SASKATOON – For Heather Erickson, feeling sick, tired and unable to find enough energy for even basic activities like walking, is not uncommon.
On what she calls her better days, she finds it easier to cook and “… can actually sweep the floor or something.”
For 15 years, Erickson has been living with multiple sclerosis.
“I feel like doing a lot of things, but then once I start doing a lot of things, I get really tired.”
Extreme fatigue is a common symptom for people suffering from MS.
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“If you overdo it, you pay for it the next day, at least I do,” said Erickson.
The disease has also affected Erickson’s vision. Three times since 1979, her sight has been reduced to the point where she cannot identify people. Then, the disease retreats and her vision clears.
Multiple sclerosis disrupts impulses that travel through the body’s nerve fibres. The covering of the nerve, myelin, is destroyed in patches. Initial symptoms of the disease can also include numbness, loss of balance, tremors and paralysis.
Remissions are common. Symptoms may disappear for several months or several years before another attack occurs.
Farm is tranquil
Erickson and her husband live in Outlook, Sask. during the winters and have spent the last two summers at their farm near Beechy.
“I find it easier to be in the farmhouse because it is quiet, there is less traffic going by, and I just try to do my cooking.”
While her two daughters were growing up, Erickson said she spent a lot of time in the hospital and that has left her feeling pangs of guilt that she wasn’t always there for her husband and two daughters.
“I’d feel so bad. I’d be on a guilt trip because they had to do so much for me when they were really young and they said, ‘But Mom, look at all the things we can do that other kids our age can’t.’ “
Erickson is taking part in a $2.2 million national study funded by the MS Foundation. It will look at DNA strands from MS patients, some members of their families and collect detailed family histories. The study is expected to release its findings in 1996.
“We are hoping we will be able to identify the location of the genes that make you susceptible … and we are doing that by looking at special families and people who are adopted at birth and have MS,” said George Ebers, a principal researcher involved in the study.
Approximately 20,000 people are registered with MS clinics in Canada. Only patients with more than one case of MS in their family will be studied.
Initial findings suggest people inherit a combination of genes that make them susceptible to MS.
“It is inherited though the action of multiple genes that act together. But people shouldn’t be thinking that there is anything unusual about that. Most of the common diseases of mankind are like that,” said Ebers.
While the specific combination of genes is not known, studies on identical twins suggest an environmental factor must be present to trigger the disease. About a third of identical twins both develop MS.
“You can be the identical twin of an MS patient and live your whole life without getting MS. Maybe something happening early in life might protect you from getting the disease,” said Ebers.
Geography also plays a role. Caucasians from northern European countries develop the disease more often than other races. Also, the greater the distance from the equator, either north or south, the greater the risk of developing MS.
But before people head for sunnier climates, Ebers said the evidence suggests people must make the move while in infancy.
“You would reduce your risk if you moved very close to birth. Once you have grown up, it doesn’t matter,” he said.
