In 1989 Judy was a 40-year old female living in the Florida Keys and working at a hospital as a phlebotomist (blood drawer) with her husband and two children.  She took a new job as a cashier in a busy supermarket and noticed that she began to lose part of her visual acuity.  Some of the keys on the keyboard were disappearing.  She was referred to a neurologist at Miami-Dade hospital.  After testing and an MRI four lesions were found on her brain and they determined she had Multiple Sclerosis (MS).  These lesions appeared as “white matter” on the MRI and indicated a deterioration of the myelin sheathes on the nerves.  

When she moved to Maine, she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis a second time from a doctor in Portland, then when she moved to outside of Bangor she was diagnosed with MS by a neurologist in Bangor.  Thus, she had three medical doctors who all gave her the MS diagnoses.
 At that point she was on the Standard American Diet (SAD).  She started to feel really sick from the disease and had problems with her legs, she was beginning to get wobbly and unsteady at times as her motor skills were deteriorating.

Her marriage began to fall apart and she got a divorce and moved back to Maine with two sons, where she had three jobs.  After coming back to Maine, she started going to a Pentecostal Church and after a few years she met a man, Ernie, who she dated.  Ernie accepted her disease and they fell in love and got married. They bought a large parcel of land deep in the woods to put their house on.

The MS started getting worse.  She started getting electrical shocks, and some drugs helped to deal with these issues, but the shocks were increasingly uncomfortable and it made her skin sensitive to touch.  Her body would jump, like someone sticking her with pins.  It didn’t stay localized, it started in her face and back of head, moved down her arm and her skin would become very tender.  These symptoms could last up to seven days, and then they might subside for awhile, and then come back again.  She didn’t get much REM sleep as a result.

At this point she accepted medications for her MS.  But the medications didn’t help her much because the more she took the less mobile she became. The medication seemed to affect her mobility and didn’t abate the progression of her disease.

These shocks would come and go; the symptoms might last only three days, there seemed to be no pattern to it.  She learned that MS runs its own course as there is no dependable pattern for its progression.  It produces surprises and is different every day.

Other symptoms are cluster headaches and photophobia; Judy couldn’t find relief at all.  The cluster headaches affected her eyes and the dark would make her more comfortable.  She was prescribed oxygen to use on a regular basis.  By breathing in about 8 liters of oxygen for 12 minutes it would take the headache away.

Ptosis of the eyelids was another symptom that lasted a week or two, and was always connected with the cluster headaches.  Then the eye would recover. Her gait started deteriorating after two years and her legs started being affected.  She started with a cane and then later had to move to the walker for adequate support while being mobile.  Later she was prescribed an AFO lift-brace for one foot because she was beginning to drag it due to a primary foot drop.  Her balance was not good and she wasn’t able to walk easily without a walker.  At first it was now and then, but about 1 to 2 years later, she had to use the walker or have human assistance all the time.  For the next fifteen years it was almost constant.

She was taking lots of medications including: Tegretol, Amitriptyline, Prozac, Zanex and Methotrexate, to name a few.  The side effects of these drugs would make her almost helpless and her husband would have to take care of her like a baby.  Ernie would often have to help her shower and dress.
 In 2002 her neurologists had another MRI done.  The scan showed 9 lesions on her brain.  The disease had progressed.  She started to feel desperate and was willing to go anywhere, even out of the country to find a cure.  She knew that her disease was steadily progressing.

A devastating symptom was memory loss, she couldn’t do her checkbook anymore, because she couldn’t think clearly, it was like being medicated.  She couldn’t do a task, because it was confusing and it was too difficult to do!  She would forget the simplest things.  She was not able to run the household anymore.  Oftentimes at home she would usually just sit and watch television to past the day.

She started getting frustrated after having to use the walker all the time, she gradually lost her independence and became dependent on everyone around her.  She was homebound and when she fell Ernie would bring her to the emergency room.  The doctor thought she was depressed but Judy insisted that she was not depressed but frustrated.  She told the doctors, “Would not you be frustrated if you could not be independent anymore?”  But the doctors put her on anti-depressant medications any way.  

She says “My medicine cabinet was filled with bottles of pills, but I was getting worse by the day.”  She reflected, “My emotions got into all this, because I couldn’t think about how to get better.”

She could not really say that the medication helped her symptoms, but they did help to make her sleep at times.  But on the other hand she notes that the drugs didn’t work well for sleeping either.  She took the medications because the doctors said the drugs would work.  Sometimes the drugs would increase some symptoms for a while.  They would help a little on the balance in the beginning, but afterwards it did not really help anymore.

