Sidelined again with Multiple Sclerosis

Today is a day that has become all too common over the last few years.  A little over 3 years ago I would've told you that my wife's MS wasn't affecting her daily activities much.  We were living in Colorado, she was walking fine, working full time, and we were trying to figure out what the next phase of our life would be.  We jumped into a new business in Denton, Tx, and moved into a home less than 10 years old in a great neighborhood.  Life was hard as we established a new business from the ground up, but we noticed over time that my wife's health was not cooperating.  Little did we know that the next year and half would be a journey of us trying to figure out how to help my wife as she lost feeling in her left side and started having more and more issues we thought were MS related.

We tried all kinds of things while we were in Dallas/Fort Worth, but we couldn't seem to find anything that helped my wife with her numbness, fatigue, foggy brain, stomach issues or walking issues.  Honestly, it was crazy frustrating because she had done so well for years and then BAM, new issues and new Multiple Sclerosis problems.  That's one of the things that's so frustrating with MS, it can rear it's ugly head out of nowhere and then the next journey begins to figure out how to combat it.  The shock came when we figured out that her health issues had something to do with our environment after they disappeared while on a cruise.

Why is today just another common day?  Because my wife's health once again has sidelined her and neither one of us know why.  Out of nowhere last night her stomach started hurting and she's had stomach pain most of the night and morning.  We know that this is related to her bowel issues and lack of bowel movements, just like all of the other times issues like this have happened thru the years.  Yes, we know that it's her gut that's causing this issue but it's soooo frustrating that we haven't been able to find a solution.  We've tried all kinds of different things, met with experts, researched and have been told over and over that this blah, blah, blah will definitely fix the issue.  If you've struggled with MS for long, my guess is you've heard the same spill too.

What I do know is we feel like we're getting closer to figuring out what has been causing the issues over the last 3 years.  We do know that mold was definitely present and affecting her health while we were in Denton.  What's crazy is when we moved her health didn't really get better, unlike the cruise we went on.  It's like a puzzle that we only have certain pieces to but we can't see the finished puzzle.  I do feel like we're getting closer with a new Dr we are seeing and some new treatment she's been receiving.  One of those is Clear Mind which I'll be writing about soon.  It's been amazing to see how much it's helped her with her memory and brain fog.  We're also learning about some other issues that have shown themselves that I'll be sharing soon, and hopefully the solutions we've found to them.

Blogging about MS has been on the backburner for me for the last year or so, especially as our online business has exploded.  So many areas of our life are better than they've ever been, but there's nothing like having your health.  2016 has been a wild year learning about proper nutrition, trying to find a Doctor that had the skills and knowledge we were looking for, struggling thru new recipes and foods we weren't used to, and trying to keep up as our business grew at a rapid pace.  I really feel like 2017 is going to be a life changing year, giving us new treatments, new revelations and my hope and prayer is better health for my wife.  Thank you all so much for continuing to read about our crazy life, and I'll do my best to write more as we try and experience new treatments and things that help my wife's MS!  Merry Christmas!

New Beginnings with Multiple Sclerosis!

It's been months since I've posted about my Wife's MS and our life.  I keep meaning to update and share what we've been doing so over the next months I'm wanting to share about our newest experience with a Health Coach and Multiple Sclerosis.  If you've followed our MS Blog, you know that my wife has had all kinds of MS issues thru the years, and most recently we found Mold in our Home that was causing my wife to lose feeling in her whole left side.  She's lived for about 2 years with limited feeling in her left side, from her left arm to her left foot.  She's also struggled with stiff legs and struggles walking because of it.  About 8 months ago we uprooted our whole lives and moved back Home to West Texas to figure out how to get her health back.

In June, 2015, we went on a Cruise that changed everything.  When we walked onto the ship my wife had lived for a year and a half with numbness on the left side of her body.  Within 3 days that feeling started coming back, and by the end of the week she had all of the feeling back in the left side of her body.  That was an AHA moment for us!  She was so excited and couldn't believe how great she felt when we left the boat.

Then we got home...

