Living This Way

It's been about two weeks since the news has been official, although it feels longer to me. A lot has actually happened since then.

We're eating a "paleo style" diet lately. Mostly, I've been eating tons of vegetables and fruit, some nuts, and a very little bit of poultry and fish. I think it's still too early to see if it's helping my MS, although I do notice something. This could be a placebo effect, or it could be chance. I've had the symptoms from this flare-up for about three months now, so it could naturally be fading away as that's typical with MS. BUT, At the beginning of this whole thing, I closed my eyes and asked Doug to slap my leg. He slapped it, and I didn't flinch at all. It didn't hurt. I felt pressure and knew my leg was touched, but judging by the white hand print left on my leg, I didn't feel nearly as much as I should have. Last week, I tried the same test, and it actually hurt! So I'd say my feeling is slowly coming back. Who would have thought it would be so nice to feel a slap.

This way of eating has really broken me away from my comfort zone, which is good. I am relying on God instead of food for my comfort and satisfaction. Food isn't something that's a comfort anymore, it's just nutrition. God is my only source of comfort. I've had days where I feel like this is useless and I'm doing it for nothing. Everything I've read, and I've taken a few pages of notes, says that there are no controlled placebo effect studies to prove that diet and MS are directly related. In order for something to be scientifically recommended, it needs a control to contrast it. It's kind of hard to placebo vegetables, therefore this method of treatment is kind of sketchy. I read on the national MS society's website that "Most of the claims made for dietary treatments are based on personal accounts, and the reported benefits may have been spontaneous changes that would have happened without any treatment." So, the way I'm doing this is kind of unorthodox, and pretty scary when I think about the future and what it holds.

Another method I've been researching is use of vitamin D therapy. It's been found that a good chunk of people with MS are women, roughly ages 20-50, who live in the northeastern part of America. (I didn't have much on my side, did I?) It's also found that people who live a certain distance from the equator are more likely to have MS. I would say from what I've found that it's almost unheard of near to or south of the equator. Some believe this has to do with the amount of sunlight exposure. There is hope for promising results of new studies to prove that the immune system is positively affected by higher intake of vitamin D. It's kind of ironic because if you have MS, sunlight exposure and the heat that comes with it literally exhausts you.

With the odds somewhat against me, in the mainstream anyway, it's a little scary. I've thought, "What if I'm doing the wrong thing and I end up in a wheelchair in a few years?" and a lot of thoughts like that. I was at the gym the other day riding the stationary bike and my eyes were bothering me. When I get hot I lose most vision in my left eye, so I have to take more breaks than I used to to cool down. I felt discouraged because I was just realizing that my body wasn't as adept as a lot of normal people.

I had my iPod on shuffle, and a song called "He'll Take Care of the Rest" by Keith Green came on. It really was encouraging to hear! A line in the song is "Just keep doing your best, pray that it's blessed, and Jesus will take care of the rest." He goes on to sing a lot about stories of God delivering different people in the Bible. It made me think. God is going to do what he wants with my body, not what I want. I just have to do my best to take care of myself--whether it's medicine or nutrition-- and the rest is up to God. I would even say it's all up to God. That was a great song to come on when I felt like an old lady at the gym, so I petaled on to do my best.

Last night was also really encouraging! I went to a group for people around my age who have MS. I was still the youngest there, but just meeting other people who know what it's like was great. They all seemed like normal people who just have this annoying downfall. It gave me assurance that life can go on as normal, and adaptation to new ways of life is possible. A woman there said the key is to "Accept and adapt." I thought that was cool. I will definitely go back there.