HI Fulenn,
I have MS a well, was diagnosed over 16 years ago. A little over 4 years ago I started eating this way. I was in pretty bad shape. Very painful neuralgia in my face that made it hard to chew or even smile, complication of rosacea, terrible bouts of vertigo, and walking, even the short distances I needed to for errands (I am unable to drive for a variety of reasons) was slipping out of my reach. I was reading a memoir by a poet who has MS, and she had a chapter describing her failure at various kinds of alternative treatments and host they hadn't worked for her. She has a very aggressive version of MS, and is in a wheelchair with no use of her legs and pain implants. It made me ask myself, "have I really tried everything I can try?"
I have always refused the conventional med treatments, and tried to use diet, and other bodywork therapies, which did help, but at this point I was having diminishing returns. I remembered the Swank Diet being mentioned to me as one in which "you eat a lot of chicken and fish" by my red meat loving neurologist at the time of diagnosis. There was no internet then, I was reeling with the diagnosis, the fact I couldn't teach, and how I was going to provide for myself and my then 9 year old son, so it didn't register there was a book I could read. And I was a lacto-ovo vegetarian, so the idea of eating a lot of chicken and fish didn't appeal to me. I did change my diet to what I and the naturopaths considered low fat, but there was no information about oils from these sources. For a while, my diet WAS very low fat in the Swank way, and I believed that helped. But not enough. Then of course I was encourage to eat fish, and take flax oil, etc. for "health," and I do believe these things made it worse. I was encourage not to avoid eggs and dairy altogether, but to try to add them back in my diet as i could. In the rural area I live in, I was also encouraged to "buy local," that those eggs were "better," etc. All this turned out to be not true in my case. My intolerance of dairy and eggs never abated, and of course the saturated fat did nothing for improving my lot with MS.
So when in late January of 2008 I asked myself this question, I realized all I had to do was type in Swank Diet to google. And there it all was. I read about oils, got the library to get the book for me, and began my education. I didn't know Dr. McDougall existed. I wanted to see if I could do the Swank Diet vegan, so I combed carefully through the whole book and found that there was really nothing preventing it. I quickly realized, too, that if I was going to stay at Dr. Swank's recommendation of 20 grams of fat or below and under 5 of saturated, it might be a waste of that fat allotment to cook with even a little bit of oil. That I'd rather use that on a small amount of flax seed or a walnut or two. So I stopped using oil. I also typed in fat free vegan recipes to Google and found Susan Voisin's great site fat free vegan kitchen. There I learned how to cook yummy things without oil.
As I read the Swank site an participated in the discussion forums, and also Susan's blog, website and forums, I started reading people referring to McDougall. Then I realized it was the same McDougall people were talking about in both places, and from there found this site, which helped me refine my standards for no oil eating and cooking, and also eating enough starch to feel full. I didn't have a huge weight problem, but that 10-15 pounds up that I sometimes went to just melted off, and has stayed off, and I've even last slowly a little more, over time.
The effect of cutting out any dairy, eggs or oil was virtually immediate. It was as if the thing that was eating away at me all the time just stopped doing it. Like a fever breaking. So I "knew" that somehow I was not getting worse anymore. My symptoms started to soften, slowly, over time, and I also began to reacquire the ability to bounce back after they had flared up. I had all but lost that.
Although symptoms aren't gone, the slow arc of improvement continues. I have other complications such as being born with mild cerebral palsy and acquiring fibromyalgia along the way. My tendency to fall all my life seems to have aggravated that. So I had to do more limitation to the diet, no sugar, no gluten, and finally, something that really surprised me because I had not tested as being intolerant of it, no soy--not even the "good" kind. