The Wahls Protocol is the most recent book by Terry Wahls, an American doctor who reversed her MS symptoms through diet, exercise, stress reduction etc. I have been following a paleo diet for 6 months and have been fully following the Wahls protocol for about 3-4 months. I have had MS for ten years, am SP and had to retire from work due to worsening.
Since changing my diet I have seen radical changes to my symptoms. I now have masses of energy and positivity. I was unable to lift my right leg when I started and used a scooter whenever I was out of the house. I can now lift my leg and sometimes walk almost ânormallyâ for a short time, lifting the foot off the ground and lifting my knee rather than swinging my stiff leg out to the side. M|y balance is miles better. When I go shopping I now use my tri-walker instead. My spasms, stiffness, pins and needles and toe clawing are dramatically reduced. I have been able to reduce the amount of painkillers I use. I have begun to write better. I saw my physio this week for the first time in months and she couldnât believe the increase in my strength and ability.
I am convinced this program works and I intend to remain on it, even if I donât improve any further, but I do expect to see more gains. I have also lost three stone (I was overweight) and people tell me how great I look, healthy and vibrant apparently. I feel like a different person.
I just wanted to tell all of you about my experience because I wish someone had told me of the power of diet before. I would recommend anyone to at least try this protocol for a few months and see if it works for them too. What is there to lose!
That is really wonderful to hear you have had such good results. I have now become interested in getting book/giving it a go properly. Like you say, what is there to loseâŚ
I am glad to hear you are interested mir! Before I changed my diet the only trend in my illness was downward, now I feel I am on the up and up. Itâs great to feel in control of this illness for once.
Iâm happy to answer any questions/pms by the way. I would love to be responsible for spurring others on to improve their symptoms and overall health - after all thatâs why I tried Wahls myself, I looked at the facebook page of a woman with MS and she was singing its praises and documenting her improvements.
I donât find it hard now, truly. The transition in the first two weeks was uncomfortable (carb flu etc) but I was desperate and determined. I donât miss any of my old diet and I used to be the biggest carb addict you can imagine, the thought of no cereal for breakfast or a milky tea was just impossible to me, but I thought, well Iâll just try it and I can always go back to eating the old way if I decide to, it doesnât have to be forever - but now I canât imagine eating my old diet again. I honestly love my food, even more so as I KNOW itâs doing me the power of good as well as being tasty.
Itâs quite different to Swank, Paolo, as it encourages eating meat while excluding gluten and all grains & legumes. Swank is low fat while Wahls encourages lots of healthy fat in the form of coconut oil & milk, avocados, cooking with lard etc. There are three levels to the diet, you can choose which level you start at and progress to the next level if you wish.
Controlling stress is a definite part of it yes! I followed a guided meditation video on youtube the other day as she advises this. Exercise and the use of e-stim also play a part. Itâs a multi-factoral approach.
Clearly i need to re-research the Wahlâs approach.
Swank is indeed an almost vegan-like approach and it remains to be seen if i can go without red meats for a whole 12 months. I will undoubtedly succumb to cheese as Nutritional Yeast just doesnât cut it! Thank gawd for sushi is all i can say!
I am already a pretty low fat kinda guy, but there is no way i can give up my breads, nuts and grains⌠everything in moderation remains key i suppose.
I definitely donât believe in everything in moderation personally, the book explains how gluten and dairy can cause all kind of problems and they have to be excluded completely to feel the benefits. Iâve been living by âeverything in moderationâ for years and a fat lot of good thatâs done me!
You can eat nuts on Wahls though, and there are some pretty tasty things to be made from ground almonds and coconut flour!
I think what the two diets have in common is eating lots of fruit and vegetables and no processed food - which has to be good surely.
Hi, I have been doing the Wahlâs diet for about 18months,I have so much more energy than before,I found lots of imformation from the book by Judy Graham MANAGING MS NATURALLY I also take lots of supplements, it is sometimes very hard to stick to but I think it worth it, you just have to be creative in the kitchen.
