Living with Multiple Sclerosis (MS)

Living with Multiple Sclerosis (MS)

I’m sitting here this evening, thinking about OUR journey of living with my husband’s MS. He was diagnosed in 2010 at the age of 41, and since then it has been quite the roller coaster ride. It has affected so many of his abilities: His thinking, his walking, his energy levels, his ability to recall words, and a myriad of other things (including cramping and muscle spasms).

My husband’s doctors, of course, started with the same old tired treatment plan we’ve seen several times before; take these pills (a lot of them) several times a day, give yourself that shot every other day (thankfully he is a veteran and being seen through the VA, otherwise these medications would cost over $4,500/ month). Oh and come in to get an MRI every 6 months to 2 years to see if the pills and shots we’re prescribing are working for you.

When my husband asked these students of modern medicine if these medications actually work for MS, they said, “These meds won’t cure MS, but we believe it will keep it from progressing, which is all we can hope for.” But how do you prove a negative? I don’t like feeling like he’s a guinea pig.

I am not a medical school graduate, but something with that train of thought doesn’t seem quite right to me. He didn’t go to these doctors to sign up for a clinical trial, he went in to get relief from the disease that changed the course of our lives.

The shots they had him injecting himself with made him feel like he had the flu for several hours, every other day and one of the pills he was taking the doctors said was the same medicine they give to patients with seizures! MS never gave him seizures. In any event, he obediently took the medications for several years even though it was unclear as to the effectiveness of these medications he was being prescribed. His MRI’s weren’t changing much, and the pain was being held at bay, but he was still lethargic, still had balance issues, his legs felt like lead weights, and he generally felt ill all the time, not to mention the effect this had on his mental state.

My husband’s career was over as his job was very strenuous and he no longer had the mental clarity to do it. We lost our house, and we had to file for Bankruptcy and start over with a very different lifestyle than we were used to.

We battled with disability and he was officially disabled because of MS over a year later. We moved on with our lives to the best of our ability.

Now, a little about me. I began having some skin issues back in the early 2000's, and the doctors again did the same routine. Take this medication. When this didn’t work, so began the spinning the roulette wheel and trying a myriad of different medications. The itching and scratching wouldn’t/ couldn’t be helped apparently. First, it’s eczema, then it’s circulation issues. I even had 3 of my veins medically collapsed in both my legs. That didn’t work, back to a variety of medications. Modern medicine: Nothing worked. Money, Money, Money.

All of the scratching resulted in an infection in my leg. My husband had warned me several times, that if I didn’t stop scratching an infection would ultimately happen. It did. I couldn’t help it. My leg itched and itched and itched. I scratched. Infection.

Well, that changed everything…. My husband of 35 years hated seeing me in pain and started doing some research. As he suspected, the common denominator was FOOD. We took the time and quickly learned a lot about how our bodies work. We found out our food today is highly processed and a lot of it doesn’t have much nutritional value (which we knew but didn’t fully understand before).

The long and short of it is this: We began following 2 doctors we’ve learned to trust on YouTube. They provide free health information on videos. We watched and listened intently. Now, neither of us is a doctor and we haven’t met with either of these 2 YouTube doctors, but we know what has been working for BOTH of US.

One of the doctors we follow is Jason Fung, MD. He has written several books on this subject. 3 of his books we liked are: 1) The Obesity Code, 2) The Obesity Code Cook Book: Recipes to Help You Manage Insulin, Lose Weight, and Improve Your Health (The Wellness Code), and 3) The Complete Guide to Fasting: Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and Extended Fasting. Click on the links in this paragraph to see these books on Amazon.

We listened to their advice and figured we had nothing to lose. The answer for both of our ailments was:

INTERMITTENT FASTING AND EATING WHOLE FOODS!

That was it! When people start saying they have the cure for [Insert ailment here], the truth of the matter is the answer for us was doing absolutely NOTHING.

Now let me explain. We took a month or 2 to get to where we could handle eating One Meal A Day (OMAD). Our bodies figured it out. The tough part was we’d been taught our entire lives to eat 3 meals a day plus snacks. My husband lost 60+ pounds, went from a 2X to a medium shirt, and a 38 waist to a 32 waist. Crazy.

Go figure — Because of my skin issues, we were both getting healthier. I lost a lot of weight too and my skin issues went away as long as we stayed away from the empty carbs and processed foods.

We eat OMAD and when we eat we eat whole foods (foods that have not been highly processed). We use whole butter and whole milk. For cooking oils, it needs to be something like high-quality olive oil, coconut oil, or avocado oil. We steer clear from today’s white wheat flour and sugar (to the best of our abilities).

Now back to our MS journey. Before intermittent fasting, my husband had to use a cane to walk. He usually leaned on my shoulder or used a cane to walk if we were away from the house. He always used the dolly in the store to steady his walking.

After Intermittent Fasting, and losing all the weight, he feels pretty good. He doesn’t use a cane at this moment. Although, he still doesn’t have the boundless amounts of energy he used to have. The lesions in his brain haven’t gone away but he’s better than he was before fasting. After intermittent fasting and being down over 40 pounds, he quit taking all his MS medications. At his neurology appointment, his VA doctor was quite speechless when my husband told him. The doctor agreed with this course and said we’ll re-check in 6 months.

At the 6 month mark, the VA did his bloodwork (it came back perfect), and his blood pressure was around 110 over 75 (it had been borderline high before). The MRI showed the lesions in his head/ spine had not changed (no progression- which was the point of taking all the previous meds that made him feel horrible). The VA primary care doctor he saw at that time said he wished all Americans would do some intermittent fasting and eat whole foods (this doctor was originally from India) to allow their bodies to heal. He was very pro Intermittent Fasting.

I have no idea if our results are typical of people practicing Intermittent Fasting. All I know is the videos from the doctors we follow are free on YouTube, and the human body is an amazing miracle. The body knows how to heal itself if we allow it to do so. Humans have been around for a long time; now WE understand our bodies know what to do during times of feast and famine. We need to stop eating sometimes to allow our bodies to heal.

Our understanding of the disease pandemic today is our food is causing us some major issues. Much of the food we eat causes our insulin to spike. When insulin levels are high in our bodies, we CANNOT BURN FAT! By the way, if you have diabetes, what medication do doctors usually prescribe? Insulin… interesting [just food for thought]’; Big Pharma $$$$! If you learn to keep your insulin levels low [Intermittent Fasting is one proven way], your body can automatically go into ketosis (the burning of body fat instead of carbohydrates for energy). Ketosis leads to autophagy. During autophagy the human body seeks out and eats its own bad/ damaged cells.

I am not a medical doctor and this is not medical advice. :0)

I believe the systems we (the people) paid for, the ones we were told were created to “help” us have morphed into something different than originally intended. “Do No Harm” has unfortunately turned into an unquenchable thirst for more Money($$$$) — Greed: Big Food, Big Pharma, the AMA, the NIH, the FDA, and most of the Medical field now seem to be mostly interested in looking out for THEIR bottom line. Healthy people don’t generally need these agencies’ services. The biggest problem I see is their Income is Our Debt!! We’re not being told the truth about our food and how to stay healthy.

Please study how to improve your health every chance you get and do your best to stay healthy and safe out there. Skipping a meal won’t kill you, and highly processed foods ARE NOT your friend (i.e. sugar, High Fructose Corn Syrup, and tons of unknown additives). It’ll be OK, your body knows what to do to recover (just give it a chance)!

I posted this story on medium.com earlier today.

If you found this information helpful, or if you’d like to learn more I would appreciate it if you’d leave a comment.