NATCHEZ &045; A neurologist who travels throughout the country to present educational programs on multiple sclerosis will speak at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Natchez Convention Center.

Dr. Karl Gross of Denver, Colo., will bring a personal story as well as knowledge based on many years of studying the often-misunderstood multiple sclerosis, described by most experts as a chronic autoimmune disease.

In 1999, Gross was diagnosed with MS, a disease he treated in many of his patients. The diagnosis meant the end of his career in private practice but the beginning of a career centered on teaching at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and on traveling to share what he knows about MS with audiences coast to coast.

Gross and his wife, Natchez native Cassell Carpenter Gross, have spent the past few months in the area visiting her family while they await completion of a new house under construction in the Denver area.

&uot;I read about the MS support group starting in Natchez and decided to go,&uot; Gross said. He had not expected Natchez to be a place where he would present his program, he said. However, Kay Thomas, who is active in the Natchez support group and an MS patient, also, arranged for Natchez Community Hospital to sponsor the Tuesday lecture, which is free and open to the public and presented by Gross as a service to the community.

&uot;Some of the symptoms include a peculiar kind of fatigue,&uot; Gross said. &uot;And you’re not at your best at times. That’s not compatible with private practice as a neurologist, and it would have been ethically wrong for me to carry on that way.&uot;

Helpful new drugs have been introduced in the past 10 years. And now stem-cell research points to promising possibilities in treating patients with MS.

Multiple sclerosis is not a contagious disease. In fact, the exact cause is not known, Gross said.

&uot;Almost every MS patient has someone in the family with the disease; so there are probably some genetic components,&uot; he said. &uot;One study with identical twins showed that if one twin got the disease, the other had a 30 to 40 percent chance to get it, also.&uot;

But 30 to 40 percent indicates there is more to it than genes. &uot;There are a multitude of factors coming together and maybe in a certain time sequence.&uot;

Gross explained that something in the immune system mistakenly identifies healthy cells to attack. Those errant attacks destroy cells, organs or tissues essential for good health.

Symptoms are many, including the fatigue he described. Other symptoms may be pain, spastic muscles and depression.

New medicines and other treatments are providing better quality of life for MS patients than they might have expected in the past. In 1993, the first treatment emerged to slow down the progression of the disease.

&uot;Eighty-five percent of MS cases are known as relapse and remission. The attacks last just a few weeks,&uot; Gross said. &uot;Symptoms come on over a few days, beginning with maybe loss of vision in one eye, a big patch of numbness somewhere in the body or loss of coordination in an arm or leg.&uot;

In the first 10 to 15 years of the disease, those symptoms go away eventually, coming on in an average of one or two attacks a year. As time goes on, the improvement does not continue. Then after about 10 years, the baseline slowly goes down and the secondary progression sets in.

A smaller percentage of patients have more severe symptoms from the onset.

New medicines work miracles for many MS patients today, Gross said. &uot;The problems with them are that they are injectible, they have side effects and they’re very expensive.&uot;

Moreover, the medicines present a challenge to patients who must take the injections daily even on days and during periods of time when they feel very well.

&uot;They say, ‘I’m doing fine; why am I doing this,’ but people should be informed about this window of opportunity. These drugs delay the onset and decrease the disability. They are not a cure.&uot;

Gross personally has faced the challenge of taking the drugs on good days as well as bad. &uot;After I give myself the shot, I sometimes feel awful for a while and I say to myself, ‘what am I doing?’ But the drugs do prevent some long-term effects.&uot;

Every physician knows he is as vulnerable as any other person, Gross said. Getting the disease was a shock. But he has come to terms with it.

Born in Vienna, Austria, Gross completed medical school at the University of Vienna in 1981, set up a family practice residency in Austria and then came to the United States to complete his residency in neurology at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver. He is board certified in neurology and electrodiagnostic medicine.

He hopes anyone who has family or friends with MS will attend his lecture. Others who might benefit from his program and personal experiences will be health care workers, pharmacists and even students who are interested in biology or medical subjects.

Gross believes the future looks bright for continued research into the disease. New medications and

research into the use of stem cells

signal a continued closing in on the complexities of multiple sclerosis. &uot;There is a lot of movement now and a lot of excitement,&uot; he said.