May is multiple sclerosis month and the Multiple Sclerosis Society is inviting people to buy carnations in time for Mother?s Day this weekend.

Carnations will be on sale this Friday and Saturday and next Friday as the society kicks fundraising up a notch to help pay for medication and other necessities for MS sufferers.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an incurable disease which attacks the central nervous system ? the brain and spinal cord. It disrupts messages sent by the brain to the rest of the body by attacking the myelin sheath, the protective layer around the nerves.

?It?s not life-threatening, it?s not fatal,? MS sufferer and chairperson of the Carnation Campaign Susan Wakefield Gibbons told . ?It just makes your life hell.?

Symptoms of the disease include visual impairments, impaired motor functions such as co-ordination and balance, even talking and swallowing, extreme stiffness of muscles, numbness or pins and needles, depression, short-term memory loss, tension and difficulty concentrating, bladder problems and extreme fatigue. More serious problems include vision loss and paralysis.

Each person has different symptoms and combinations of symptoms. MS patients take daily medications to combat the various symptoms, which they experience on top of the attacks to the myelin sheath. Over time, such attacks can eventually cut right through the nerve leading to permanent disability.

Attacks come without warning and at irregular intervals. Currently the only way to halt attacks is with large doses of steroids during a hospital stay.

It is not yet known what causes the disease. Most people are diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 40, and more women seem to be affected by the disease than men.

In the last ten years interferon drugs have been developed to slow the progress of the disease. ?It?s an injection you have to give yourself,? Mrs. Wakefield Gibbons said. ?It doesn?t stop the amount of attacks, it slows down the progression of the illness.?

Such drugs cost around $12,000 a year. Insurance companies pay 80 percent of that cost. In Bermuda, the MS Society then pays another ten percent for its members, and patients themselves pay the other ten percent.

Chemotherapy drugs can also now be used to treat MS.

The expenses add up. ?Now more and more people are being diagnosed,? Mrs. Wakefield Gibbons said, especially with new technology like the MRI machine making the diagnosis of MS.

?People are starting on the $12,000 a year treatments in their 20s and 30s, plus all the other daily medications. It?s a very expensive disease.?

Last year alone the MS Society spent $23,000 just on medication, without factoring in other expenses such as financially assisting with overseas treatment and donating money for MS research.

Meetings of the MS Society are held the first Monday of each month at St. Mark?s Hall in Smiths. All those who are interested are welcome to attend, Mrs. Wakefield Gibbons said.