Website of the Month

This day and age almost everyone has internet access and making your own personal web page is fun, easy and FREE through services such as Yahoo! and Tripod. Each issue will feature one of the many personal websites out there devoted to MS. We all have a story...

This is Karan's

"Either you have MS, or MS has you..." Karan was diagnosed with MS in 1981. Here she discusses her journey to healing and acceptance, the various therapies she has tried, what works for her, and what doesn't. It is a spiritual and inspirational site filled with lots of love and encouragement.

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Coach K's Korner

Coach K is MS With Attitude's Honorary Coach! Ken Larson, President of Champion Performance Systems Inc., is "The Champion's Coach". Ken traveled the world as a member of the Canadian National Basketball Team from 1981 through 1984, and now holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Human Performance and a Master's Degree in Sports Psychology. As an international professional speaker and seminar leader, Ken has inspired many people with his hands-on approach and unique presentation style. Ken is also a compassionate one-on-one personal coach, working with individuals who want to achieve success through personal growth and inner fulfillment.

MS With Attitude is proud to include a section in each newsletter devoted to a few words of wisdom (and maybe even some homework assignments) from our Coach! Take it away Ken...

"Change or Be Changed"

Jack Welch, the former CEO of GE was once quoted as saying... "change before you have to". Good advice? Certainly! However, change seems to be that action we know we need to take, but never seem to, at least not to the level we dream of. Of course, if our doctor tells us we have no choice - then we seem to follow through. So why is it we have to wait until this point? Why not change before we have no choice? Why not create the situation where we give ourselves NO choice?

1. Get Control. This involves making the decision to get control of an aspect of your life. What I've found is that people will not make a decision to change until the pain of staying the same outweighs the pain of change. What is your tipping point?

2. Make the Choice. This is where you make the choice as to what you plan to do about it. It has to be the ONLY choice. Remember to start small. No one ever jumped to the top of Mount Everest. It takes small steps over and over until you reach your goal. And don't forget to set SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound).

3. Make the Commitment. Jack Donohue, my late mentor, and former coach of the Canadian National Basketball Team taught me about commitment one morning at the breakfast table. He asked me to look at my eggs and understand that the chicken made a contribution to my meal. Then he instructed me to look at the bacon and appreciate that the pig made a commitment. If you are going to do something to increase the quality of your life, don't hold back. Commit all the way.

4. Go ahead and Change. If the previous steps are handled with energy and enthusiasm, change will just happen - and you'll hardly even realize it. This is exciting - but only possible if the previous three steps have been internalized and implemented on a consistent basis.

5. Gain Confidence. The result of these steps brings about tremendous confidence. And this adds more Control, leading naturally into the cycle all over again. Use this confidence and control as momentum for change, either in the area you started, or in a new area. Use these steps. Get control. Make the ONLY choice. Start small. Do what you can, not what you can't. And do it over and over again until you reach your goal. Be a pig, not a chicken. Realize and be the change - before you have to, not when you need to!

Ken Larson/CPS Inc. offers Keynote Speaking, Corporate Training, Team Facilitation, Performance Consulting and Personal Life Coaching. He can be reached via e-mail: optimally@shaw.ca or telephone: (403) 241-4555.

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News and Views

Vitamin D Study Being Considered (Finally!)

The MS Society of Canada has agreed to fund research looking at the role vitamin D plays in impacting MS. Dr. George Ebers, Head of Neurology at the University of Oxford and former Director of the MS Clinic in London, Ont. is organizing a meeting in the next few months to discuss a study on whether Vitamin D supplements could prevent the onset of MS in people at high risk - probably relatives of people who have the disease. The lack of natural Vitamin D from the sun correlates to the geographic distribution of MS. The rate of MS increases the further people live from the equator, but in some Scandinavian countries there appears to be a lower rate of MS among people who eat a lot of fish, a rich source of dietary Vitamin D.

At the University of Wisconsin, researchers have used a form of Vitamin D to see if it can inhibit the development of the animal model of MS in mice. Those treated with the hormone 1,25-(OH)2D3 did not develop the disease while those on placebo became ill.

"These are intriguing clues that a common vitamin may be able to play a positive role in reducing the risk of developing MS or even be a possible therapy. It is too early to draw any definite conclusions," said Dr. William J. McIlroy, national medical advisor.

This is not news to Ashton Embry, who has been talking and writing about this for years. You can read his Vitamin D papers at the Direct-MS website.

Multiple Sclerosis: A Chronic Mycotoxicosis?

Adapted from Dr. Mercola's newsletter. Read full article and references HERE.

Dr. David Holland and Doug Kaufmann are co-authors of "The Fungus Link, Volume 2" in which they discuss the role fungi and their mycotoxins play in diseases, including MS.

Mycotoxins are chemicals made by fungi. They are found in grains that have been contaminated with fungi and mold. Some mycotoxins are used for medicinal purposes. Antibiotics, such as penicillin and the cephalosporin drugs, are fungal metabolites- they are mycotoxins. Alcohol is a mycotoxin. Aflatoxin, the most carcinogenic substance on earth, is a mycotoxin. The most commonly contaminated crops are peanuts, corn, and wheat.

Often, other foods such as barley, apples, sorghum and rye can be contaminated as well. Some mycotoxins are produced in our body by the yeast in our intestines or vaginal tract. In one study, 3 women severely symptomatic for vaginal candidiasis were found to have vaginal fluid samples with significant levels of a mycotoxin called gliotoxin. From our environment, we can be exposed to mycotoxins through countless routes: ingestion, inhalation, skin contact, etc. The question is, once inside the body, can these mycotoxins damage nerves?

According to the research these two have done, yes. We already know that, in MS, there is a loss of molecules called sphingolipids from the white matter in the central nervous system. What is not well known is the fact that mycotoxins can actually disrupt sphingolipid biosynthesis. Specifically, gliotoxin, as we mentioned above, on a slightly larger scale can induce nerve cell death (apoptosis).

And they make a few other good points too:

• The statin drugs (cholesterol-lowering drugs) have proven effective in slowing the progression of MS. Their effectiveness should not surprise us, in light of the fungal/mycotoxin theory, when we also learn that statin drugs are antifungal.
• Vitamin D, whether taken in the form of a supplement or made naturally by our body from sunlight exposure, is anti-mycotoxin.
• Last year a German researcher claimed that eating smoked sausage in childhood was responsible for causing multiple sclerosis later in life. Smoked and aged meats are often contaminated with mycotoxins.
• In a recent research article, it was discussed how starving mice with an MS-like condition resulted in fewer symptoms and decreased progression of the illness. Why does starvation work? In our humbled opinion, it could be as simple as: the fewer foods taken in, the fewer mycotoxins that enter the body. You see, if we are following the standard, food pyramid, grain based American diet, we are consuming on average from 0.15 to 0.5mg of aflatoxin per day. Aflatoxin is the only regulated mycotoxin in America, so what level of exposure we have to the other, known mycotoxins in our diet that we've discussed is a guess, at best. So starvation diets not only deprive us of calories. They also "deprive" us of disease-causing, carcinogenic mycotoxins.

Question: If stem cells actually have CURED a mouse of a certain type of MS, why aren't they being used in humans already for a Variety of Disorders?

Answers:

1. They are: Craig's Story
________________________

2. Stem cell therapy is extremely invasive, risky and expensive. It is worse than cancer chemotherapy.

Stem cells are the undifferentiated progenitor cells that gives rise to each kind of mature differentiated tissue. In stem cell therapy it is the stem cells of the immune system that are used. Here is how it works:

First your stem cells for the immune system are collected from your bone marrow by drilling a hole in you hip bone and sucking them out. These immune stem cells are then filtered so that any cells that show reactivity to myelin basic protein are removed. Myelin basic protein is the protein that is attacked by the immune system in MS.

These stem cells are kept alive outside your body for a number of weeks, while you undergo an intense treatment of chemotherapy designed to kill every single immune cell in your body. This means you must live in a perfectly sterile environment for weeks because you have no immune system and so you would easily become infected by bacteria and viruses. Also the chemotherapy kill a lot of other cells as well as the immune system, so this makes you sick. Also you better pray that your stem cells in culture survive happily and don't meet any accident or culture contamination.

Once your immune system is dead, your filtered immune stem cells which were kept in culture outside your body are reintroduced into your body and hopefully they grow properly and your immune system starts to function again.

Any volunteers?

- Dave, USA
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3. Next year I'm going to Tijuana, Mexico (I live in the San Diego area) for a fetal stem cell treatment. It's more effective and they don't suck your marrow.

- Kip King, USA

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Recomended Reading

Title: End The Struggle and Dance With Life
Author: Susan Jeffers
Review by: Sylvia Brown

If I had to choose one book to take with me to a Desert Island, it would have to be this one, or 'Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway', Susan Jeffers first book.

I got so much out of 'Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway' that it was hard to imagine this companion being as good, but every chapter is a gold mine, turning your perspective on life around and re-awakening your mind to the riches life has to offer us all right here, right now, and helping us to realize our true potential. It is all about attitude.

This book is packed full of powerful quotes with strong imagery. I particularly like the one "To a worm in horse radish, the whole world is horse radish." This book will help you climb out of that horse radish and 'surmount the insurmountable'.

So many of us spend so much of "our" time listening to our lower self, full of insecurities, anxiety, self-doubt and fear, and the rest of our time doing anything and everything to keep busy and avoid stopping, for fear of what we might feel - worthless, empty and lonely. How crazy is that?

What is the worst that can happen she asks? What are you really afraid of? When you connect with the Higher Self, you connect with "something wondrous within your being", and start to feel peace and love. You realize that you actually have the strength from within to handle any challenge that comes your way and your worries, anxieties and insecurities (many of which exist only in our minds) fade away.

Many of Sue Jeffers strategies towards life come from Eastern philosophies and practices, such as meditation, Tai Chi, focusing on life's riches, and looking mindfully and deeply. She quotes the following Unknown Sage to make her point about the value of Eastern ways of thinking and living: "Oriental man is very light in the head, heavy in the belly and feels very secure. Western man is light in the belly and very heavy in the head, so he topples over." And who do you think lives the fuller, happier and richer life?

This book made me realize that my definition of "Success" was all wrong. My Goal of total independence, both physically and financially was all well and good, but not if it comes at the price of my health and happiness. My new definition of 'Success' does not discount achieving this goal, but it does not revolve around it. It revolves around following my heart, doing what I love, having time to spend on myself and my health, rest as and when I need it, and helping others in any way I can. Wow that's a far better definition of success!!!

This book is packed full of wise tips to help you on your journey through life. These include letting go of "the addiction to work which causes a struggle with living". As a former perfectionist, who has frequent relapses, this is another truth I can relate to.

Sue recommends letting go of lots of other things too, letting go of outcomes, letting go of all the things you think you "should" be doing (are they really so important?), letting go of our need to control others. I love the quote "Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig!". Yet how much of our time and energy do we waste trying to do just that?

In order to re-tune ourselves to Higher Self thinking, we can use positive affirmations. One I found particularly powerful is "It's all happening perfectly. Whatever happens in my health I'll handle it. I'll make a triumph of it."

This book also encourages you to trust in the "grand design", of the entire Universe. Even though we cannot possibly comprehend it all, and in particular all the suffering and illness, we should trust that it is all working for the greater good. As an example Sue talks of her experience with breast cancer, and how by trusting and embracing this illness, she came through all the stronger and wiser for it. Even cancer, which on the surface seems like a very scary experience, had invaluable gifts to offer her, because she had learnt to say "Yes to the Universe" and go with the good and the bad without labeling or judging the event first. She now views cancer as the most empowering experience of her life.

There is so much more to this book, I could talk about it all day, but I'll leave all that for you to discover thought reading it yourself. This book is invaluable to me and is one, which I continually refer back to whenever I regress into "Lower Self thinking".

For other book purchases: Please note that when you purchase anything through Amazon.ca on the Internet, if you'll use this link, you will be helping support us! Shopping online... what could be more convenient and simple?? Visit our Recommended Reading page for great suggestions!

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Thought for the Day - All Good Things

Think for a moment of all the good things you have going for you. Sure, there are troubles and disappointments, yet there are also blessings which are so much a part of your life that you take them for granted every day.

One reason why the problems get your attention is because they are relatively unusual. The good things, by contrast, just keep on flowing to you, often without you even taking much notice.

You are alive and living, with people who love and care about you, in a world filled with opportunities and positive possibilities in every direction. There is plenty to be done, plenty to learn, plenty to experience, and lots of room to grow.

What an incredible opportunity you have right in front of you. It is the opportunity to live, and indeed it would be difficult to imagine anything more valuable. Keep yourself attuned to the good, the valuable, the positive things, and they are what will grow in your life.

- Ralph Marston

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Fun Stuff

Actual Medical Chart Notes

• Patient has two teenage children, but no other abnormalities.
• Patient has chest pain if she lies on her left side for over a year.
• On the second day, the knee was better, and then on the third day it disappeared.
• The patient is tearful and crying constantly. She also appears to be depressed.
• Discharge status: Alive, but without my permission.
• Healthy-appearing decrepit, 69-year-old male, mentally alert but forgetful.
• The patient refused autopsy.
• The patient has no previous history of suicides.
• Patient has left white blood cells at another hospital.
• Patient's medical history has been remarkably insignificant with only a 40-pound weight gain in the last three days.
• She is numb from her toes down.
• Occasional, constant, infrequent headaches.
• I saw your patient today, who is still under our car for physical therapy.
• Skin: somewhat pale but present.
• The patient has been depressed since she began seeing me in 1993.

DISCLAIMER
The information and approaches discussed within this newsletter is in no way meant to replace professional medical advice or treatment. We encourage all members to consult with a qualified health professional prior to embarking on a complementary treatment.

If you like what you're reading and find it helpful, please consider making a small contribution so we can keep going!

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