Judy related that the doctors would suggest a drug saying; “I don’t know if it is going to work, iit worked in the past for other patients, so let us try this, if it doesn’t work we’ll try this other drug.  If you are lucky and this drug works then it will be good for that symptom.”  Judy would try the drug, but it was like a guessing game.  The only thing that actually worked for Judy was the oxygen for headaches.  What made her the angriest was when the doctors would say something like: “I am only hearing to listen to your symptoms; we don’t have a cure for it.”  Judy became very disillusioned with all the drugs she was taking.

The Turning Point
 There was a turning point in Judy’s struggle, something that stopped the downhill progression of the disease and started a process of healing to take place.

In 2003, Judy had been part of a local church for 11 years; she was on the worship team.  It was a Pentecostal church and often times the members would come over and pray over her when she was struggling with the disease.  The prayers did not stop the disease but would help her emotions, and sometimes the symptoms for that day and the prayers gave her hope and gave her a lift in life.

She was a confirmed Catholic, and at age 21 she changed and became a Pentecostal for the next 21 years.  She has been slain in the spirit and was at the altar when she first prayed in tongues.  She prays in tongues in her private life and believes it protects and relaxes her.  Her husband was also Catholic and became Pentecostal and prays in tongues as well.  She and Ernie have a strong prayer life together.

When she was asked, “Did you feel let down if people prayed over you and nothing happened”, she replied “No, I have never blamed God for my MS.  We have control over how we behave.  I just feel everything happens for a reason, the body, soul and spirit are connected.”

When asked, “When at home, and had symptoms would you pray?”  She replied, “Yes, I would feel better emotionally, but the symptoms wouldn’t go away, I felt better because I released it and God’s in control of my life.  You have to stay in the WORD and feed your spiritual body.”

One Sunday a blind man, (Bill), with a seeing-eye dog came to their church.  He heard her shuffling along the church corridor after the service and asked his wife to ask her what was wrong with her.  His wife asked Ernie and he said, “she has Multiple Sclerosis, and it is progressing rapidly. She is sort of in the latter stages of the disease and will soon be wheel chair bound.” 

 “The next week, Bill told Ernie that I didn’t need to be sick anymore and that he thought he could help me.  So we got together and Bill said, ‘If you really listen to me, and you really understand what I’m trying to tell you, you can get better, and maybe even well.’ ”   Bill had a 30 plus year background in Clinical Chemistry.  He is a Christian Family and Marriage Counselor, a Health minister, a Life Coach, and a nationally known professional Motivational Speaker. He had hiked the entire Appalachian Trail, with his Seeing-Eye Dog, Orient, and wrote a book about his journey. 

The book is Blind Courage.
 Bill then explained what he wanted her to do.  He suggested baby steps at first, which included juicing carrots and drinking a green powder drink made from barley, called BarleyMax.  He warned her that it didn’t taste too good, but suggested she drink six glasses of it a day.

Judy’s first reaction to Bill was, “What do I have to lose?  I have tried everything else, and nothing worked.  I’ve tried medicines and psychologists.  So why not give this a try?”  She told Bill that she was on lots of medications, 14 of them and that she needed the medications in order to stay better.  Bill said, “Take things as they come.”

In the beginning she just did the carrot juice and Barley Max and started to feel a little more energy.  After a while Bill suggested that instead of continuing with baby steps that she goes the next level and fully change her lifestyle.  Bill asked her if she was willing to do this and Judy told him that she was willing.  So then he told her that she had to get all dairy and meat products out of her life.  He said she should not consume any animal-based products … anything that originated from a father and a mother.  

Next, he said she needed to get rid of caffeinated coffee, white flour and all processed or fried foods.  In addition, Bill told them they needed to consume very little cooked foods and to arrange the meals so that 85% of everything they ate was raw.  He also suggested that she begin to walk as rapidly as she could for a half hour a day and increase her speed until she could walk a mile in 15 minutes and then increase the time to an hour five times a week.  

“Rigorous exercise is an absolute must for one to become optimally well and stay that way.  It enhances all body functions and supports the immune system and takes away negative emotions such as depression, anxiety etc.,” he admonished her.

