Book Review 4.0 out of 5 stars, By Jodi-Hummingbird, January 30, 2012

4.0 out of 5 stars This info really works and Dr Wahls is the real deal, January 30, 2012

By Jodi-Hummingbird – See all my reviews

A special note to M.E. patients on the Wahls protocol:

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis is a neurological disease similar in some ways to MS, which also causes demyelination and mitochondrial dysfunction.

For those with my particular neurological disease, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, it is important that activity levels be kept always within very strict limits, or else relapse will occur. (Death is also a risk in M.E. if overexertion is severe. This is not about symptoms or feeling fatigued, but a problem of cardiac insufficiency, reduced circulating blood volume and POTS and so on which is very serious and non-negotiable. Overexertion always causes a worsening of the disease.) But of course activity levels can and should be raised slowly to keep in line with health improvements in M.E. – this is something that happens naturally anyway.

For those unfamiliar with the disease, many M.E. patients are housebound and almost entirely bedbound (and far too ill to use wheelchairs for even small periods of time in a day or week) and limited with even basic communication and reading; which is also part of why I am trying hard to summarise the work of Wahls for them as much as possible. 30 minutes of gravity opposing exercise is probably a great recommendation for almost everyone but should be ommited by M.E. patients unless they can do this without becoming more ill or symptomatic.

Also, Wahls says: ‘It is common to have some level of detoxification (more fatigue, headache) in the first week which resolves and then improves markedly by week two.’ I would say that for M.E. patients this statement is not quite right and is an enormous understatement. M.E. patients will often have quite severe healing reactions to supplementation and changes in diet. These can be severe enough to make a patient no longer able to feed themselves or do other tasks of daily living, as well as leave them in agony. They can also last FAR longer than just a week!

It is important for anyone ill to make the dietary changes gradually, and for patients with M.E. this caution should be taken very seriously. Jumping in with both feet too fast could leave you very very ill for months afterward. Healing reactions are a good sign that healing is occurring, but need to be controlled so they don’t become overwhelming. Switch to the full diet over a few months at least. Slowly but surely is the way to go! Improvements will almost certainly be slow too, so patience is necessary there as well, especially when the illness has been severe for many years or even several decades or more.

M.E. patients will also often do far better eating cooked veggies rather than raw, which can be too difficult and painful for us to digest. (For more M.E. patient-specific tips and cautions see the HFME website.)

——-

This diet is described as an MS diet, but really this diet is the diet we have all evolved to be best suited to. All of us need such a nutrient-dense and low-toxicity diet, and so I hope people with all sorts of diseases look into the Wahls diet and not just those with neurological diseases. The diet can also help where there is not yet a correct diagnosis. We all need the right amounts of the nutrients that enable healing, no matter what disease we have.

For some people following this diet plan will be enough, but for others a higher level of intervention will be required in addition to the diet. The first step toward healing has to be an excellent diet and good gut health, combined with minimising toxin exposures. If more help is needed then, as Wahls explains, it is best to see a Functional/Holistic medicine expert so that it can be determined what extra supplements or other supports you may need. The key is learning about your own ‘biochemical individuality.’ There are so many tests now which can be done to determine where your detoxification pathways are failing, which nutrients you need more of or have problems utilising or why your gut is still not functioning right.

For those that can’t find or can’t afford to see a Functional/Holistic medicine expert, or cannot see any medical expert due to being housebound etc., an excellent companion to Wahls book are the books by Functional/Holistic medicine experts such as Dr Sherry Rogers. Dr Rogers tells you exactly which tests may help you, how to treat more complex gut problems and how to go about following a more intensive detoxification regime involving a detox cocktail and FIR sauna use. Dr Rogers books are to some extent `do-it-yourself’ health books but ideally Dr Rogers recommends that you get well with the help of a qualified practitioner that will be able to order the appropriate tests for you, and also help you interpret them.

