Hi everyone, and a Happy 2010 to you all.
Hope the festive season has kept you all fit and healthy. I just wanted to stress the importance of staying positive and motivated, and take heed from a lapsed dieter.
I originally started the diet in july 2008, and took great steps towards my recovery, but after 8 months i lost my momentum, even though i had never felt so well!!! The irony? My medical people decided i might not have ms, and wanted to do all sorts of retesting, including another lumbar puncture, after i`d already endured 2, and all this after 7 years of diagnosis!!!! The reason i started on the slippery slope was self doubt, if i don`t have ms, the diet won`t work, and worse than that, if it`s not ms what the hell have i got?!!!!
It took 3 months for them to finally decide they were wrong,and yes i have got ms, but unfortunately, i`d gone off kilter big time, add to this a major family bereavement, and i`m a lost cause.
My fatigue has returned, i`ve put on 8lbs of extra weight, and my so called walking is terrible, but i just wanted to say i made the New Year my decision to get back on board with a vengeance, and i`m now on day 4 and looking forward to my return to better health. The good thing is i now more or less know my triggers, so it should`nt be too long before i`m reaping the benefits again.
Lets all get back to posting our ups and downs and help each other through the bad times, i know its been a bit quiet on here, but i guess we`ve all been so busy over the holidays.
Look forward to hearing from the usual suspects soon!!!!
Regards Sarah.
Thanks for the feedback,
Thanks for the feedback, justme! Much appreciated. I do think that I will likely be moving away from gluten, but somehow I just couldn't face both dairy and wheat/gluten at the same time. I waited for several months trying to get my mind around it, and then decided that I felt like I could stop eating dairy now, and I will just have to wait on the gluten for a bit longer.
It didn't seem like it was serving me well to put off what I could do because I can't seem to do it full-bore yet. If all of that makes sense. I have been off dairy for a week now. Really! I can hardly believe that I've just written that, and that it's true! And it's been surprisingly easy. No big cravings for dairy products. I've been doing a lot of cooking, and have eaten many, many vegetables!
So so far, so good. I have been experimenting with other grains, which hopefully will eventually help me give up gluten too. I've been feeling pretty good, though in a more generalized way. No specific changes in ms symptoms, but then it's only been a week! My energy level has been good, which is very helpful!
Just a few thoughts to the
Just a few thoughts to the comments on this page. I've noticed that some wondering what to do next have given up dairy, gluten, and sugar. I commend everyone on their hard work. I would add a gentle reminder about the other common offenders: legumes, eggs, yeast, saturated fat, and remember to consume healthy oils. Rotation is also very important. I was always a label reader, but since going on this diet, I've learned we have to be real investigators for the hidden ingredients, especially soy. I never knew just how prevalent soy is in the foods we eat. I admit I never thought about soy being a legume. Soy is a huge trigger for me with symptoms appearing immediately. I haven't had any allergy testing done yet, but hope to soon. After more than a year on the diet, I've figured out most of my triggers, but sometimes it can be confusing when consuming a combination of foods. These are just a few thoughts from my experience. I want to encourage everyone to keep going and give it time. I love this diet! It has given me so much more energy and stamina, that I don't miss the foods I've eliminated. It's worth it to me, and in exchange, losing a few pounds was a happy bonus. I wish the best to everyone and hope we all see results and a healthy new year!
Hello Lamph, In quick
Hello Lamph,
In quick response to your posting, the ELISA test that I took was offered through Immunolabs. . .www.immunolabs.com. I had a doctor here do the blood draw and then it was sent to the immunolabs who does the analysis and writeup/recommendations. Just thinking out loud--would it be possible to have a blood lab or doctor's office near you order a kit from immunolabs and then do the blood draw for you and send it out? It is a simple, one tube blood draw if I remember correctly. It may be helpful to you. It was definitely helpful to me, even after being on the diet for over a year. Just a thought. . .
Hello, I'm interested in
Hello,
I'm interested in your comments-I presented with an optic neuritis ( after my first child )in 1986, all the tests ( including a lumbar puncture) were negative, so I was told to go away and 'put it to the back of my mind' . I did as I was instructed and had no problems for 7 years, during which time I had two more children, started the gym and learned to ski and had quite a senior job. I started to experience problems after a few stressful events, and I started a gluten free, low dairy, lowish sugar diet. No effect that I could see-I was very strict about the gluten. I read Ann and Judi's book in 2008 and have been even stricter about my diet-all the advice they give in the book-at least I was until Christmas when I said, for the first time in many years, 'to heck with it all'. I am marginally worse , so I'm back on the straight and narrow -I don't notice any difference yet. I am at the stage now where I can't drive, use my right arm properly, work etc. I will persevere with the diet, but I can't say that I notice anything that makes me feel worse when I eat it-even after all these years being careful about what I eat. In short I don't know what to do next!
