The MS Recovery Diet by Ann Sawyer, Judith Bachrach
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Book Reviews of The MS Recovery Diet
Book Review: Excellent Book!
Summary: 5 Stars
An excellent source for the person with MS. I haven't been able to find a diet yet that was condensed into a few pages like this one. It's such a jewel for me to have obtained. Just remember: Anything WORTH doing is never easy but so rewarding!Book Review: The book is very informative and gives great guidance.
Summary: 5 Stars
I would highly recommend this book. It gives guidance, receipes, and suppliements on how to stay healthy with ms.Book Review: defeat ms
Summary: 5 Stars
the diet does help some, after a month i see improvement, not much but some and thats good enough 4 meBook Review: I wish they were more specific
Summary: 4 Stars
I really enjoyed this book and I am grateful that this book is available at all, when you are faced with an incurable disease the most important thing is finding some hope and gaining some control back over your life.
This book is great for that.
I was really hoping for more specific guidelines though, for example.
How to prepare for an ELISA test (if this is possible)
Where to get an ELISA test done.
Start off with X,Y,Z suppliments.
Eliminate one food group at a time.
Common alternatives to common (problem) foods are ...
Staying strong and avoiding temptations (there are a few excellent ideas on this in the book but I felt that they could have been restated towards the end of the book)
I understand that this information IS in the book but I just felt that after reading it I needed more guidance.
Changing your diet is hard enough - when you have such a deeply compelling reason for changing it I feel that one cannot have too much guidance in acheiving it.
Book Review: Could have been a 6-page booklet
Summary: 2 Stars
The Art of Getting Well: Maximizing Health and Well-being When You Have a Chronic Illness
I was excited when I saw the strong customer reviews for Ann Sawyer's book, but disappointed to actually read it. (Judith Bachrach is also listed as author, but it seems to come mostly from Sawyer.) Her claim is that finding the right diet can resolve nearly all MS symptoms, but she doesn't tell you how to do it. It's not really a diet; it's an approach to figuring out your own healthy diet. This is a good idea; I just don't think it will work for many people in this form.
Could be I'm a bit jealous. I've had MS for 30 years, and it's kicking my butt pretty good right now. My first book, The Art of Getting Well, is largely based on my experiences with MS (along with interviews with 30 other people with chronic illness.) My book has never sold in anything like the numbers that MS Recovery Diet is selling. But I think I'm being objective - I'm still looking for help, too.
The basic dietary advice is given in a few pages. You have to consider stopping any or all of the following: dairy products, grains that contain gluten, eggs, legumes (beans) and yeast, in that order of probability. But that might not do it, so you need to test yourself for food allergies, either through blood tests or an elimination diet.
Well, I've done all those things and seen very little difference. Sawyer and Bachrach say you can determine what foods to avoid by closely monitoring yourself after eating. If a food makes you feel bad, get rid of it. The problem is that, for me and for many people with MS, the worse symptoms might not come on for two or three days after eating (or being exposed to cold, or getting stressed, or whatever the problem is.) So it's very hard to tell which food, if any, is causing problems.
There's a lot of scientific language in this book, but I would class much of it as pseudo-science. For example, they talk about allergenic food damaging the blood-brain barrier, but give no idea how that could happen or any studies to back it up.
The book is filled out with many chapters on what MS is, the history of MS, the history of medical treatments and dietary approaches, success stories of people who have used their approach, and lots of recipes. The success stories mostly fall within the range of the natural variation of MS. The recipes might actually be useful to someone who wants to try this approach.
I support people trying dietary approaches for their MS. I agree with the authors that the medications don't work well, and that many other things (diet, Vitamin D, digestive enzymes, Chinese medicine to name a few) can help. But be careful! When you've got advanced MS, you have fewer sources of pleasure in your life. Making yourself crazy about food and depriving yourself of things that give you pleasure is not likely to help.