Original Posting: 06/02/2016

The words hung silently in the air. I tilted my head to the side like my Papillon, Gidget. I had looked at my MS diagnosis as just that. A diagnosis. But as the phrase left my newly-discovered, naturopathic doctor’s lips, my body covered with goosies, recognizing this truth on an energetic level.

He continued, ” You don’t get a diagnosis of what is the problem. Just a description of what your body is doing, which is causing white matter lesions on your brain. You get a description, but no problem to fix.”

Our conversation over the next two hours of my initial consultation included rudimentary drawings, links to websites presenting scholarly, peer-reviewed sources, and a lengthy conversation about nearly everything that had gone awry with my health since childhood.

” I had numerous head injuries as a child.”

” I have always had cold hands and feet.”

” I developed migraines after giving birth in 1996.”

” I have hypersensitive sound sensitivities.”

” I had bowel issues for a month after my mother passed away.”

” I started developing a tremor in my left hand around the same time.”

And that was really the reason that I was there in the first place. When my mother suddenly passed away, I was shocked, but I wasn’t surprised. Although she had taken care of her diabetes for years with diet alone, she had ignored the not-so-silent killer, smoking. She had smoked for nearly five decades, focusing only on perceived lung health, and ignoring the heart attack risks associated with her legal addiction.

My unknown, biological father had died ten years earlier of a smoking-related stroke. Age 65. My unknown, paternal grandmother had died the year I graduated from high school. Age 63. My known mother, found dead in her home, March 29.Age 68. I am an orphan. Age 42.

I quit smoking on 09/19/2009, at the age of 35, after smoking since age 18 years old. It was important to me to quit before I turned 36, as I did not want to be a smoker for half of my life. Moreover, I wanted to live well past my 60s.

And now, I am even more determined to unlock the secrets to MS to ensure that my sons will not be motherless in their 40s. Six, ridiculously, expensive tests from now, I hope to find the “positive result” that will let Dr. Pinocchio know which paths of treatment to follow. I am hopeful that six months from now I will be weaning myself from taking any immunosuppressant medication. Six years from now, I plan to be free of MS attacks.

#ms #naturopath #alternativetreatments