Less like hitting a brick wall and more like banging your head against it, repeatedly

So, faced with an unclear prognosis and absolutely no idea what to expect what would a good American girl do? Trust her doctor and big pharma, naturally. And I have lined several drug company's pockets for years. First it was Avonex, then Rebif, one dose of Tysabri (when it was called Antegren- before it was pulled off the market and renamed), Betaseron and finally Novantrone. I think I mentioned this before, but none of those drugs, except Novantrone, worked. 3 to 4 relapses a year, no thanks to the weekly/three times a week/every other day/daily intramuscular or subcutaneous injections I was giving myself. A human pincushion for nothin'. Except for maybe horrible fevers, chills, and body aches. And for that: a special "thank you" goes out to interferons.

So it was time to open a can of whoop ass on MS. What was next? Novantrone. A chemotherapy drug with a life time dose limit (to stave off heart damage) and an increased risk of leukemia. Awesome. I should also mention that Novantrone repeatedly opens multiple cans of whoop ass on me - full on toilet hugging, limp as a wet rag whoop ass that takes me at least a week to recover from. But, it is doing the trick. I'll celebrate four years in remission this August: no better, but no worse; just calm waters. There's a catch (as there always is). I only have one dose left.

I knew at the start of 2009 that I was racing against the clock. So I decided to test another route: diet. That's after trying several other "off label" treatments over the years: the Swank Diet, LDN, manuka honey with bee venom, 4-ap - none of which did a thing. So I stripped my diet of all things delicious and processed (gluten, dairy, soy, refined sugar, yeast, caffeine and limited alcohol). I noticed some changes right off the bat and lost 25 pounds. My cholesterol dropped 30 points, too. I have more energy and I feel good. But symptom-wise? Not so much.

So I decided to go even more hardcore with it. I had a food sensitivity test called the ALCAT test done. It boggles the mind (see below)...



...and confirms that I need to stay away from gluten, dairy and sugar. Booooooo.  We'll see where this takes me.