Within 24 hours of being Home she was numb again on her left side.  That began our Journey for the last 8 months trying to figure out what caused the immediate turn around on the Cruise.  Was it the Air quality?  Was it the exercise walking and doing all of the activities we did?  She participated in everything from swimming with Dolphins to riding Segways to flying thru the Trees in Jamaica on zip lines. She walked and did great the whole trip.  Or maybe it was just getting away from the mold and getting closer to the Equator?  It sure wasn't eating better because we ate horribly on the Ship! ;)

So, that's where the Journey began, with this weird Cruise Ship experience and then all the issues coming back.  Since that time we moved in with my wife's Parents to give us some time to work thru her MS issues, sold 1 business, moved into a new Home, worked on a Rental property we own (which by they way she can't be in because she starts to have the same issues she had with the mold), hired a Health Coach that has had huge results with Auto Immune diseases, and started an intense eating program with supplementation.

My wife's had some success since starting with the Health Coach, and we're just getting started on cleanses the Coach recommended.  It's a 12 week program and we're about 8 weeks into it, with 3 cleanses to go and we're just starting exercising.  We're learning that so much of the issues my wife has had are due to Gut issues.  This new eating plan has us eating foods that have natural Pro Biotics, trying to repopulate my wife's Gut with good bacteria.  I'll share more later, but thank you all for continuing to follow our journey with Multiple Sclerosis!

Mold Toxicity or Multiple Sclerosis?

I haven't been able to post in awhile because of some major changes in our lives.  For the last year and a half my wife has struggled with numbness on her whole left side along with other extremities being numb including both hands and feet.  She's struggled with what we've come to call "Frankenstein legs", where her legs will literally stiffen up due to major changes in the temperature causing her to not be able to walk well.  She's had brain fog, struggled with short term and long term memory, struggled to remember words to carry on a conversation, fatigue, eye sight issues, tingling, bladder issues, struggled to walk at times and more.  This whole time we suspected it was just her MS causing issues, but a week long Cruise changed everything!

At the beginning of July we went on a Graduation Cruise for our daughter.  We worried about my wife's health and ability to participate in all of the outings we had planned, especially her balance on the Cruise Ship because of all of the walking required.  The first few days were exactly as we expected. We took our time, walked slow and made it up and down the elevator and stairs to the different decks on the Ship.  The first few days we were just travelling across the Gulf heading towards our first Destination Port, and spent the 3rd day in Cozumel riding Segways along the coastline.  During our Segway ride we had a small accident and my wife ended up falling off of her Segway due to another Segway crashing into her.  Luckily she was stopped when she fell, but I was extremely concerned because with the other issues she was having I wondered if she would even be able to walk the next day.

Not only was she able to walk, but we spent the next day swimming with the Dolphins and Sting Rays in the Cayman Islands.  She was walking OK, was able to swim with minimal issues and seemed to be doing good.  By the next day she began to notice that she could lift her left leg all the way up, which she hadn't been able to do in over a year.  She also noticed that she could feel the cold on the bottom of her feet which she hadn't been able to do in over a year.  Over the next few days her body started to feel better and better, and her walking and feeling in her left side slowly started to improve.  Again, this was after 5 or 6 days of being on the Cruise and honestly, this was a bright spotlight in a very dark time for my wife.  I knew she had become very discouraged and even had depression from the struggles over the last year and a half because we had done everything we normally did to treat her MS and nothing was helping.  Little did we know that it wasn't MS causing the issues!

We arrived back in Galveston to leave and go Home to Dallas on Sunday.  By this point, my wife felt better than she had in over a year and I could tell that even more important than that, she had hope in a very dark time.  So, we loaded up and headed home really not sure what had caused her recovery or what we were going to do about it when got home.  We arrived back in Dallas that afternoon and took naps, enjoyed some down time and headed to bed early.  At this point my wife still felt fine and was doing well, but that wouldn't last.  By the next morning the numbness had returned and she felt totally defeated.  This time the brain fog, numbness, tingling, dizziness, stiffness in her legs all came back with a fury!  We started to process what was different and went thru every step including trying the dizziness patches we wore, rest and diet on the ship, swimming, and anything else we could think of from our Cruise.

That's when it hit us!  We had seen a little mold spot in our Bathroom before we left on the Cruise so we wondered if that was the culprit.  Years ago we had to move out of a Home and City because we weren't sure if it was the environment, house or what.  We packed up and moved less than 2 hours away and all of her symptoms went away.  This time we wanted to test our theory and had the Company that was renting the House to us come and remove the mold.  Their employee came to the house and cut out the moldy piece of sheetrock, and since we wanted to keep it for testing my wife carried it to the garage.  She immediately called me because as soon as she touched the moldy sheetrock her body stiffened, she struggled to breath, her legs started hurting and the symptoms continued.  Within an hour or so her fingers started to feel like she had fiberglass in them, poking and hurting.  She wondered if she had fiberglass on her fingers from maybe handling the sheetrock and used tape to see if she could pull it out.

