After some Googling I found that my symptoms were a better match for Diplopia.

As expected, the medical profession makes an absolute fortune out of their gibberish and overly complicated terminology.

For us normal people, Diplopia is the medical term for double vision.

Diplopia is caused by lesions on the cranial nerves, in particular the nerve that controls the lateral rectus muscle which pulls the eye outwards.

If you remember the wormhole video game where perceived distance was simulated by a cone shaped tunnel slowly becoming a point within a matter of inches, well diplopia does that in a couple meters.

But wait, that’s not all!! After meeting at this focus point, your eyes continue to cross over behind this point.

When looking at a really cute curvaceous Sheila, a really nice ass grows really wide in seconds ;-(

Without warning your boss quickly grows two heads – without warning the doors evil twin is not where you think it because you trusted the wrong eye – image. Sometimes having a spare really sucks!

So besides the numbness / tingling in my legs, I tried to see my double vision as just another hurdle towards recovery – curing my system – my world of multiple sclerosis.

Now having experienced an improvement – by that I mean a more manageable symptoms – with a change in diet, I figured there was still something that I was eating or doing that could be facilitating or exacerbating my condition.

Once again I turned to Google and Yahoo to find a cure for Diplopia.

The only treatments I found were oral (prednisone) or intravenous steroids. Interestingly, those patients treated with steroids like prednisone had a higher likelihood of repeat attacks. Did the pharmaceutical companies include that in the literature in big bold print? Hell no, they need to protect their bottom line!

Not willing to take steriods, I reverted back to the Rebif (interferon beta-1b). It took only two subcutaneous Rebif injections and two deadly headaches before I threw in the towel.

This time the injections really hurt – the diplopia induced double vision made targeting the right spot really difficult ;-(

Desperate to know the diplopia cause, for a treatment, I started emailing out for help.

The best reply and most useful reply I got was from the ladies that wrote the MS recovery Diet.

Cut back on fruit.

Preservatives, colorants and dairy are all bad. This didn’t make sense – I thought fruit was good for anyone who suffers with MS.

So I cut fruit out and there was a definite improvement but not a fix. A week later, I went to the markets and desperate for something sweet – a sweet fix – thought I sneak in a couple guavus.

I pride myself at being at the top of the food chain – but here with the gauvus, I actually had to prepare my sweet fix – clean, chop, skin.

Well worth the effort.

The next day, my vision had jumped a couple meters and even more the day after that. The symptoms were now less severe.

Guavus aren’t special – at least I don’t think so. It is a juicy tropical fruit rich in vitamin A (vision), vitamin D (strength) and vitamin C (immunity).

I still have my fruit but less of it. If you have diplopia, the cause could be too much fruit in your diet. So I think the secret was actually keep the fruit – vitamins etc – but do so in moderation.

It doesn’t make sense – but it worked for me and you’ve got nothing to loose

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That was an optimistic screw-up!

The conventional medical establishment preach gloom and doom. Well they must! It is the GP and neurologist - specialist’s job. Their duty is to promote and distribute the pharmaceutical drug manufacturer production line. Hell odds are pretty damm good that their medical training was sponsored and supported by the big pharmaceutical and drug manufacturers like Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck & Co. et al. This is where the tunnel vision is nutured and promoted.

Let me present my evidence:

I mentioned acupuncture to my neurologist and she shot it down as utter rubbish – ineffective. So what if acupuncture bought a couple hours of relief – “You must have your Rebif injection 3 times a week – don’t miss a day“.

I wonder if the Serono pamphlets, charts and free sample packs in her office swayed her decision?

A more complete study of the current medical establishment is given in the book – “Selling Sickness” – a must read for anybody who gives a shit about their health or that of their loved ones.

Desperate to walk again – stand mostly vertical, I figured I’d give neurologist prescription drugs the benefit of the doubt – effective until proven otherwise. A month later and peeved with the headaches which Rebif mentions in the fine print – instead of a big frigging warning label. I should’ve listened and heeded the experiences of those who posted their experiences with multiple sclerosis and treatments.

What can I say – it’s a genetic defect of being a bloke – tough guy – don’t need help – can do everything myself ;-(

To date, a change in diet has been the most effective treatment against multiple sclerosis. Best of all you don’t need a prescription – no need to stuff a so called doctor’s bank account.

The dietary change does work – well mostly – until MS decided to attack my vision.

Optic Neuritis swelling or inflammation of the optic nerve. In fact, optic neuritis is often the initial sign of MS.

For myself, the first MS symptom was a loss of mobility and balance – living with that was bugger – but nothing compared to an assault on my vision ;-(

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Each new drug product release – together with some clever marketing – “disease mongering” – generates the hope of a better life.

So the average man / layman on the street buys this hope.

By maintaining, developing and promoting the drug addiction, the pharmaceutical company profits are protected and continue to increase every year.

The customer lifetime value (CLV) of using the drugs every day / week / month is their cash cow.

In “Selling Sickness – How drug companies are turning us all into patients“, Ray Moynihan gives examples of how the cooperation between drug companies and the medical profession can make healthy people believe they are sick!

Drug companies are using their dominating influence in medical science, to market fear in order to re-define human illness. Together with company-friendly doctors and sponsored patient groups, the all-powerful pharmaceutical industry is helping to widen the very definitions of what we call disease.

Suddenly the normal ups and downs of life are being turned into frightening conditions that have us all buying and using drugs!

After my multiple sclerosis prognosis, I started looking at a change in diet as my medication – not a three times weekly Merck Serono International subcutaneous Rebif injection!

