Food as Medicine

Many things fulfill me in life, from road trips, music, writing, the hospitality industry, and other joys I pursue to maintain happiness. However, there is one thing that fulfills me in a more overwhelming way on a daily basis and that thing is food as medicine. I know this can sound cliché or even not make sense to many people. It could sound like I am diminishing the importance of science and healthcare by pointing to food for treatment. Stay with me on this passion of mine and you could begin to understand why.

At the young age of 20, I ended up in the ER with the entire left side of my body weak and numb. On the drive to the hospital, the left side of my face began drooping as well. I got into an MRI immediately, and the next morning, the doctor came in with the news that they suspected Multiple Sclerosis. MS is a neurodegenerative disease where the lining of your nerves is damaged by an overactive immune system attacking itself. It occurs in the brain and spinal cord, causing nerve damage, scar tissue in place of those nerves, and depending on the area of the attack, disability. There are many side effects and symptoms like blurry vision, bladder control issues, sleep trouble, depression, weakness, numbness, sensory overload, cognitive impairment, and much more.

No two persons have the same blueprint of Multiple Sclerosis and doctors do not know what causes people to get it in the first place. They suspect environment and genetics, but they cannot be sure. One thing doctors are sure of is that they want you to begin medication as soon as possible. MS has no cure, which is a daunting thing for me as the patient. Not only that, but the options for medication are overwhelming with scary side effects that only increase with the higher tiers and dosages of the meds.

Now, when I was lying there, drugged out and confused, barely hanging on to the words the doctor was saying to me, my parents asked the life-changing and life-shaping question on my behalf: What does diet have to do with this? The doctor shook his head and told us, “You’ll have to meet with a nutritionist.” As the years have gone by, not one of my doctors has asked me about my diet or lifestyle. When I sit on the table while the crinkling paper echoes throughout the room, everything in me wants answers. All they can tell me is to start this med or that med and hold on to the 30% effectiveness it could have. “We’ll see you in a year for your MRI.”

Six months after my first MS attack, I began to look deeper into that question my parents asked. What does my diet have to do with my overall health? I eat a bagel with coffee for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch, and chicken with rice and a veggie for dinner. What more do I need? Sometimes I have pizza or go out for ice cream. I don’t have a sweet tooth and hardly ever drink a soda. I have a cigar on my birthday and beer whenever I feel like it.

Starting my endeavor into research on how to eat for my MS and my overall health led me to a world I had no idea existed. What I found on the effects of gluten, sugar, and dairy on your brain astounded me. Not only that, but the needs our cells have to operate at their highest capacity come from our food! My changes began with cutting back on the little sugar I already consumed. I felt great, I was able to get back to my normal life and overcome the residual symptoms of my MS attack with their occasional, but not constant return.

I made the leap to cut out dairy and gluten years later when my MRI showed MS activity. Initially after making serious changes to my daily food and adding in the vegetables and supplements needed to support my brain health, I felt like a whole new person. My skin, hair, and nails felt young and wonderful. My mood improved significantly along with sound sleep and more energy. My sex drive and life were improved. My cognitive function skyrocketed. My depth perception when walking – embarrassingly with MS I dealt with some balance and brushing against walls on occasion – improved greatly! The inflammation I felt in my left arm from the first attack subsided.

My vitamins were on point with me taking everything my body and brain needed in order to maximize cell health and function throughout my day. I sought to feed my brain in the most positive and healthy ways possible. My food intake, my vitamins, exercise, stress level, sleep schedule, and intake of the world around me became my top priority. Doing things to make me happy more intentionally, learning to let stuff go, finding exciting new recipes to try, and reading as much as I could about MS to know how to better serve my chronic illness became my absolute everything. I took note on when I did partake in pizza or had a stressful event happen in my life and how my body responded to that as well.

I had pages of notes and specific points I could not wait to share with my MS specialist. I got on to my telehealth appointment, ready to give a life update. “Hey doc, five months after learning about that new MS activity, I changed a lot and I feel at the top of my game!” “That’s great, Kylie! So, we want you start that medication immediately.” What…my heart sank. My mind processed the disappointment. My logic told me I was dumb for expecting anything else. They didn’t even ask what I was eating or what vitamins I was taking. They didn’t want to know how often I was exercising or drinking or what activities I was doing to create new pathways in my brain! Nothing.

The discouragement a patient can feel when they look to their doctor for answers in regards to a serious illness that can lead to disability, and they are dismissed is devastating. When it comes to MS, there are cases of disability that does not subside. There are cases that are mild and manageable. There are patients who experience an in-between. This goes for many chronic illnesses and multiple other diseases as well. When we look to food and lifestyle to help heal and prevent many of these illnesses and diseases, we do ourselves, our families, and science a huge favor!

However, many doctors and specialists don’t want to acknowledge the goodness food and lifestyle can do for us. They only study the diseases and not what causes them. They only look to the meds that supposedly treat them. MS has no cure, but upon years of research and experience, I have found diet significantly helps not only myself, but many other patients as well. The year I had MS activity showing on my MRI involved me being lax with my diet and not feeding my body and brain with the healthy things it needed.

If doctors, patients, and normal healthy people looked back to the basics of biology and what the cell does, the way we look at food might change. Our cell needs energy to operate and it gets that energy from food. If the food is junk, the cell can’t operate at it’s highest capacity. If the cell can’t operate at the highest capacity, illness is experienced. Whether that is chronic illness, depression, mood swings, sleep troubles, heart disease, diabetes, and a number of other problems we go through, eating to nourish your body can solve these issues.

My passion in life is not change everyone’s mind or to fight against the use of medication. My passion in life is to create a world for myself that is enhanced by the gift of knowledge. The evidence we have paired with basic biology shows us that food is medicine and healing begins with food for many illnesses. Outside of food, we should learn how to manage stress, enjoy the small things in life, and chase the large passions and dreams we have. That makes our brains happy too! If we all start nourishing our bodies with the food we eat, we create a life for ourselves to achieve more and go farther because we will feel good and be truly healthy.

I dream of writing about diet and lifestyle and how it’s changed my MS for the better. I want to share with the world how each bite can heal you from the inside out. I have envisioned standing on a stage sharing my story with thousands of people and helping the hopeless regain control of their life that their illness may have taken from them. I want to share how inexpensive it is to fill your cart with the foods you need to heal versus the cost of healthcare that could be making you sicker. At one point I felt the ache of drifting away from my fiction stories to spill my findings about MS and diet over pages and pages. Then it dawned on me: one day my story will help change a life. The creations burning inside of me now will help someone else conquer the world.