The problem wasn't fiberglass, the problem was her nerves.  The mold had literally made her fingers feel like she had things sticking in her fingers for hours.  We tried all sorts of things but couldn't figure out what to do.  The next day a friend suggested we try Essential Oils on her hands and feet to see if it would help with the mold toxicity.  Within minutes of applying the Essential Oil to her hands the stinging went away and never came back.  Figuring out that the mold was causing her immediate issues set us on a whole different path.  I want to write more about what we've already done, and plan to do, but I've written a long enough post for today.  I'll share more in another post about what Treatments we have already tried, where we live now, and what our plans are, but for now I hope this will help some of you that may be struggling with mold issues and don't even realize it.

If you aren't sure if you have mold, there are tests available at Home Improvement stores that you can test the air in your home along with dust and other particles from vents or other areas of your home.  I would highly suggest testing your home if you've ever thought mold may be an issue in your home.  I know that we will be testing every home we live in from this point forward.  Over the next few weeks I want to share more about our recent Mold journey, but for now I hope our recent experience helps someone.  To be continued...

No Bowel Movements Equals MS Issues

OK, this isn't a fun subject to talk about but it's gotta be covered.  Literally the whole time I've known my wife, which is over 20 years, she has had issues with her gut and having bowel movements.  If you've done any research into digestive issues and disease you've probably found that digestive problems are linked to all sorts of problems with health.  Well we can back that up with our own experience.  My wife has gone as long as 3 weeks without a bowel movement, which isn't good for your health.  Almost every time that she's had a long time between bowel movements she's had issues with her MS.  All kinds of MS symptoms seem to pop up and we've noticed that as soon as she gets her digestive system working better that the symptoms start to go away.

Lately this has even taken a bigger twist.  She's determined to get better digestive health so she's been trying different things to have regular bowel movements.  Lots of fiber, laxatives, water, even meds from the Doc to get things moving.  For months now she's struggled with tingly hands and feet, which we feel like is a symptom of issues from a broken tailbone last year so she's very aware of her body and anything that's tingly or numb.  The weird thing lately is when she has a bowel movement it causes her to tingle around her mid section.  Sometimes the tingling comes and goes quickly, and other times she starts going numb around her stomach.  This is a really weird sensation for her and the first time she's ever had these issues.

We are still trying to figure out how to get her bowel movements regular, which we know is important for her to be at optimal health.  We finally figured out how to get her stomach to stop hurting after meals which was drinking Kombucha regularly.  The only issue with that is since she isn't getting sick after meals she doesn't eliminate at all most days.  So, we are searching for a new Naturopathic Doctor locally and my wife is also going to try Acupuncture soon.  We are excited about both of these because she is sick and tired of the tingly hands and feet.  I'll try to keep the blog updated as we try things and let you know what works for the digestive health and for the tingling.  Thanks for taking the time to read our Journey!

Leg Issues in the Cold with MS

For the last year or so my wife's MS has caused her Right Leg to stiffen during Cold Weather.  She can literally walk outside and if it's cold enough, her leg will go stiff and she almost has to swing it to walk.  She's only had this issue in the last year, and we think we finally figured out why.  We lived in Colorado for a short time last year and she fell twice.  Both times she fell flat on her tail bone and come to find out she cracked her tail bone.  Since that time she's woke up almost daily with her hands or feet tingling and then had her Leg stiffen and other minor Tingling in her body.  It finally hit us this last week at the Chiropractor that we hadn't really addressed that issue so we talked to our Chiropractor about it.

Well, the Chiropractor started doing some testing and not only were her hips twisted but her tail bone was off so the Chiropractor adjusted all of it.  When she was adjusted it initially shot pain through her and she was worried that it may do more harm than good.  But, after she was adjusted and left the Chiropractors office she began to notice some major differences.  For the first time in almost a year her hands and feet were almost completely back to normal, and her back felt much, much better.  I encouraged her to go back multiple times last week to keep everything in alignment so she went back 3 times and was going to go back a 4th today but she overslept.

