Multiple Sclerosis is an autoimmune disease in which the body’s immune system loses its intelligence and begins to attack the protective covering around the nerves, known as the myelin sheath. Some symptoms could be blurred or double vision, clumsiness or lack of coordination, loss of balance, numbness, tingling or tremors throughout the body and/or extremities, pins and needles, reduced sensation of touch, weakness in the arms or legs, muscle spasms, fatigue and cognitive problems. Bladder problems could also happen, such as excessive urination at night, leaking of urine, persistent urge to urinate or urinary retention. Slurred speech or difficulty swallowing may result, as well as heaviness in the legs, numbness in the face or tongue and difficulty raising the foot.
While there are instances where modern medicine must be used because pharmaceuticals are needed to treat a crisis or an acute condition, there are also many examples where modern medicine cannot offer enough remedies for the condition being treated.
A good example is this with MS. And this is true both in the prevention of it and its treatment.
For example, Ayurveda can provide herbs which actually heal both the nerve tissue and the myelin sheath. Modern medicine has no such remedy for this. The pharmaceuticals they provide are aimed at toning down the immune system so it stops attacking the myelin sheath.
This approach is lacking on two accounts. First, not much attempt is made to see what is causing the myelin sheath to break down in the first place, and second, there are no medicines on the market which can heal the nerve or the myelin sheath.
This is where Ayurveda can make a huge difference in the treatment of MS. But before any prescription is written, we have to first identify the hetu, or the underlying cause or causes of the disease, and THEN we give the treatment protocol. And the real truth is, with most diseases, there are many underlying causes.
So let’s look at some of the causes of MS: what are the some of the things that could burn the myelin sheath?
Well, for starters, aspartame, the artificial sweetener. It’s one of the leading causes of MS as it is famous for burning the myelin sheath. Many people have had their MS miraculously go away when they stopped consuming aspartame.
Monosodium Glutamate, which is also known as MSG. Glutamate is an amino acid which is the neurotransmitter responsible for excitatory signals in the brain. However, its production in the body is tightly controlled since in excess it is highly toxic to brain cells and can cause them to die. Studies have been shown that MS patients have higher levels of glutamate in their cerebrospinal fluid during relapses of the disease and elevated glutamate levels in some types of MS brain lesions.
Don’t be fooled if MSG isn’t on the label of the food as it comes under several names, such as “hydrolyzed vegetable protein, autolyzed yeast, hydrolyzed yeast, yeast extract, soy extracts, protein isolate, soy protein isolate, whey protein isolate, maltodextrin, malt extract, sodium caseinate, modified food starch and soy protein concentrate”.- Parasites: The ancient texts of Ayurveda listed various parasites that could actually eat the myelin sheath. I personally have had several patients develop MS after going to an exotic island or foreign country and begin to develop MS symptoms after contracting a parasite.
- Heavy Metals: Mercury is extremely hot and piercing, and easily burns holes in the myelin sheath and is also responsible for a lot of the MS we are seeing nowadays. Mercury is found in some immunizations, the flu shot, mercury/silver dental fillings, certain species of fish, in some types of air pollution, especially coming from coal-fired power plants, household fluorescent light bulbs and thermostats. Gold mining also releases over 11 tons of mercury into the environment each year as mercury is released when gold is heated to separate it from mined ore. And it has been estimated by some environmental groups that old abandoned gold mines in California continue to release mercury even though they have been closed for over one hundred years.
- Lowfat diets: I’ve had patients develop MS after they were following diets which were too low in fats, containing no milk, ghee, butter or cholesterol. Remember this very important fact: the nerve tissue and the myelin sheath are made of cholesterol, so a diet too deficient in fat can actually dry up the brain and shrivel up the nerve tissue. And it’s even worse if this low fat diet is accompanied by intense aerobic exercising, since aerobic exercise burns fat.
- Rushing through the day, going to bed late, and burning the candle at both ends aggravates Vata, whose main attribute inside the body is drying. If we get too much Vata, or too much drying within the body, then we can dry out the nerve tissue as well.
- Electromagnetic Radiation/Frequencies (EMR’s and EMF’s): Prana, the vital life force, the cosmic energy which permeates not only the Universe, but is delivered to all the organs and cells of our bodies, is composed of soma, agni and marut. Soma is the vibration from the moon, agni is from the sun’s rays and marut is that element which governs the movement of soma and agni.
The EMR’s and EMF’s from Wi-Fi, cell phones and computers mix in and pollute the prana as it enters the adhipati marma point at the top of the head, and follows the same path that the prana follows, which is down the spine through the shushumna nadi and from there outwards to the arms and legs, the organs, glands and the entire cellular system. So now this polluted prana is being delivered throughout the whole body, wreaking havoc in its path.
I had a patient who developed MS after working under high tension wires all day on her horse farm. Once we had her move her horses away from the wires to another part of the farm her MS totally cleared up. It has been over 10 years now and it never returned.
Now you can see that once you identify the underlying cause, then and only then can you begin treatment: So, depending on what we find in that particular patient we give remedies to either clean the nerve tissue, to kill the parasites, or to chelate the heavy metals. We teach the patients how to include good fats in their diets, such as ghee, milk and other dairy products, we teach them about the 3 doshas, which are known as Vata, Pitta and Kapha and how to keep them balanced. The three elements found outside the body in nature are soma, agni and marut, but once they come into the body are known as Kapha, Pitta and Vata respectively.
Since MS is an autoimmune disease, we also treat the various parts of the immune system which have lost their intelligence, which are the friendly bacteria in the gut, the liver and bone marrow.
We regrow the friendly bacteria using very high quality probiotics and/or yogurt, buttermilk and takra.
We clean the liver from all the toxins it has taken on over a lifetime. And using specific herbs, we cool down the heat in the liver and use other herbs to regenerate liver cells if they have been damaged by cooking with refined vegetable oils such as Canola oil, sunflower, mustard seed, safflower, margarine and cheap olive oils. Sometimes we have to give transdermal glutathione, CoQ10 and alpha lipoic acid, all developed by my teacher and mentor, Vaidya Rama Kant Mishra, and based on food, so that they retain their original prana found in nature. These are 3 of the main antioxidants in the body, responsible for quenching the free radicals that the environmental toxins cause, but in this modern era, since there are over 80,000 chemicals in the environment and most of us are harboring hundreds of these toxins in our blood at all times, these antioxidants are always running low.
And we have herbs and foods which can clean the bone marrow, the third part of the immune system, where the immune system cells are born. Don’t forget, lots of environmental toxins and pharmaceuticals make a beeline into your bone marrow, so in this modern age most of us need to address this highly important tissue since toxins sitting in there can trigger autoimmune diseases, such as MS.
And finally, one of the most important tools we have in the treatment of Multiple Sclerosis are the very exotic and wonderful herbs Dr. Mishra was able to get from India for our patients who have not only MS, but other demyelinating diseases as well. These amazing herbs can actually heal both the nerve tissue and its covering, the myelin sheath. I’ll never forget how excited I was when we finally unpacked these herbs for the first time after waiting several years to bring them to America.
I will always be grateful to Vaidya Mishra for teaching me how to treat MS in the correct way and for going through all the trouble to source all the herbs from India that we use to treat the many underlying causes of MS in our patients.
I hope you found this information useful in your efforts to learn the best way to treat MS — treating it from its root cause with highly effective herbs that can heal the delicate nerve and myelin sheath.