In 2007, at 29 years old, my life changed forever.

After 12 months of poor health, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, put on daily medication and conditioned by my medical team and society to believe that my health would go downhill over the months and years ahead.

It all started one morning while on holiday in Mauritius in August 2006, when my right arm went numb.

Over the next 24 hours, the pins and needles and numbness spread from my arm, to my head and right throughout my body. It was a terrifying experience.

I spent the rest of the holiday in hospital, and when I returned home to Belfast, spent the next twelve months at home, unable to go back to work, living in fear and in pain, not knowing what was wrong with me.

This was a completely new experience to me, as up until that point in my life, bar an episode of glandular fever when I was five years old, I was in pretty good shape, very fit, and had developed a can-do strong attitude with my approach to life.

Twelve months later, in August 2007, over the course of a few minute conversation with my neurologist in his office in Belfast, my life changed forever. I had just been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and now had to accept that I was living with one of the nastiest progressive neurological conditions around, which would try and destroy me.

For the next few years I gave up, had suicidal thoughts and struggled with life, one day at a time. I had lost all hope, and my symptoms in the early years were hugely debilitating, struggling to walk, pain all over my body and a constant vice like stress in my head most days. It was horrendous.

I had lost all hope.

CHANGE

In 2010, I came across a guy called Montel Williams.

Montel was living with MS, was a former navy seal, was exercising everyday, and was also an entrepreneur.

Despite living with MS everyday, Montel seemed to be getting on with his life, had achieved a huge amount of success, and looked physically and mentally strong.

This was in complete contrast to what I felt was the stereotypical view of how someone should look and be living their life with MS.

In Ireland in 2007, MS was a condition which was feared, the narrative was hugely negative and I couldn’t find anyone who seemed to be doing well and living life to the full.

Coming across Montel’s story literally changed my life, and inspired me to go and find other people who were living really well with MS.

That’s exactly what I did.

NO MORE DRUGS

In April 2016, after injecting drugs for nine years and taking lots of other medications, I had built up the knowledge and strength to STOP taking conventional medication. I instead switched to a lifestyle approach to healing and recovery, that I felt would not only manage my condition, but also induce my health.

This change in direction was against the advice of my conventional medical team, but at that point I had researched all of this quite a bit myself, and had found enough new mentors and people whom I trusted, which encouraged me to change direction to see if I could improve my health.

The good news is that the move away from conventional medication to a more lifestyle approach worked for me, and within one month on my new plant-based diet I started to feel a lot better and my symptoms started to regress.

The penny dropped for me whenever I figured out that medication is designed to manage disease, NOT induce your health, we do this through lifestyle, including what we eat, our sleep, exercise and improving our mental health.

THE SYSTEM NEEDS TO CHANGE

Having walked through this process as a patient, my view is that the Sickcare provision (healthcare) model globally, is completely broken and urgently needs fixed.

The problems start at medical college, where our doctors are trained only in conventional medication, and come out of college with little to no understanding of lifestyle medicine, the importance of nutrition, and how the impact of the environment we keep, has a direct impact on our health and our ability to prevent and manage disease. .

It took me years to find out that the MS drugs I was injecting every night, were not designed to fix my body’s physiology, only to stop relapses. For some unknown reason, I thought that by taking my medication, it might fix me, and give me a better chance of recovery and improve my quality of life. I never really considered the side effects of a lifetime of medication nor was it ever properly explained to me.

As I started to become more interested in the science, and how effective these drugs were, I became aware that the manufacturers of the drugs (Big Pharma) for years were resisting calls from SOME leading neurologists to run trials that would confirm, that by taking the medication it would lead to better patient outcomes? Why would anyone in this business want to STOP these kinds of very important trials happening?

It remains an absolute scandal that for the most part, this remains the case, and it’s particularly sad that so many of our leading neurologists and influential medical people, are complicit in all of these shortcomings, by their silence.

The other very unsavoury development in all of this, is the conflicts of interest in the MS discussion which in my view is to the detriment of patients health. The relationships between the drug manufacturers, charities and our leading neurologists, keeps the entire MS discussion drug related.

Whenever I started to piece all of this together, it was the turning point in my life for me.

I figured out my doctor, my neurologist, my family – none of these people were going to fix me. The drugs were not going to fix me, they weren’t designed to do that, I had to fix myself.

That’s when I decided to change everything about my life, and make a decision to design a new life, one that was committed to healing, recovery, and growth.

Since April 2016, I have stuck religiously to my plan which involves a plant-based diet, daily exercise, prioritising sleep, and becoming more self-aware of my body, my mind and my spiritual health.

I made Self-care the number one priority in my life, and every day, I make sure that I follow my plan, which has helped me achieve huge personal goals across a range of areas in my life over the last few years.

I still have bad days, who doesn’t, but not so long ago I never had any good days, now I have lots of great days, which is an absolute blessing.

As someone said to me once, everyday may not be good, but there is some good in everyday.