Robbie, In any area where the area has become scarred it is hard like a knot in your muscle but in your brain. The blood vessel still runs through there and is still refluxing so it expands the lesion area schelling says backwards down the vein, in other words lesions always grow down the vein in a specific direction in line with the reflux. it is one of his arguments for the model, an argument he put forth 30 years ago before all the current technology made it possible to see the veins in living people the way we do now.
l123: I agree with Sharon that this may be what is going on, but I do not know. The changes in the circulation are profound in pregnancy
And I want you to consider that you said
The current theory is because of the hormones suppressing the nervous system.
The operative word there is theory. We have a story about why the pregnant person does better based on our general assumption that MS is autoimmune, but there is not proof that that is what is going on. But we've heard these stories so often that we "know" them and consider them likely true even though they are only a theory.
Here is another idea, this is just an idea too, but based on this
Background Temporal changes in systemic arterial compliance and wave propagation properties (pulsatile arterial load) and their role in ventricular–systemic arterial coupling during gestation --snip--
Methods and Results Fourteen healthy women were studied at each trimester of pregnancy and again postpartum. Experimental measurements included instantaneous aortic pressure (subclavian pulse tracings) and flow (aortic Doppler --snp--
Conclusions The rapid time course of compliance changes and the involvement of both conduit and peripheral vessels are consistent with reduced vascular tone as being the main underlying mechanism. The pulsatile arterial load alterations during normal pregnancy are adaptive in that they help to accommodate the increased intravascular volume while maintaining the efficiency of ventricular-arterial coupling and diastolic perfusion pressure.
the lowered resistance may be the ticket. I agree with Cheer on the thinner blood angle as well. People will have to study these things starting from the CCSVI model and asking themselves "If MS is CCSVI then why might that be less in preg?" to answer these questions once it is known to be there in everyone.
Everything we think we "know" now started from the HYPOTHESIS that MS is autoimmune and assumed that was true at the outset; they then created additional theories on top of that to explain things like why pregnancy seems better and what vitamin D has to do with MS.
This seems foreign because we MSers never heard of it, but there are profound circulatory changes in pregnancy so someone will need to look at that if this is shown to be present in all MSers.
Really if you get tested and find a stenosis like Jeff did, it becomes kind of moot. It is clear from venous ulcers that a pinched venous system causes ulcers in a foot, if you have a pinched system leading from your head how would the body be able to tolerate that without some damage?