An interesting part of Judy’s new diet is that she did not take any supplements except for the green barley powder.  She did do B12 for awhile but not diligently.  And today she still does no vitamins, which means the diet and juicing carrots gave her all the nutrients she needed to recover.  She did turn a little orange or brown color in her skin from all the carrot juice every day.  It looked like a good tan.

Ernie was very supportive and willing to do the lifestyle with Judy.  So their home became a raw vegan one, whereas before they served the standard American diet.  They arranged their meals to be 100% vegan and about 85% raw foods, having a little cooked food at dinner time.  When she first started the diet, she gave up everything and went right to it. 

In the  morning she ate only fruit, in afternoon only salad and at suppertime she ate some cooked food, an 85/15 raw vegan diet, that means about 85% of the food is raw only about 15 % is cooked, zero animal products are allowed, it is a vegan diet.

Exactly 4 months after beginning to do this, she got up about 5:30 am one morning and felt like she had energy.  Ernie asked her was wrong.  She said, “I feel good!”  He replied, “What do you mean you feel good?”  “I can’t explain it, but I just feel good… I have energy.” she replied.

 “Wow … what do you want to do?” her husband asked.  She replied, “Maybe later on today we can take a little walk.  I haven’t been for a walk outside in a long time.  So let’s take a walk.”

Later that day, she and Ernie went for a walk but the AFO Support the doctors had prescribed to stabilize her foot, didn’t feel comfortable, so she took it off.  It was then she noticed that her foot wasn’t dropped; it was not just hanging anymore.  Walking further she said to Ernie, “I feel better without it.”  

And she put the AFO support away in the closet that day and hasn’t needed it since. About a week later she said to Ernie, “You know, I’m not having those visual symptoms … or those awful cluster headaches.”  He said, “Yeah, I’ve noticed that.”  So she stopped the deliveries of oxygen because the cluster headaches were gone.  Thus two major symptoms of the disease were gone within about 4 months.

Judy had to wait for the symptoms to go away, such as the headaches.  Another early symptom that stopped was her legs jumping around in bed.  She stopped the medication after counseling with her doctor.  Thus as the symptoms went away she weaned off the medications. First the symptoms have to go away and then she needed to ask her doctor how to get off it; since some medications can’t just be dropped and her doctor would help to get her off the pharmaceutical drug.

After about 3 months she started using the cane, than 5 to 6 months into the lifestyle she was not dependent on the cane at all.  By 5 months she was able to use her husband’s arm because her body and legs were getting stronger.  Also she no longer had the pains in her legs and body that she used to have.
 Before the lifestyle change she didn’t get a lot of restful sleep at night because of the pain, bouncing and jerking of her legs.  

When her legs stopped bouncing and jerking she started getting a good night’s sleep.  It was about 3 to 4 months before this activity slowed down and by the 5th month it was completely gone.  Then she was able to sleep through the night and get more rest.  With MS the immune system begins to be compromised and stress becomes a key factor.  By then she had been taught stress management by Bill, and that helped a lot.

Counseling Is Needed
Judy believes that the body can heal itself, but it has to be given the proper treatment.  She says, “You can’t eat the SAD diet (standard American diet) and get rid of MS.”  She also believes now that healing MS is partly psychological, that a lot of people don’t want to give up things, like resentment, which they hold onto.  Anger and other issues need to be redirected and a counselor can help with this.  

Curing MS is a long slow process that needs to happen on the spiritual, physiological, and psychological levels and all at the same time which leads the patient to learn to live life in God’s balance.  For instance, if she got angry she would be in bed all day, so she needed to learn to control her anger.  Judy believes that the diet alone won’t cure anything and   counseling alone won’t cure anything either. Both are required and both define the healing process.

 Sometimes Judy was jealous because she would see other people well and they could walk and go places, her world was shut down.  Judy relates how one friend just couldn’t relate to what Judy was going through.  “Once I knew I was sick and had symptoms every other day, what I would call a trigger day, I noticed that it started affecting my life and I started getting frustrated.”  This frustration led her to not wanting to go out into the public, which made her anxious and jealous.

Bill was actively involved with counseling Judy on issues like her anger.  He was also counseling her and Ernie on issues that they were struggling with as a couple, to understand and come to grips with.  One issue was that the MS affected their romance and sex life.  The feelings of electric shocks in her legs and sensitivity of her body would make it such that she didn’t want to make love or have sex.  There were times that it was four to five months that Ernie could not get near her.

