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