The MS Recovery Diet by Ann Sawyer and Judi Bachrach

We have received several e-mails recently from some frustrated people whose recovery is not matching that of other people they know on the diet. One woman began the diet about the same time as her mother, also with MS, and now finds that her mother has made much greater progress. Another woman on the diet for a year has found that someone on the diet for just 3 months has experienced much greater success. I sympathize and know it can be frustrating. Each of our bodies, our disease state, and what foods or other facotrs contribute to our disease is different. As we have said, it is a challenge to find the right diet combination that is your unique path to recovery. The diet gives you general guidelines that each person must refine for themselves.
Here are some suggestions:
1. Experiement with your diet and foods. Try out different foods, even ones that are common triggers, to see what you react to, how much you react and what happens. I know it is scary to be doing something that will potentially cause symptoms to appear, but if you get symptoms from experimenting, they can be reversed. Understanding the diet, you will not go so overboard to do yourself harm. This is an effective way to understand your particular needs and triggers.
2. Experiment to see which foods make you feel better. I found that if I had raw vegetable juice and avoided all starches, I felt wonderful. My level of Omega 3 oils also seemed to impact me positively. Find out what works for you.
3. Check out and experiment with any supplements you may be taking. They are often made with carriers that trigger symptoms. Like the two points above, it may be subtle, but it might just be the small things that are making a difference at this time.
4. Make sure your digestive system is working well. To be constipated is to hold toxins in your body for a longer period of time. Stomach aches may be a sign that your gut lining is not full of healthy bacteria.
5. Make sure you are giving your body enough rest so it has the energy to recover. If you are using all your energy for daily life, and are stressed, your body does not have the extra energy to restore functions.
6. Go beyond reducing stress and find serenity.
7. Watch what you drink. Water is best.
Sadly, there are some people that don't get the same positive results from the diet that the majority of us do. I have no explanation for that and regret that I must write this. I wish there were the funding to fully research the diet and develop a better understanding of its workings.
Best of luck to all of you. If you have particular questions, do write them in on our e-mail. We will do our best to answer your unique concerns.

It has been a while since I've blogged, I realized. Life can be so busy especially over the holidays. I thought I'd share the Christmas card I received from Ruth, who is profiled in the book.
She writes: "My life, as yours, continues to evolve. I have given out several books and always watch for it when at any book store. I walk 3 to 5 miles a day and have begun weight lifting. So THERE to any MS symptoms!!!! Keep in touch. Ruth"
My New Year's wish is that everyone with MS can find this same recovery. Ann

Judi and I take turns answering the e-mails sent into the website. It is wonderful to hear how many people have been successful and also heartening to hear from those who are just beginning or who are having some trouble. There are some common themes in the questions which I would like to address in this note.

It is very important that you not lose too much weight or get weak because of the diet. To effectively fight the disease and recovery, you need to be strong, well nourished and that means a normal weight. Otherwise, weakened you are more likely to get symptoms. So, eat more, try to focus on adding more of the good oils to foods, fill up on potatoes, sweet potatoes and fillers, eat more often.

Do not be afraid to experiment with foods. Most people find they are not sensitive to the five usual suspects. As soon as you are experiencing some recovery, or even sooner, try out eating different foods. Legumes seem to affect fewer people so experiment with your tolerance for them. If you find you spike a symptom, then back off. By making mistakes or experimenting, you will learn more about your body and how the disease and healing works for you. Everyone will have their own version of the diet, so I encourage you to find yours.

Digestive health is veyr important. I recently discovered (it is so obvious, I thought why didn't I see this before) that instead of buying keifer starter to make my coconut water porbiotic keifer, I just emptied a capsule of pribiotics into the coconut water and let it ferment. It was so soothing after Thanksgiving weekend when I overdid it on a lot of foods.

Again, for all of you good luck and as you recovery keep spreading the word, it is going to take all of us to help get the diet into mainstream thought and medicine.

With the busy-ness of my life, I haven’t blogged in a while. Today, however, as I thought about Thanksgiving, my mind turned to MS.
On a personal level, it has been 13 years since my major MS attack which took me to full disability in nine short months. It is now over 12 years that I have been on the diet and 9 since I experienced full recovery. I still follow the diet, though not as carefully as I once did, reaping the benefit of greater health. I’ve fallen off my exercise regime, but plan to return to one since I feel the difference. In short, MS plays no particular role in my life now.
Except through the website and e-mails that Judi and I vowed to maintain and faithfully answer. It is very rewarding. One man recently wrote, “thank you for giving me my life back”, another wrote praising us for “starting a revolution.” Much as I would love to take credit for this, I can’t. The truth is that the first man reclaimed his own life and we did not start anything, rather with the book we are merely messengers about the MS Recovery Diet. The truth is that this is a movement of all of us, with a lot of momentum as seen in the still top selling status of the book after over 2 years on the market, despite having no institutional support. That means it is my word of mouth that so many people are finding their way to the diet, your recoveries are a big part of that grass roots message.
The miracle is all of us, everyone one of you who is reading this message. With each recovery word spreads, amazingly far and wide, inspiring more people to follow the diet to their own recovery and on it goes. We are hearing from people around the world and from the most surprising places. As more and more people recover, and it is happening now, the institutions can no longer ignore the diet. So, to all of you I say, let everyone know about how you recovered and name that much feared disease openly.
I am so grateful for my recovery and my daughters. In my imagination, I can see where the two of us would have been, nursing homes, if not for the diet. More, I am grateful for being a part of this movement which is bigger than any of us and which has already done so much good with more to come.

Dr. Roy Swank identified MS as a vascular disease (blood and circulatory system) and in the MS Recovery Diet; we explain his findings and incorporate his suggestion to ingest very little saturated fat. Now an Italian vascular researcher/surgeon named Paolo Zamboni is expanding on Swank’s concepts with some very interesting findings thanks to the advances in technology.
He found that the main drainage pathways for blood to flow out of the brain were narrowed or blocked in MS patients. More, the blood would flow back and form new pathways around the blockages. They named this “chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency” or CCSVI. As always with MS, it is not clear if this is a cause of an effect of the disease.
Like Swank, Zamboni’s findings would suggest that the breach of the blood brain barrier, resulting from the venous damage, results in the cascade of events that we describe as MS. A possible refinement is that the differing pattern of pathways the blood uses to flow back to the brain enable researchers to differentiate the various types of MS; primary progressive, secondary, relapsing/remitting.
The medical treatment for this is called “the liberation procedure”, using balloon angioplasty and/or stents in the veins identified as problematic. Interestingly, the surgeon giving this treatment to one MS person told him that it was a good thing that he was following the MS Recovery Diet with its focus on low fat.
There are still manly questions, but these findings do add another piece to the MS puzzle and add to the work of Dr. Swank. MS is a very complex multifaceted disease, being a neurodegenerative disease, an autoimmune disease, and a vascular disease.
The good news is that the diet, because it evolved empirically does in part address the issue of fats in the vascular system. So now we can even more see why the low fat component of the diet is so important. Ashton Embry is going to focus his efforts to see how the diet can be further refined to make the nutritional treatment of MS even more effective.