How my sister is managing her MS
A few years ago, I got a message from my sister on my cell phone asking when I was free for a Skype call. We don't Skype often, usually on special occasions only. You see, my sister lives on the other side of the globe to me so we need to coordinate phone calls as I'm usually headed to bed when she's getting up.
When I received this message my initial thought was that she was pregnant or maybe engaged to her long term boyfriend. I excitedly told her that she could call immediately.
This is my sister (left) and I (right) on one of her trips back home
Unfortunately, the news was not exciting or even happy news. She was calling to tell me that she'd been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.
What? I was shocked. My sister was only 32. The only other person I knew who had MS was a wife of a family friend. All I knew was that she was in a wheelchair because of MS. I was ignorant and had no idea what MS actually was or what it does to you. I didn't even know if it was life threatening or not.
My sister carried on to tell me that she was going to see a specialist for neurological tests and she would keep me updated.
The next I heard from her was after her tests and her follow up with the neurologist. Yes, she had a confirmed diagnosis and she had been told about her choice of medication to help manage the symptoms.
My sister told me that she was declining any medicine and she was going to treat it with her own healthy lifestyle, not drugs. I was thrilled to hear it.
The two choices of medications she had been given to choose from didn't have good results. Drug A helped 50% of patients. Drug B helped only 30%. Those numbers were not good enough. This is a drug that she would have to take for the rest of her life. What kind of impact would those drugs have on her body after years of use? There's no study out there that showed the side effects of taking them over say a 50 year period. She was not going to risk that for at best a 50% chance that it might help manage her symptoms.
My sister told her neurologist, thanks but no thanks, and embarked on cleaning up her lifestyle.
She started out adding good foods into her day. Initially she started with juicing. This was the trend a while back. I remember that I committed to having juices with her each day - even though we live in opposite time zones. It was fun and we shared recipes and let each other know what ones were good and what ones were awful!
Around the same time as we were juicing my mum discovered Dr Terry Wahls. This doctor has MS and was in a wheelchair. She was going downhill fast and knew it wasn't going to be long before she was bed ridden. Dr Wahls reversed her symptoms and is now walking around and active. This was done initially with supplements and now with the foods she eats.
You can read Dr Wahls story here:
http://terrywahls.com/about/about-terry-wahls/
My sister has tailored her eating to include lots of green foods and organic when possible. She now has a daily smoothie, instead of juice to keep the nutrients in the drink. Her food choices are constantly evolving. Currently she's following more of a blood type diet and has foods that are highly beneficial for O type (her blood type). Her smoothie consists of:
spinach, broccoli, kale, romaine lettuce, parsley, banana, mango, cherries or blueberries, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, a little honey with tumeric, cinnamon and a greens powder. Sometimes other ingredients like cacao are added if she's feeling like chocolate.
This is the greens powder that she includes in her smoothie
Supplements are also part of her daily routine. She's currently having a vitamin D supplement and for a while she was doubling the dose. Now she's back to a normal dose.
She also has a kelp pill each day to increase her iodine intake.
On the exercise front, yoga is her go to. This is what feels good for her to do and keeps her body moving. It's a gentle way for her to move her body and a really good way for her to feel her muscles flex, stretch and move.
Since my sister has really changed her lifestyle, she no longer has the symptoms of MS. They're gone.
She used to suffer from numbness in her feet. I couldn't believe it when she told me that her feet had been numb for over a year! Thankfully now, that's not an issue.
Her eyes had been causing her grief too. She had been told that she had inflammation on her optic nerve. Now she's been retested and there's no inflammation. Her eyes are back to normal and she no longer has the vision impairment she had.
My sister goes to her neurologist now once a year to be checked. The latest appointment was today (Wednesday). It was a very quick check up, short and sweet is what my sister told me. 3 questions were asked....
"Have you had any relapses?" "No, none."
"Have you got any concerns?" "No, none."
"I think I know the answer to this but would you like to look into any medicine?" My sister smiles and shakes her head..."No thank you." Her neurologist smiled back.
