If a patient falls down the steps and experiences an attack, was the fall the first symptom of the attack or the precipitating factor?

This, as seen in many workers' compensation and personal injury cases, is difficult to discern.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.