Switching diet to a wholefoods and plant-based diet has been shown to help with RRMS, especially when focusing on anti-inflammatory ingredients like ginger, turmeric and cinnamon and cutting out dairy products. It can decrease symptoms such as fatigue as well as lifting mood, and even reduce the need for medication. However, you should seek medical advice before making any significant change to your diet, and different approaches may not work for everyone.
Hello everyone, my name is Hannah. I’m 27, and have had Relapsing-Remitting Multiple Sclerosis since 2014. Today I’m going to talk about how changing my diet to a wholefoods plant based/vegan diet has helped with my MS symptoms. I know that to some of you, going full vegan might not be realistic right now, which is fine.
This blog post is in no way preaching or demanding people to go vegan. These are just my own opinions and changes in my health that I’ve experienced. Before altering your diet completely, seek advice in general from your doctor. My diet changed in October 2017.
I was midway through my fourth relapse of the year and I’d been doing a lot of research into a vegan diet for some time. So, one day, I decided to take the plunge and go full cold turkey! I was so motivated and so inspired with how food could actually reverse some illnesses that I was willing to try anything.
I researched all anti-inflammatory foods like ginger, turmeric, cinnamon etc and stocked up, creating different vegan recipes that take fewer than 30 minutes to make. No, they’re not raw meals! All cooked! After about two months of being vegan, and especially cutting out dairy, I started noticing a change.
I noticed that my moods were more positive and uplifted, and my symptoms had decreased. My main symptom is fatigue, which I know is the same for most of us but even that was improving slightly. I was taking Amantadine to control fatigue but because I was eating all this delicious wholesome food, I felt that I didn’t need the meds anymore.
I decided to take myself off them and, to this day, I’m still not taking them. I’ve also stopped taking my Amytriptiline too, because my nerves pains have eased slightly. I find a lot of delicious and easy recipes on YouTube and Pinterest and they have been great.
My advice if you’re looking into diet change is to select five go-to meals and learn them well. That way you have something to fall back on if you are too tired to create something new. This is definitely a lifestyle change and I believe that only you can make it happen. You have to be ready to trial and make the change yourself. However, I can honestly say that this diet change has really made a huge difference to me in managing my MS and symptoms. Thank you for reading,
Hannah xx
You can read more from Hannah by visiting her blog, An Ordinary Girl With MS.
Please note: Hannah uses coconut oil in some of her recipes on her blog. We do not recommend coconut oil for people with MS as it is a saturated fat. Find our more about coconut oil here. Deciding to stop your medication is a personal choice, and is best made in consultation with your medical team.