Use your body intelligence to make decisions that are right for you
In 1998, I was an officer cadet for the Australian Army Reserve. I’d recently graduated from university with a media and journalism degree. I had the world at my feet.
Invisible resistance bands
But after one punishing army course, in which I’d crawled up rocky hillsides during a hot Australian summer, my whole body started tingling. I was like a struck glass. There were tight bands around my thighs. My ribcage felt like I was wearing a corset plugged into something electrical.
After 16 days in the field, I shrugged off that heavy army pack, but still felt the weight of it. There were cuts and bruises all over my body like I’d been beaten up.
Over a few days, the bruises changed colour and faded away. But the phantom army pack! It stayed there for weeks alongside the tight bands and pins-and-needles like my legs had fallen asleep.
As the daughter of a doctor, we lived above a medical centre. We were literally above illness. Patients were annoying. As a four-year-old, one parked in my sandpit. 😠 My first big word was hypochondriac. I had the false confidence that illness couldn’t touch me.
MS wasn’t in my plan.
I was a vegetarian and reasonably healthy. Surely, there’d be a cure within a few years. I was healthy, wasn’t I? The medical team wasn’t so optimistic.
Start drugs early, they said. There were only 4 drugs available at the time. They weren’t very effective and had nasty side effects. I decided to wait.
Over 15 years, I had more and more MS attacks and several stays in the hospital. I had constant symptoms like pins and needles and fatigue. How could I block them out?
Lots of wine. Workaholism. Smoking. Late-night dinner parties followed by insomnia. Middle of the night worry about my future. Self-loathing. Depression and anxiety seeped in deeply.
I was a slow-moving train wreck
I knew I had to do something to avoid imminent carnage.
Then I saw it on a bookshelf. The research and lived experience of Professor George Jelinek. It showed me the breadcrumb trail, leading to the answers in the medical libraries.
You don’t know what you don’t know
Diet is important, I learned. It’s 95 percent of the answer.
Food is 95 percent of the answer
But I wasn’t doing exactly the right things. There were big gaps in my knowledge. I didn’t know what I didn’t know.
There is scientific evidence that shows we can greatly influence our quality of life, symptom severity, and overall health outcomes.
Within a couple of years:
- I stopped having MS attacks
- I massively reduced the amount of inflammation in my body (the root of all chronic disease)
- My old symptoms healed and then completely disappeared
- I was able to do things I hadn’t been able to for years, like climbing ladders, then mountains, and running again.
Saying no to drugs at that time wasn’t an act of defiance, stupidity, or rebellion.
I carefully read the brochures, learned about how the pharmaceuticals worked, and the side effects (which were significant and substantial), and made a decision that I didn’t expect. It was contrary to advice.
I decided it was better to have the strongest immune system possible, rather than suppress it. And to stop tricking it into thinking your myelin is a virus.
World’s leading expert
It may sound arrogant, but I’m the world’s leading expert on my own body. So are you — on your body.
Wrapping up
You know your body better than anyone. You already know what makes you feel good and what doesn’t. Listen to your body. Trust yourself. Take medications for MS by all means, but please don’t leave it at that.
MS is telling you something isn’t right.
Your job is to discover what that is, not just shut down the symptoms. It’s not a problem with your body.
For all we know, your body may be behaving exactly the way it should with the inputs it’s being given. We can change the inputs and change its response.
Do you agree with me?
Have you made any transformational discoveries?
