This Is MS Multiple Sclerosis Community: Knowledge & Support

http://www.npr.org/2011/05/09/135844983 ... isnt-there

it's true that once you are in chronic pain the system is right out of whack and diet does not provide corrective nutrition at therapeutic levels.

when i got diagnosed i spent the first little while trying to figure out how to supplement as an ideal vegan but i soon gave that up.

i realized, when looking through the science, that the literature had not spent enough time understanding nutrition to fully understand all the synergies and interactions going on when we eat food. and i certainly did not feel i had the time to waste reading when my body was going to pieces around me.

i quickly decided not only to supplement like i never had through my years of veganism, and to go back to eating dairy, eggs, poultry, and meat. hello, 30 pounds. sigh.

further reading and testing. my vit d3 is way down. am i going to correct with diet? no way. daily supplements? not a chance.. i had been on them for months by my first test and i was only up to 72 nmol/L. i did the math and calculated i was about 6 months away from my target value for d3 with my current diet and low level (3400mg) daily d3 supplement.

my chosen treatment was based on advice by the mcmaster drug info office. 50,000 IU/d vit D3 for 10 days. i did it, re-tested serum d3, and was at 149.

there is no way diet could have achieved the same thing. and, if i go off my supplements and don't eat enough d3 rich foods, my level does slip back down under 100. easily.

it was the same thing with magnesium. by the time i was choking to death from dysphagia, diet would not have touched my magnesium issues. i had to supplement hard for a long time before i could go a single day without magnesium without knowing about it in my throat right away.

now i ensure far more dietary magnesium than ever before, and i can tolerate supplementing at lower levels. i put up with a low level of spasticity in order to avoid side effects from increasing my daily amount of mag bisglycinate.

on the other hand, i was also deficient in protein energy when dxd. the klenner protocol recommended a high protein diet with 2-3 eggs for breakfast. that was a trip for a newly non-vegan patient. but i didn't know of any other treatment than diet to address protein issues.

again on the other hand, not everyone's situation so clearly involves malnutrition as mine did. and if you break your leg, get a cast first, then worry about nutritional healing

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my approach: no meds so far - just balanced whole foods (partial 'paleo', much less outright elimination), science, supplements, & bloodwork
my regimen - www.thisisms.com/ftopict-2489.html
www.whfoods.com, www.nutritiondata.com

Science has just recently started looking at the diet-health connection, it's premature to conclude that diet has only a subtle effect on health. Absence of proof is not proof of absence.

A double-blind diet study? I haven't seen too many studies on that, but if anyone can pull one up, I'd be interested to read how it was designed. I imagine one would know if they were eating Lay's potato chips or a kale salad.

I also found it ironic that the doctors recommended just eating a "healthy diet...", where the whole discussion revolves around the definition of a healthy diet in the first place.

Diets don't have an effect on chronic pain and turmeric or fish oil are equivalent to ibuprofen.

So am I to understand from this article that ibuprofen isn't a pain killer? Or is it that pain killers don't have an effect on chronic pain?