The MS Recovery Diet by Ann Sawyer and Judi Bachrach

I have been a friend of Ann Sawyer's since the summer of 1972 when we worked and played together as camp counselors in Wisconsin. Ann and I were both young adult women, physically able, strong and vigorous and relished using our bodies to row canoes, chop piles of wood, hike, dance, swim, and keep track of dozens of young campers. Both of us continued to be very physically active through our young adult years. I became rather addicted to backbacking and camping in The Grand Canyon. Over the years, Ann would say to me that one of her goals was to hike in the Canyon (it is aruguably among the most challenging of hikes; a rough, rocky, hole-potted trail full of puddles of mule urine from the tourist mule trains going up and down.

Ann called one day a few years ago and told me she had fallen down suddenly in a parking lot and was numb on one side and having to stay in bed. I was very concerned as she described her range of unusual symptoms. I kept asking how could she just go down. A few days later we spoke and she said she believed she had tripped over a low concrete parking space marker. I remember thinking, why would she not have known this from the time of her fall. Later, we spoke and she told me she was not getting any better and was seeing MDs to try to figure out what was going on with her body.

I will never forget the day she called to tell me she had been diagnosed with MS. We cried and in my mind I had the customary images of Ann looking like a person with MS. Just a few years prior I had lost a first cousin to MS. He was diagnosed in his late twenties and was dead at 34. He suffered from the classic MS symptoms of losing and "magically" regaining control over some part of his physical functioning (walking, feeding himself, eyesight, bladder control, etc.). He sought medical help in many acclaimed research medical facilities around the country including coming to stay with me while going to Univ. of Chicago Hospitals searching in futile desperation for a "cure."

As Ann came to terms with her new diagnosis and became aware that modern medicine had, essentially, nothing to offer, she determiined to find her own way through this journey of MS. I, having spent a good deal of my career in medical facilites, encouraged her as I knew doctors would not be of help and drugs would only mask symptoms and might even do permanent damage in the long term and end up causing the disease to progress even faster than it might if left untreated by chemicals.

It did not take Ann long to figure out the basics for approaching her own MS care regime and it has had blessed results. About 6 yrs after Ann's diagnosis she and I did a 15-hour hike in the Grand Canyon. Ann's husband, Steve, and her 3 children were very worried about her taking on such a grueling challenge. Ann did just fine. I got sick and she had to care for me! We had an experience neither of us will ever forget. I remember when we surfaced onto the South Rim from the Bright Angel Trail at the end of our 15 hour day in the desert; I thought to myself, Ann, you did it, damn it, you did it and no worse for wear.

Since then I have repeatedly encouraged her to write a book and share. I have given numerous people her phone number and e-mail address. Many people have not been able to exercise the discipline or maybe could not bring themselves to believe that diet alone could help MS. If one clearly examines all we know today about MS, a diet treatment makes absolute sense.

If you have MS, please, please, please give this treatment a try. Your life depends on it.