I take lots of supplements too Simone. What level of Wahls do you follow? I have been doing WPP (wahls paleo plus) for two weeks, and I have been showing ketones in my urine regularly. Itâs weird because that level is a real appetite suppressant as it contains so little carbs, last night I couldnât finish my tea which is most unlike me! Iâve incorporated aspects of the protocol gradually as itâs a lot to do at once; Iâve managed to include seaweed by buying dried sheets, crumbling them up and adding a little to a smoothie, and Iâve learned to love coconut milk - I think it helps if you find a good brand (I prefer Grace from Amazon, it has no additives and tastes better than the canned kind). I love liver so consuming organ meats was never a problem for me - but going by the comments on the Wahls FB page itâs something that US followers struggle with immensely!
I tried the Wahls diet for about six weeks. I did see improvements in my walking and energy levels. However, all those vegetables and fruit turned my wee really acidic. I was going to the loo all the time and it hurt when I did! I took a urine sample to my GP and I was so sure it would show an infection but it didnât. I did get relief from drinking lots of bicarb of soda but that isnât very good for you. In the end I stopped the Wahls diet and a few days later the problem went away. I donât know if anyone else gets this effect from eating a plate of leafy vegetables, a plate of coloured vegetables and a plate of onion-type vegetables every single day. When I thought about it, it didnât seem that surprising to me.
Arenât all these diets just money making opportunities for their creators? A way of making money out of the misery of MS? I was on the Best Odds Diet for years and that did nothing for me, either.
Pretty much in line with my views.
I tend to think that Terry Wahls is a bit different from the rest, because she does publish in reputable journals. But what you have to remember is that the Wahls Protocol is not just about diet. There are a lot of other things that you have to do as well.
I think that we would all agree is that a healthy diet is a good move. But when two of the âCure yourself from [insert condition here] - buy my book and find out howâ types offer diets that are essentially opposed to each other, then one of them must be a con. The problem is that none of us know which one. The second problem is that if one is a con, then both of them could be cons.
Of course, over the last few years, we have seen a lot of wild claims made here, and a few people who have said simply that âI tried this, and it worked for meâ. Guess which one I tend to trust?
I donât think either Wahls or Swank/Best Bet are deliberate cons, and they have some elements in common like lots of fruit and veg and no processed food, so maybe thatâs why they all work for some people to some extent? I am continuing to notice improvement every day so I am convinced by it personally.
I am surprised that so few people have replied to this topic, I would have thought it would have created more interest. I wonder why not? Is everyone jaded because of so many claims of âcureâ that have come to nothing, or have people tried diet before with no success I wonder? Does it seem too hard to attempt? As soon as I read an actual first-hand account of a woman who was helped by Wahls (a UK ladyâs facebook page) I was determined to try it and Iâm so glad I did.
Wahls Protocol - not a con at all (see my comment about her publishing). However:
Swank? So Roy Swank died 6 years ago - but the Swank Foundation will still sell you books and supplements. Go figure ⌠âŚ
Best Bet - well that one comes from Ashton Embry,who when he is not promoting a range of supplements, is promoting the MacDougall Diet (subsidised by a subsidiary of the worlds biggest supplement manufacturers), and CCSVI. Now while the jury is still out on whether CCSVI causes MS, or whether MS causes CCSVI, Regardless of which, one or the other, please. Diet or CCSVI - but which one?
And while we are on the subject of diets âŚ
OMS diet (âBuy my book and find out howâ) which is close to Swank, but you can have a week in an expensive retreat centre who have another line of business in retreats on how you can cure your own cancer.
Now ask why all the âBuy my book and find out howâ people concentrate on conditions for which there is not yet a recognised medical cure. Could this be because it is easy to blame the Government/ Big Pharma/The Medical Profession/etc for with-holding the wonder cure from you, but very hard to prove otherwise.
Although by its very nature, it has not been proven to a clinical standard, (test subjects knew what diet they were on; students measuring the subjects knew the diet they were on; there was no control group or true comparative group) the essence of the diet is still within the realms of good, solid nutritional common sense:
High natural produce
No processed junk food
No saturated or hydrogenated fats
No red meat
I confess, i have eaten venison; Swank has it that no red meat at all can be eaten in the first 12 months and then after, only 3oz of lean red meat (eg venison) per week. But as much as i love tenderloin steaks, all the cheeses and milk, i am not struggling to adhere to the model.
