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| My Experience with Multiple Sclerosis and Route to becoming Symptom Free Hi, I'm Linda and this is my episode with Multiple Sclerosis. It all began back in February of 1986. My husband (Mark) and I had gone to dinner with Jim & Linda. While we were eating I rubbed my nose, it was numb, the whole left side of my face went numb. That's how my multiple sclerosis started, from there it progressed to tingling and numbness in both legs. Would get worse when I went for an extended period without eating. I was diagnosed after a whole session of tests through a spinal tap. In the 10 years following, I had ms attacks on a regular basis, every time in the months of November, December or January. I thought it was the stress of Christmas. I had a pretty bad attack six months after my daughter was born (January of 1991) this attack took away the control and use of my right arm. It lasted for eight months, when it finally ended I could no longer feel with that hand. My episodes with MS flare-ups consisted of numbness & tingling in my legs, loss of color & clarity of vision, vertigo, cognitive problems, inability to run or walk straight and a general loss of balance with a tendency to go to the left and run into walls, bladder problems, depression, spasticity, mood swings, fatigue, you know the run of the mill things related to MS. I took prednisone for each attack until I ended up in the hospital due to inactivating my immune system to the point that a minor infection in my tooth took over my whole face and I resembled a basketball. Refused to take prednisone after that. I started on Betaseron in April of 1994, and had the worst set of attacks ever. One right after the other until I was losing the ability to walk and was in pain. Stopped the Betaseron (since it was making me worse), the results of trying that put me in my worst state of health. They remained (though after two years I had learned to adjust to the loss of balance by widening the spread of my legs to match the width of my shoulders...made me look extremely bowlegged but I didn't fall!!) until August of 1996 when I read an article written by Daveq regarding vitamins and antioxidants. It was my first visit on the Web searching for the words "Multiple Sclerosis". I combined part of the diet by Daveq with Ashton Embry's theory and Tim Stouts theory. Pretty much matched similar items and went to the drugstore with the list. On August 14, 1996 I began a 3 times a day vitamin routine. On August 16, 1996 I had the feeling in my hand return. This was the beginning of the most unexpected chain of events. My eyesight began returning. The feeling in my hand returned to normal. The tingling in various body parts ceased. My balance returned to the point that I can actually run (I don't jog, never cared for it, but I can run from the store to the car if its raining!). Its now August of 1997 and I've been symptom free since September 1996. These are the vitamins/antioxidants that I take daily: 150 mg Life Plus Proanthenols (pycnogenol by Masquelier) 2000mg Omega-3 (fish oil) 800iu Vitamin E 2000 mg Vitamin C 160mg Bilberry 50mg Beta Carotene 15000iu 1000mg Shark Liver Oil 200mcg Selenium At night I take a multi-vitamin and magnesium/calcium. Before bed I take 50mg of manganese. I also use progesterone cream to replace the progesterone hormone in my body. This is the hormone in females that generates myelin production. As you age or take birth control pills, this hormone is not generated. I also quit all dairy, all caffeine and lowered the amount of sugar that I eat. I had an ELISA food allergy test done and found that I'm allergic to ALL dairy products and eggs, mainly eggs. Well, to most people this would be a major change, but I never eat those items during the year, only in eggnog, and the reason I know this to be the major part of my problem was that I only had attacks during the months of November, December and January every year for ten years, 1986-1995 (except for when I took the Betaseron!!) The point here is that all the vitamins in the world might not be able to overcome the reaction from something you are ingesting that you are highly allergic to. Food allergies played a role in my attacks and I have removed all items that showed up as high allergens from my diet. S. This is the address for the Lab I used to get the ELISA test done: Meridian Valley Clinical Laboratory 515 W. Harrison St. Kent, Washington 98032 Fax: (253) 859-1135 Tel: (253) 859-8700 2 food panels covering 190 foods Here are the addresses of the web sites where I initially found all the information I needed to become symptom free: Daveq's web page - unfortunately his page no longer exists Ashton Embry's Theory http://www.direct-ms.org/bestbet.html Timothy Stout's Theory http://www.el-dorado.ca.us/~tstout/ms/welcome.html MS One to One Article http://www.erols.com/mslnda/myms/121article.htm (April 1997) mslinda@home.com |
| An Interesting MS Read. |
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