Dr Sherry Rogers writes in `Detoxify or Die’,

`I have to laugh when people ask me if I do alternative, herbal, acupuncture or holistic medicine. ‘No,’ I reply. ‘We do state-of-the-art medicine. In other words, we find the biochemical, nutritional and environmental causes and cures rather than blindly drugging everything. Sure, herbs are gentler, safer and more physiologic than drugs and holistic medicine attempts to incorporate many diverse modalities, etc. But there is no substitute for finding the underlying biochemical causes and cures. This is real medicine. This is where medicine should and would have been decades ago, if it had not been abducted by the pharmaceutical industry.’

Following a super-high-quality diet is also the foundation of Dr Rogers’ treatment plan and so starting with the Wahls diet (which is the best there is) and then moving on (if necessary) to follow Dr Rogers’ advice on advanced detoxification techniques just makes so much sense. The best book of hers to start with is Detoxify or Die. It is just brilliant and very easy to read as well. It has so much good information and support for sauna use and so much more. Her book ‘The Safe, Effective Way to Prevent and Heal Chronic Gastrointestinal Disorders’ is also excellent.

In addition to books by Dr Sherry Rogers I’d also recommend books and articles by Dr Lawrence Wilson (particularly his book on sauna use), Dr Klenner, Dr Abram Hoffer, Andrew Saul, Sally Fallon and Mary Enig and any and all of the vitamin C and orthomolecular experts such as Linus Pauling and Dr Thomas Levy. Other excellent books on diet and nutrition (with huge amounts in common with the Wahls diet) include Primal Body-Primal Mind, The Primal Blueprint, The Perfect Health Diet and Deep Nutrition as well as books on the GAPS diet for the treatment of dysbiosis and a diet-based plan to heal the gut.

Gut health is so important and if gut health is poor, then your body can’t properly use all the wonderful nutritious food you are eating. Many of us need to heal the gut first of all, and this may at first involve supplements such as Betaine HCL, enzymes and probiotics, as well as dietary changes, as these books explain. All of these books, along with Wahls book, are far more than just standard Paleo diet books.

Combining the excellent Wahls diet with the advice on detoxification by Dr Rogers (including the use of an FIR sauna and a daily detox cocktail and ‘oil change’ nutrients and digestive supports) has seen me finally start to slowly improve my health this last year and a half. I’m slowly improving month by month from a very severe neurological disease – thanks in part to the work of Dr Wahls and Dr Rogers, and others like them – that has left me housebound and almost entirely bedbound for many years. I have been housebound and almost entirely bedbound (and far too ill to even use a wheelchair, or even the phone) for over 10 years and I got ill when I was just 19. Getting slowly worse and worse year after year was terrifying, especially when I was so ill and disabled already.

I wish so much I had had this information early on in my disease, rather than coming to it more than 10 years in. Healing is so much easier the earlier you start it.

I wont know how much of my damage is irreversible until I improve a lot more (a LOT more I hope!) and find out where I plateau. But for those that have been ill ‘only’ 5 or 7 years or less, or that are not severely ill, I do think these approaches could be curative or very close to it. At the very least they will undo as much damage as can be undone.

My big dream is to get to a 30% function level, where I can live independently…. I’m still so far away from that currently, but I am at least making slow but sure progress now! Being able to cook a little this last year after 8 years or more not being able to even make myself a cup of tea has been just so wonderful. Cooking myself an egg is a joyful experience! It is so wonderful to now each month be getting small UNsymptoms and UNdisabilities!

I have learned so much about health that I would never have known if I had not become so ill and been forced to learn it!

The Wahls Foundation is a nonprofit organisation that hopes to raise funds to do research on this diet. Buying this book helps fund their research. The book is mostly recipes and reading more of her ideas online is so helpful. I’d highly recommend watching all her free videos online (watch out for the loud sound on some of them – ouch!), plus her FB page and blog and website. They are all so helpful.

Dr Wahls is the real deal and is clearly motivated by a genuine desire to help ill people improve their health. I wish her and her Foundation all the best and thank them for all their wonderful work. This is real cutting edge medicine.

Best wishes for future health to anyone still reading this far!