Bill was very instrumental in dealing with the emotional issues that were holding her back. And then she learned to let go and let God!  One issue was that her husband had started to take care of her totally and she lost control of her need for power, he was in charge.  This hindered her from moving forward; when this issue was resolved, her healing moved forward rapidly.
 Both Bill and Judy strongly believe that good counseling is absolutely necessary to deal with personal issues or the healing process will never move forward.  Since the disease is neurological, these issues could stop any progress that would otherwise not be a determining factor.

Reduction in Drugs
 By the fifth month she went from taking 14 medications to taking 5.  The 5 she still took were not taken every day but were for relapses and she only took them when she had a problem.  Within 8 months she dropped 11 of the 14 medications.  With three medications left she only used them when needed.  She dropped all of them later.  She says, “The doctors could only suppress my immune system to keep me from getting sicker.”

Judy was diagnosed at age 40 and the progressive symptoms of late stage disease    occurred when she was in her 50’s; she just got sicker and sicker during that time period.  She noted that even though she was taking the pills she kept getting progressively sicker, and she commented, “The medical field meant well by giving me drugs but nearly killed me in the process.”

Judy learned from having MS that if you think you’ll get better you’ll take anything that they suggest.  After her healing of MS through an extensive lifestyle change rather than drugs, Judy became skeptical about the drugs doctors freely prescribe.  In discussing this with her doctor, and saying that the medical field gives out drugs freely to make people feel better, that a person goes to a doctor because they want something and the doctor is going to see that they get it.  The doctor replied, “If people come here and don’t get a drug, they’re angry, so we give them a drug!”

The Mountain to Climb
 To conquer any disease is to climb three mountains: The first mountain is the human spirit, to climb it means to never give up hope and trust in God explicitly!  The second mountain is the soul (psyche) that can be climbed with good counseling; and the third mountain to be climbed is the body that can be climbed through a dramatic lifestyle change.

About 13 months after she started her lifestyle changes Judy and Ernie climbed a mountain.  She climbed 2300 feet to the top of South Turner Mountain at Baxter State Park in Northern Maine. Five years into the plan, at age 60, she climbed Mount Katahdin, it is 5,267 feet high.  They did this on June 21st, the longest day of the year. They started at 8:00 and climbed to the top and then came back down at 8:30 that evening.  It was over 12 ½ hours of straight up and straight down.  Now in 2010 they average climbing 5 mountains a year!

 Judy says: “Now I get up every morning to face the new day well and happy.  I go hiking, kayaking, canoeing, fishing, swimming, and any other sport I choose to do without a single thought of never being able to do these activities again!”

The Neurologist Report
 Judy’s neurologist was skeptical about her progress with MS at first.  She didn’t want her to get her hopes up.  But Judy discussed with her what she was going to do before she did it.  “After 2 years into my health change she noticed such a difference in my gait that she decided to do another MRI on my brain.”  That was in 2004.

The 2004 MRI showed just 4 lesions on her brain which was down from the 9 lesions on the brain in the MRI done in 2002.  At that time, her neurologist wouldn’t say that her disease was ‘cured,’ but that she now had control over it, instead of it having control over her.

The neurologist report October 13, 2004 stated: “The patient states that over the past year she has made substantial changes in her diet and to some degree in her lifestyle and feels that this has made a dramatic difference in terms of her MS.  She has switched over to having carrot juice supplementation and barley supplementation daily.  

She has become vegetarian.  Eighty-five percent of what she eats is raw food.  She has cut caffeine and refined sugars out of her diet and drinks only distilled water. … The patient is alert, oriented, and appropriate.  Speech is fluent.  Extra-ocular muscle movements are full.  Gait is stable.  Romberg is negative.  We will hold off any primary MS treatment right now.”

The neurologist’s report of March 25, 2009 stated:  “Last note from April 2006 is reviewed for disease progression.  Overall, patient is doing extraordinarily well.  She feels her disease has been entirely asymptomatic for the past several years.  She has followed the diet with high amounts of regular carrot juice and barley supplementation.  She is not taking any medication for MS.  She has continued an active lifestyle over the past year with hiking, kayaking, and any sort of activity without limitations.  

Fatigue is not an issue.  She does not have vision problems.  Bowel and bladder function have been good. … Patient is alert, oriented, and appropriate.  Speech is fluent.  Cranial nerves II through XII are grossly intact.  Gait is normal.  Patient has a past history of relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, but clinically appears fully recovered with stable, persistent white matter lesions which are years old.  At this point no further neurodiagnostic testing or treatment is suggested.  I have encouraged her to continue to be active.”