If my neurologist didn’t have a box of Rebif information pamphlets and samples donated by the local pharmaceutical industry representative, would my prognosis have been the same, unbiased? Mmmm…

Perhaps if you listen to Paul Zane Pilzer’s “Wellness” and give “Selling Sickness” a read, you’ll understand why I strongly believe that MS has just been marketed as an “incurable disease” and can be healed without drugs!

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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

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Because of the nature of the disease and existing medication, you can’t pop a pill for MS symptoms – you need a subcutaneous injection. The injection needle is about 15mm (almost an inch!) long and inserted perpendicularly to the skin. Possible subcutaneous injection sites include the buttocks, stomach and the back portion of the upper arms.

Do the subcutaneous Rebif (interferon beta) injections help?

Well Rebif, isn’t a cure and it doesn’t claim to be. It is a disease modifying drug that claims to reduces the frequency of exacerbations and slows the progression of disability. So three injections per week – every week religiously – stab wounds the way I look at it

I’m sure everybody has heard of or experienced the case where a medication meant to help a one condition aggravates or generates another condition. Kinda where if you’ve got a headache the doctor prescribes this pill only to generate a stomach ulcer.

Rebif is no different. On YouTube a young girl was demonstrating the correct injection procedure. Initially, I thought she added the hand full of headache pills and pain killers for dramatic effect – hell no!

Sure one of the Rebif side effects noted on the packaging information is the headache, but what Serona failed to say was that this headache was the mother of all headaches. If there was noble ache prize, Rebif would be clear a winner.

To put the Rebif subcutaneous injection headache into perspective, a guillotine or bullet would be a blessing.

Now onto the injection site stab wounds. You don’t have to be very smart to realize that you’ve got only a limited amount of skin that can be jabbed regularly. Sure move the needle around but even still, the area does begin to hurt – almost as though you’ve been punched and bruised.

When you next need an injection in that area – a couple days later – it still hurts even though the needle is nowhere near the last injection location.

Serono say the side effects of Rebif are manageable – headache, depression, nausea, flu-like symptoms, severe liver injury, injection side reactions but what about long term side effects? What about the effect on current or future pregnancy or sperm?

A couple years ago, Fosamax (Bisphosphonate) was released to help those suffering from osteoporosis – a bone weakening disease which leads to fractures. Now they’ve found that the drug is responsible for the development of a bone disease called osteonecrosis of the jaw (ONJ) or “dead jaw“.

Somewhat contradictory wouldn’t you say for a medication that’s meant to protect the bone?

What unknown (unpublished) side effects does Rebif have?

Now I know MS affects the brain – but with the little that I’ve got left – I struggle to see the value of a medication that makes my head explode, doesn’t cure the disease and supposedly maximizes the time between relapses.

My final thought is this: Rebif is the trademark name for “Chinese Hamster Ovary” juice Read the information leaflet!!!

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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

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“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.

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It was something that affected other people – people who lived outside my world – outside my frame of reference – not my problem – a general indifference to what it meant.

For the last couple years I’d had a couple issues – primarily with a tingling numbness. Didn’t pay too attention to it because the sensory problem would come and go!

Hell, I used my symptoms to my advantage!!

Some days when I was at the gym exercising and couldn’t feel my legs, it wasn’t as though I couldn’t use them – they worked better!!! I could lift more, cycle for longer and that was a bonus. None of the usual aching and stressing (and farting!) that happened with a serious workout – serious exercise!

Unfortunately, the numbness episodes progressively got longer and more intense.

Initially the numbness was just below the right knee. Yeah I told myself, that was because of a motorcycle accident – it must be – isn’t it?

Then the numbness enveloped the whole right leg. Yeah, it’s still that knee – serious nerve damage – so what I’m still walking?

Then one day the right leg was just fine – normal – but the left leg was numb - strange…?

It was also at this time that I stood on something lifting my toe nail and only found out about it when I had blood all over my kitchen floor.

That really sucked!! Do you know how difficult it is to clean blood up?

As time past the numbness lasted longer and longer. First it was a day or two, then a week, then two and onto a month and now even more.

But I didn’t do anything because I was still able to live normally – walk the talk like the average (good looking) bloke. I looked after my body, health, didn’t over-indulge, non-smoker and exercised regularly to offset a desk bound job.

So for the last couple years, the numbness came and went – relapsing. Sometimes several months would pass with no effects whatsoever – uneventful.

Well that was until late this August.

Over about a week I slowly lost control of my right leg. I knew I was vertically standing but had no idea of what my right leg was doing. The numbness I’d experienced previously always allowed me to feel the stepping action vibration through my back. Now I felt nothing.

The right leg muscles didn’t have control.

The thigh muscle banged up and down – couldn’t move the leg smoothly. My ability to balance also got rooted. With no balance walking virtually impossible – moving became a concentrated effort.

Well, at this point being a bloke and all – tough as nails – I finally realized I needed some help.

Frustrated, debilitated, depressed and now searching for a cure, I visited Google to find out if anyone else had similar symptoms.

First results hinted at a thyroid issue that messed with the nervous system and then somebody on the forum mentioned MS.

Idiot!

I heard about it mentioned what the hell was MS? How could that be? Initially I couldn’t even spell “Multiple Sclerosis”

Sounded really bad – no way. Besides a couple altercations with a motorcycle and the normal stuff guys do to themselves – I looked after my body – ate well

Hell I only one body – no spares in my cupboard! MS affected other people – not me – not my family – nobody.

Immediate denial – it had to be wrong!

Multiple sclerosis diagnosis ;-(

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