Whether Swank is being pitched to sufferers of MS as an effort in opportunism or not, i do not care. They have gained $0 from me. In the meantime, i am afforded a sense of improved health, an investment towards greater longevity and goddamnit, a sense that i have exercised some meaningful control over the path my future life will take.
I am surprise how many with ms have had there gallbladder removed or appendix. When I had my gallbladder removed I still ate bad fats for a long time. Now I donât think this caused directly the ms but i obviously donât tolerate bad fats well. For me therefore im trying to eliminate bad fats and eat less processed foods. I juice daily, eat chicken and red meat very occassionally. Try to cut diary and gluten but not if im out. Im looking into ways to support my liver. I eat good oils ie coconut and virgin olive oil. This is a mix of all the ms diets out there but I feel it supports me, and also ensures I donât loss To much weight. I hope this helps my ms and is what is advised surprisingly if you have had a gallbladder removed. Zoe xx
I had my gallbladder removed a couple of years before I developed MS. I had been following a very low-fat, high-carb (therefore gluten) diet and I blame that for causing my gallstones and contributing to my MS. Now I know better and I eat the opposite diet. I donât avoid natural saturated fat (fat on meat, lard, coconut oil) as recent studies have shown it to not contribute to heart disease etc and itâs probably more likely to be sugar thatâs responsible.
I personally never deviate from completely excluding dairy and gluten, and I donât believe they are something that we (people who are sensitive to them) can have in moderation. A little bit can cause an inflammatory response in the body and can take months to leave your system. So if you are having the odd bit every two months or so you could be suffering from continuous negative effects. You need to exclude things COMPLETELY for some months in order to judge if eating them was affecting your health and conversely if cutting them out can help you feel better.
Glad to see you are having such good results on Wahls, Perky! I started it in May 2014 (but have only just joined this site) and definitely have more energy, and did not find it difficult at all as I love all the foods you have to eat (well, except kale maybe!) I have just progressed onto the paleo plus, which I am finding harder as I love to eat loads of fruit, so one portion a day is impossible for me, but I will try harder. I am lucky to not be too badly affected yet but I intend to stick with it and give it more time. I hope you do too as it sounds like it has changed your life.
I was very disappointed last time I saw my neurologist for an annual review as he dismissed Wahls out of hand, and likened it to âbee stingsâ and âsnake venomâ. You can see why it takes an average of 18 years for a medical discovery to become mainstream.
I do have a bit of a problem with the Wahlâs protocol (as I have posted on this very thread I think). It is possible that in 18 years this will be seen as a cure for MS. It is more likely that it will be on the scrap heap of things that people used to make money out of MS sufferers. It will be there with the Swank diet and the Best Odds diet, with worms, bee venom, snake venom âŚ
A genuine question - why is the Swank diet on the garbage pile of hokum ideas?
Iâm a Swanker! Sure it takes some effort but ultimately, it is simply good solid, commonsensical, sound advice.
And it has cost me not a single penny; no newsletter subscriptions, no powders or potions to buy. Just a free online resource (which i printed anyway) listing the guidelines which have been employed by many many people for up to 50+ years.
It can be dismissed due to it failing to comply with scientific standards, lack double blinds and placebo groups etc⌠but how do you maintain a state of ignorance amoungst a group of hundreds of test subjects over decades of time, where every meal is being strictly monitored and curtailed?
I think that the real problem is that Roy Swank screwed up when he wrote up his research.
It would have taken just about one paragraph to explain why it was not a practical proposition to have more than the one experimental group, and most of his critics would have then had very little to criticise.
He was so hung up on what he knew to be correct that he left the door open for a whole load of criticism.
It is one thing to believe that you are correct - you do not have to try and prove it to the medical community or the scientific community, you just have to tell it in such a way that you do not leave them any room to rubbish your views.
Thank gawd for sushi is all i can say!