In 2009 Judy was climbing a mountain, fell and injured her shoulder.  She had a minor shoulder repair and the doctor noted that she was doing about 3 times better than somebody that isn’t in as good of shape as she was, because they’re not as healthy as she is.  An MRI on the brain was done and it showed no lesions on her brain at all.  So, it appears as if all of the lesions she once had have now healed.

March 2010, Judy has had no more symptoms for over seven years, the chronic progressive MS is completely gone and the MRI by the neurologists showed that the brain lesions were completely gone in 2009.  Thus, it can be stated that at age 40 Judy was diagnosed with MS, it progressed over the next 15 years and that in 2010 she is 62 years old and has been free of MS for over seven years.

Judy’s Talks
 Judy started giving talks and shares her experience of this: “When I share the idea about eating raw with anyone I can usually tell less than 10 minutes into the conversation whether or not they’re going to accept it.  For some people, even though eating this way may be helpful for them, they’re still going to be skeptical.”

“There are people who saw me very sick in the past, and know that I’m well now, who still can’t apply this to their life.  According to them, it’s too strict of a regimen to follow.  It’s too much for them.  They want a pill that’s going to make them better.  They don’t want to work for the results.  I had to work to get where I am I could not take a pill and get better.  The medicines never made me any better; they simply masked the symptoms.”

“What I try and offer people is an open door that can make them completely healthy again.  And it’s not just with diet, but through other choices also.  You can’t just have a good diet but also have stress and anger and frustration in your life and still be healthy.  You have to make healthy choices in those areas too.”

“I would tell skeptics that if they want something to make them healthy then they have to be committed to this.  I really, really wanted to get better.  I’m sure other people want to get better too, but they need to know that they can often get better without drugs and stay healthy.”

The Raw Vegan Diet and Juicing
 The raw vegan diet that Judy was taught was the Hallelujah Diet, which is a standard raw vegan diet found in the Bible in Genesis 1:29.

Many other raw vegan or living foods diets can be found that are good at helping bring into remission degenerative diseases such as: the Hippocrates diet, the Rainbow Green diet, the Raw Revolution diet, or Six Sigma nutrition.  These and others would all emphasize at least 80/20 raw vegan, juicing, and juice fasting.  There are many testimonials of MS being treated with this approach.

In the beginning she did use Fiber Cleanse to help her detoxify her body for about six months.

Judy’s diet has stayed about the same over the last eight years since she started it.  She allows herself, maybe one or two items a year that she cheats on and knows that she can be fine with.  She doesn’t want to go back to the way that she was with MS, so she is fine with her current lifestyle.
 Morning is just fruit, anything that she wants for fruit.  Just an apple, sometimes some sunflower seeds with it or ground flax seed.  She has 8 oz. of carrot juice and 1 tbsp of barley powder mixed with 6 oz. of water every morning.

Lunch – salads, any kind of salads and mixing them together.  Sometimes bread may go with the salads. Judy and Ernie do a lot of smoothies; blueberries, raspberries, and other things in a soy base and ice cubes.
 When she had MS she needed to do six glasses of carrot juice and barley a day.  She kept the six going till about a year into it.  

Now she does three glasses a day.  If she is climbing or doing some other sport that requires huge energy expenditure she does an extra barley and carrot juice.  She does a glass of carrot juice with barley about 30 minutes before lunch and dinner.

Dinner – Sometimes they have something warm, a cooked meal, usually just a potato and a cooked vegetable.  She steams it a little bit so that the vegetables are still crunchy. The potato is baked in the oven with skin on it.  Sometimes they just have a big piece of watermelon, or other fruit.
 During her first year she was very strict with her diet, she noted that Ernie was not as strict since he worked and couldn’t always stay raw.  Her strict raw vegan diet and juicing routine were kept religiously for the first year. 

After that she did back off a little bit and was not so strict, but still kept it up.
 Judy has talked with others who had MS and heard about others who had MS and were healed on this lifestyle but then fell away from it and their MS came back with a vengeance.  So Judy has determined that she will be on this lifestyle for the rest of her life and she is perfectly O.K. with that.  She never wants to go back to the way she was, and she praises the Lord for her newfound life.

Judy says, “To me this is a miracle from God and I pray that my experience will be an encouragement to other Multiple Sclerosis sufferers who fell there is no hope!”

Technically it would be correct to say that Judy is cured!