What Is the Typical Rate of Progression for MS?

Neurologist Lauren B. Krupp, M.D., director of NYU Langone’s Multiple Sclerosis Comprehensive Care Center in New York City, explains the rate at which multiple sclerosis symptoms typically advance.

The typical rate of progression of MS really varies across people. How MS progresses also depends on whether you treat it or not. One way MS can present is with the onset of a clinical event, and a year or two later, another event and then maybe six months later, another event. That's relapsing-remitting MS.

Untreated, that form of MS over time, it could be five years, 10 years, 15 years, or even 20 years, tends to transform into a progressive type of MS where there's just slow worsening that goes on. We think a very effective way of preventing that transition, or delaying it, is to begin early in the course of MS with medication.