Anesthesia and MS

    
      Re: Anesthesia and MS
    


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Posted by CCF Neuro MD on February 16, 1998 at 10:12:34:

In Reply to: Anesthesia and MS posted by G. on February 15, 1998 at 18:33:38:

: I will be going for surgery within the next month and have heard that people
  with MS sometimes have trouble with coming out of the anesthesia. Is there any truth to this?  Also, can surgery send you into an excacerbation due to the stress on your body? Thanks for your help.
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There is in fact very little evidence of people with MS having problems with
anesthesis, if the person was already very debilitated and has chest problems due to Ms
this would be an obvious source for problems but in the absence of any serious
underlying respiratory difficulty this should not be a cause for concern.
There is in fact a theoretical benefit from surgery in that the body releases steroids in response
to stress and this helps the course of the MS, this has never been really
been proven however.
Any exacerbations reported have been  attributed to the effects of infections
due to surgery rather than surgery itself, and while mild deteriorations have
been reported there were not sustained.