There is nowhere that I know of that offers an ELISA test, so think I will just have to stay on the diet.
I'll be interested to hear how you get on.
Hi Shelda, I wanted to
Hi Shelda, I wanted to respond quickly to your posting. I see that you're eliminating dairy to start. I would really suggest to you to also add in the wheat and gluten containing grains, since they also showed up on your sensitivities. I just know that you'll see faster and more obvious improvements in doing this. I know that it is hard. I've given it all up, but you will find alternatives that work just fine. You really will. If you need suggestions, search this site and ask for help on any specifics. I cook for a family of four and manage to make it all work out just fine. This was just my thought as I read your post. It's good to see results, because that is what motivates you and makes it all worth while! I think you'll see more results if you take the plunge and eliminate all of your offenders right off the bat. Stocking up on some good replacements, like Tinkyada pasta, and some home baked buckwheat or rice flour muffins can really help. In another post, I noted some foods that I've ordered online that are very good (except the flax seed crackers--they're a bit too flax-y for me) and VERY helpful to have in the kitchen. I think it was called something like "foods ordered online that are worth looking into". . .something like that. Rice Dream Rice Milk is a great substitute for milk in drinking, on cereal, and in baking. Best of luck to you!
Hello Soprano4! Well, it
Hello Soprano4! Well, it has been quiet "out here" for a while, so it's nice to see some new year postings. I'm terribly sorry to hear about your MS/Not MS/MS troubles. Lumbar punctures are a dreaded event for me, so I feel just terrible hearing that you had to go through all of that again. . .just to find out that you're back at MS again. I've been thinking about your posting for a couple of days and wondering. . .I wonder if the confusion in your medical people's minds wasn't caused by the improvements that you had experienced? It's not expected for improvements or feeling better to be found in MS, so maybe that's what threw them into the "let's analyze and diagnose her all over again!" mode. Just a thought. The GOOD of your note was where you said that you had never felt so well! That's a very positive sign. Keep that in mind as you re-motivate in this new year. I think you'll see faster results to get you back on track as you cut out the offending triggers again. Hopefully, it will be a faster improvement time, which will hopefully bring you back to feeling better again.
I've given a lot of thought, myself to this new year and what it will mean to my progress. I'll post it separately to not clog up this page with all of that!
Please post again soon. I'd like to hear how you're doing and if you're finding it any easier to stay on course.
It's good to see a recent
It's good to see a recent post here! I can't really remember if I've posted myself before or not, so I'm not one of the usual suspects, but I have been reading the forum for a good long while.
I bought the book back in the summer of 2008, I think, but I've not managed to follow the plan, despite thinking it makes a lot of sense to do so. I've been dealing with ms symptoms since 1990 (first episode was optic neuritis), but had a mostly benign course for many, many years. Then in 2006 I had by far the worst exacerbation to date, and ended up in the hospital on IV Solu-Medrol. I've had two more exacerbations since, one that ran its own course, and another treated with the steroids.
I had an ELISA test last year, testing reactive for dairy, wheat and other glutens, and ginger, of all things!
For some reason, it's been very hard for me to think about not eating dairy or gluten, so I've decided to start with one. Dairy was more reactive, and in some ways I think it will be the hardest for me (I love my cheese and yogurt and butter), so my plan is to give up dairy entirely for a month, and then re-evaluate.
I'm feeling pretty motivated at the moment. After the complacency of a pretty benign path for so many years, I'm having enough symptoms now to really be messing with my life. I have some numbness and heaviness in my legs, a little tingling in my left hand, and lots of fatigue and stumbling around. I drive a standard transmission car, and that gets a little tricky from time to time. Later in the day, as I get tired, my energy just seems to flow away. But then I imagine most of us know that feeling!
Since 2006 I have stopped drinking soda (full-sugar/HFCS versions, was never into diet soda). I was a confessed Pepsi-holic for the whole of my life to that point, so that was a major accomplishment. I had a Sonic Route 44 Limeade on my way to the hospital, and that was my last soda. Three years and counting! And last October, after my second worst episode, I gave up ice cream. That's been over a year. I'm eating more healthy than I ever have before, but there's still a good bit I could do to aid my recovery.
I'm thinking about starting a blog to blab away about the process. We'll see how that goes. If and when I get that going, I'll post the link.
I'm grateful for this community.