A dear friend of mine suffered from Multiple Sclerosis and I watched her physical decline for years before she sadly passed away in 2013. This was so distressing to me, that when I first saw this TED talk from Dr. Terry Wahls, on her miraculous reversal of this terrible disease, I was enthralled. I immediately wanted to know more and started researching her story.

A medical academic at The University of Iowa, Wahls was 45 when she was diagnosed with MS. Her health declined rapidly, and within a few years she was in a wheelchair. In a recent article, she wrote, “Despite taking the newest drug therapies available, by 2007 I was at my worst. I couldn’t even sit in a regular chair for more than 10 minutes because I was so weak. I had brain fog, severe fatigue and it was very hard to walk even a very short distance. It was around that same time, over 10 years ago, that I started reading the basic science about nutrition and MS, and I began experimenting [with methods of MS management] on myself. I knew that MS is this complicated interaction of genes from your parents and a lifetime of diet and physical activity choices (environmental choices). I also knew that your health is also a reflection of the types of microbes growing in our gut, and that your gut microbiome helped to determine if you got an autoimmune problem (and how severe it would be).”

An Alternative Path to Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis

Dr. Wahls began studying the latest research on autoimmune disease and brain biology, and learned that nourishing the body’s mitochondria was key to brain and body health. She then decided to focus on getting the vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and essential fatty acids that best feed the mitochondria from the food she ate rather than pills and supplements. Dr. Wahls adopted the nutrient-rich paleo diet, gradually refining and integrating it into a regimen of neuromuscular stimulation. First, she walked slowly, then steadily, and then she biked eighteen miles in a single day. In her book, The Wahls Protocol, she shares the details of the protocol that allowed her to reverse her symptoms.

To see Dr. Wahl go from a wheelchair to a bicycle, and to watch her walk across the stage in her TED talk really inspired me, and I wanted to share her story with my readers. Hopefully her success will help others with autoimmune diseases.

For more information, go to www.terrywahls.com