At the time it was devastating! This was such a shocking, disheartening, numbing, hopeless, and dismal time in my life. I’m pretty sure I felt all the negative emotions one can have when it comes to learning you have a crippling and damaging disease. I thought of my future and it included a wheel chair with deep, dark feelings of depression and despair—I thought my life was over.

Both my husband and I were in a grim state for the next 15 days. I listened to the neurologist and received a steroid drip for 3-4 days in a row. She said it was ordered because it was supposed to shrink the swelling behind my left eye so that my vision could come back. I’ve been conditioned to listen to the doctor. “Follow the doctors orders,” is a statement that many of us succumb to. Shortly after, I faced an agonizing migraine headache that lasted for the next thirty days. Unfortunately, I learned later that the steroid medication had caused this.

Then, the neurologist wanted to put me on a trial drug because I learned that my insurance company didn’t cover any MS drugs. At the time, my research revealed that MS drug costs were anywhere between $55K-95K. I was distressed when I found this out and then realized why Americans in general have high health insurance premiums. I had a stack of papers I was supposed to read on this new drug that was not FDA approved yet.

A day or so later I had received valuable information from my daughter-in-law revealing that diet can help manage MS symptoms (She had just graduated and received a degree in dietetics). I was more than curious about this and did some digging on my laptop while I was still in bed (in agony with that migraine headache). Then, I learned about how diet and lifestyle could heal. I found Dr. Terry Wahls’s TED Talk. My God! WOW—what a revelation! She healed herself out of a wheel chair with diet with 4th stage MS. I thought, If she can do that, I can certainly heal my own symptoms”.

I was on cloud nine and started on a journey of doing a 180 degree flip on what I fed myself. I took out sugar, gluten, and dairy and focused on nutrient-rich foods like many veggies, quality meats, and some fruit. I wasn’t used to eating this way and have to admit, it wasn’t easy at first.

After about 4 weeks I started feeling less tired and the numbness was disappearing. After 6 weeks I felt like I could think clearly again and the numbness in my legs and hands had vanished. After 8 weeks, the LHermitte’s sign had left and I felt like my healthy self again, but still had a blind spot in my left eye. However, after 4-5 months I noticed my full vision had come back. What I experienced was a miracle! No one had taught me that I had this ability! 

I’ve been symptom-free since 2015. I had healed all of my symptoms the same year I was diagnosed. Within this (just shy of) a decade of learning, boy have a gained a lot of knowledge!