This is a work in progress. My sister admits that there's still room for improvement with her lifestyle and she's constantly evolving with things she reads. She's eager to try new things and ultimately she uses her body as a guide. She goes with what feels good to her.
I have her permission to write this article and share her story. When I asked her she happily responded with
"I want others out there to see there is a choice after a diagnosis of any disease, illness or condition."
You don't have to take what's on offer immediately. Take the time to research and look into your options.
If you have any questions I'll try my best to answer for you. Thanks for reading.
The images that are not mine are from www.pixabay.com
My goodness, thank you for sharing this amazing story!! I think it's absolutely wonderful that your sister had the belief and courage to take control of this disease and manage it herself. I have absolutely no doubt that what she has done will be so much better for her than accepting medication.
Too many people are too quick to take the drugs on offer for their illnesses without properly considering other options - personally I think this can be done out of fear or desperation. Here we've seen the huge effects a radical change in diet can have.
I'll certainly be passing this onto my friend and resteemed so other people can see the power and control you can take over your own health.
Thank you so much to you and your sister.
Thanks so much. Yes, I think she's very brave. I must admit if I was told that I'd probably agree with anything to get better. I'm glad she took the time to research her options. Now if anything like that happens I will follow her lead and research first!
Good luck to your friend, I hope they're able to get some good tips here.
Really good. Thanks for sharing. I'm resteeming this. I know one guy that has reversed all symptoms and even got rid of the black spots in the brain on MR scan. He's 100% back to normal after having severe symptoms for 10 years. He was using a combination of l-arginine complexer and acai-blend antioksidant. After 10 months he added high dosage of D, but by then, most symptoms was gone already.
The thing about juiced greens that is the same with l-arginine (and some powerful antioxidants) as well as beet juice btw :), is that it contributes to better NO levels throughout the body. NO works as a neurosupporting signaling molecule.
I've also seen people regaining feelings in body parts that has been numb or without feelings for a decade or more using the same protocol.
Best of wishes to you both
Thanks very much for this and sharing your experience too. I've passed the details onto my sister to look into. This is what I love about being here; there are so many helpful and knowledgeable people out who are willing to take time to help and share. Thanks so much.
This is wonderful, I am so glad for you and your sister. Seems like these days it is well worth the while to explore alternative treatments. I will resteem hope more people will read it.
Thanks so much for this. I appreciate it. It's great to think that people can learn from her experiences.
Amazing story! More and more people are waking up to the fact that big pharma only exists because of peoples lack of knowledge about the human body. Our bodies are designed to heal themselves! Of course their is no profit to be made from fasting and growing your own food so you will never hear this on TV and it has been suppressed for a reason. I am showing my mother the benefits of fasting as well as the mucusless diet to guide her to perfect health. Thanks for sharing!
It's possible to get down to the very root of this issue with the pharmacutical industry. The claim that there is no money to be made is correct, still it can be boiled down and made even more precise. This is nessesary in the same way a illness can not be cured by adressing the symptoms. The pharmacutical industry has lobbyists and have by regulations, have "taken over" the whole health sector. In science as a result of the monopoly-like situation giving them incredible kapital power, in education as a direct result of this, and their products are ven subsidiced in most sosial democratic countries. All of this, comes from government power. The government having power in this issues is the root cause of all this madness we are seeing in health. The rabbit hole goes deep, and has many side tracks, still they all lead to the same; goverment power, subsidies, regulations, laws and so on.
Thanks so much! I've been reading up on fasting recently and definitely think I'll give it a go once I stop nursing my baby girl.
Very true what you've said about big pharma too. I'm so glad people are waking up!
Now fasting is really interesting when you think about it. It has been used as an effective treatment in the USSR for mental disorders. With great results. It also draws the metabolism into ketosis, as well as turn on the calory saving mode, as well as potentially triggering some sort of "you need to think straight to get some food" mental ability. On top of this, it must necceserally effect the microbiome to some extent.
I have not been looking into fasting, but these are my first thoughts on it.
I just watch a documentary on Netflix about planet based diet, I know she will get better with her change in eating. Praying your sister recovers and lives a long and healthy life.