It still amazes me that MS can mess with her body so much, and from a fall over a year ago she is still having issues.  Now that we've figured out what caused the issue, it will be easier to fix.  My wife had literally bought different pillows and tried other things because she thought one of those was the culprit.  I guess I say all of this to say that you never know how a fall or injury or other trauma might affect your Multiple Sclerosis.  My wife's MS has been badgering her for over 24 years now, and we are still learning.  Oh, if your legs stiffen in the cold you may try thermals because that's what my wife's been doing the last few weeks.  Once she had the thermals on her leg didn't stiffen up as bad and she could still walk OK.

I guess the question I would ask any MS patient is, have you had any Injuries in the past that could be causing some of your problems?  Have you had a bad fall, car wreck, skiing accident or some other injury?  I know that my wife is extremely sensitive to any changes in her body and her MS lets us know quickly if anything is wrong by exacerbating.  Leg issues seem to be common in MS, but I really think there are ways to combat the problem without Meds.  She's been MS Drug free from the beginning and for the most part I think my wife does amazing.  She's definitely stronger than I think I would ever be having to deal with MS daily.  We are still determined to get her health better and better, and have a Ski trip we want to go on in 2015 and already have a Cruise planned that I know she will need to be in great shape for.  What are you doing in 2015 to fight back against this crazy disease?

My Wife Has MS Busted 400,000 Pageviews Today!

Seven years ago I started writing about my wife's MS and our journey as a family.  My wife was diagnosed with MS in 1990, and we have tried to share our experiences with anyone interested so that they might gain some insight into this crazy disease.  Today we passed over 400,000 page views thanks to YOU!  Over the years I've received emails and notes from MS patients and spouses that live all over the World.  Multiple Sclerosis has bonded us through the joys and pains of trying to live a sane life with an insane disease.

Our Journey is about to take a new turn as we grow our Businesses and start the Wahl Protocol.  We are also starting a new Yoga program that is being specifically designed for my wife and the issues she is having.  We are extremely excited about how the Wahl Protocol and the new Yoga program will take my wife's health to a whole new level.  My desire is to update the Blog regularly and share our new Journey, and hopefully our crazy life will help a few people along with way.  Thank you so much for your input, your amazing emails and notes, and your support for the last seven years!

My Wife Just Quit Her Job Because of This

Seven months ago my wife and I moved our family back to Texas to start a new Business.  After spending over 7 years working in Children's Homes we were ready to take a break and start working towards building a Business so we could live life more on our terms.  Since my wife has MS, we really didn't want her to have to work but she started working as a Bookkeeper so we would have some additional cashflow while our Business grew.  To speed up the process I started looking for a way to market my new Business better online and found a couple of Marketers that were making a large amount of monthly income from working exclusively with Local Businesses.  I joined their Mentoring/Coaching program and the rest is History.

Last week my wife quit her job because my original Business and our new Local Marketing Business have grown so fast that I needed her help.  Her job was causing her a lot of stress which was affecting her MS, so we are counting our Blessings!  She was happy to quit and now she will be helping me with both Businesses.  One of the great things about my new Marketing Business is she is totally capable of building assets for it too.  We even have our daughter involved so that she can make money for College.  I know there are many of you that either need to quit your job due to MS issues, or those that have had to quit because of MS issues.  Either way, if I could show you how to create a real Business working with Local Businesses in your area that had very little overhead and could produce thousands a month, would you be interested?

I not only am building my own Marketing Business but I've also been hired by the 2 guys that created the Coaching program because of my success.  I'm able to share the Business with others that are looking for a Training Program and Coaching to grow their own Business.  If you are looking for a Real Business that you can do from Home or the Beach or anywhere else as long as you have Internet, then watch the video below.  I made this video a few months ago to explain what I was doing to a few of my friends, and it will give you an idea of the main Business model.  

Please understand that this is a Business and that there is an initial Investment required to join the Training.  I made back my Investment within the first few months, but you also need to be ready to Work.  The nice part about the Work is it's Online, so if you are able to follow Video Instructions and have an Internet Connection, you have the basic tools to build your Business.  Most of the work is done up front, then you are able to enjoy the benefits for months and years to come.  If you're interested in talking more follow the directions on the Video and we can setup a time to talk.  Please only reach out if you are really interested in starting and growing your own Business, and are willing to make an Initial Investment in your Business.  We currently have Business Partners all over the World, and it would be amazing to know that I was able to help MS patients find Financial Freedom so they could take better care of their Health!

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