Initially I was grateful – I now knew what was wrong – but after the prognosis, the treatment prescribed by the neurologist really sucked!

With the symptoms no better after a month of Rebif subcutaneous injections – tingling, numbness, bad balance and tiredness, I decided on a dietary approach to combat the effects and possibly cure multiple sclerosis

There have been numerous articles on the Internet where it has been reported that a change in diet was beneficial – e.g. The Swank Diet – helps reduce symptoms. Then there are some diets that supposedly eliminate relapses in Relapsing/Remitting Multiple Sclerosis (RRMS).

So desperate and frustrated I bought a copy of Mark Anastasi’s “Multiple Sclerosis Breakthrough”. What a waste of $47 dollars!

This ebook was filled with nothing but common sense. The extras? Crap! Don’t buy it – Google will serve you better.

Peeved, I hit Yahoo and Google and found some substance and numerous referrals to another ebook – “The MS Recovery Diet“. So I paid some more dollars ($16.95) and at least it has given me some valuable and usable tips that I now use to control and test the foodstuffs I eat.

With MS, finding healthy food has become a nightmare in its own right.

Just avoiding foodstuffs containing preservatives, additives, flavorings and those crypto numbers like 200,202,220 etc cuts your possible shopping list options down by 75%

Some things are easy to cut out aspartame - good bye Coca Cola! As part of trying to find out what triggers my MS relapse, I had a Coke. About an hour later I had a sudden increase in the MS tingling!

Avoid aspartame – avoid Coca Cola ;-(

The MS Recovery Diet also mentions dairy as a trigger. So far I’ve found that cheddar cheese and yogurt is no longer on my shopping list. However plain white cheese seems fine. As for organic milk – well the jury is still out on that one. Probably know by the end of the week.

So far the only safe – multiple sclerosis friendly – food seems to be fish. I’ve been told that swordfish should be avoided because it is high in mercury? Don’t know about that but then I wouldn’t know where to get swordfish anyway! Stick to the standard tuna, salmon etc.

Where does shellfish fit in? Oysters, muscles etc.

I found this site that has a mercury calculator.

Wheat has a bad side too in the journal article “Cereal Grains: Humanity’s double edge sword“. Problem with this is that pretty much everything on the food shelfs down here in Australia has wheat or a derived ingredient. Difficult one.

Step by step, I think it is possible to find a “completely natural diet” that not only halts the progression of the MS disease but rebuilds the myelin layer and repairs the central nervous system (CNS).

“Let medicine be your food and food be your medicine” – Hippocrates (460-377BC)

Well I hope so

Bookmark to:

So two weeks later, the brain MRI for confirmation after the spinal MRI.

To have the privilege of fastening your head next to jack hammer for 45 minutes to an hour will set you back $540. This examination is definitely not for you if you stuffer from claustrophobia

The invite – specialist neurologist script – a piece of plain penned paper is another $100.

But wait that’s not all!

To make the brain MRI work well, you get an injection for an extra $40. The MRI injection contains a contrast agent called gadolinium. Once absorbed into the bloodstream, it allows the radiologist to see the functioning of the brain.

The gadolinium contrast agent changes the magnetization properties of the blood. The advice given is to drink lots of water afterwards to flush the gadolinium out of your system – I chose beer.

Once again, I tried to extract some details from the radiologist but got turned down – talk to the neurologist!

To look at an image on the CD, the neurologist confirmed that the MRI revealed more lesions – multiple sclerosis prognosis!! For this jewel of information, I parted with $100 + $35.

Time to join the two million and counting club of multiple sclerosis sufferers.

Did you know that “sclerosis” means “scars“? Well, looks like I’ve got a whole lot of ‘em.

No effective multiple sclerosis treatment exists, currently an incurable disease, reduces life expectancy by at least 7 years, gets progressively more debilitating over time – sounds like old age

Bookmark to:

“Multiple Sclerosis is an autoimmune disease characterized by the destruction of the nerve myelin layer“.

Well that pretty much what the neurologist said to me and ofcourse, I knew exactly what that meant in – in plain English please!

Thrilled, I parted with yet another $100.

Myelin is the protective sheath that surround nerve cells – primarily a protein based layer. MS can affect numerous body functions with symptoms that may include visual and speech impairment, memory loss, depression, tiredness, muscle weakness, loss of coordination, numbness, bowel and bladder problems.

I kinda interpret this as messing with body’s electrical system.

To ensure that I had no metal on my body and being fashion conscious – for a good looking MRI – I stripped down and jumped into the hospital gown.

The only good thing about the gown was the breeze between my legs! After all these years I finally understand why girls love those really short skirts

The MRI machine has limits, so before being slid into a tube, a really good looking brunette asked me how much I weighed!! I wonder what she was looking at?

Even with the ear plugs, the MRI machine is frigging loud! Being confined and squashed in a tiny cold tube doesn’t help either. After having the pleasure of gluing a jack-hammer to my skull for just short of an hour, I parted with $518.

What really peeved me off was that straight afterwards, I asked the radiologist if the MRI showed anything. The cold answer was my referring neurologist would answer that question. Surely a radiologist can say, “Yeah mate, you’re screwed!”, “Could be…”, or “No worries”?

Another week of suspense to follow – getting an appointment is really difficult.

It seems that here in Brisbane there is a definite shortage of neurologists and MRI machines. One could also interpret this as Brisbane is filled with a whole load of head cases

The six inches of real estate between your ears is the most valuable – some people have less.

The scans had a couple white spots – lesions - and that signified MS – well almost. The MRI also revealed some old scar tissue which meant some lesions had existed at some previous point in life.

So for my next $100 diagnosis, I got a comment on the scarring and scribbled note for a second MRI visit of the brain – the search for brain lesions.

Bookmark to: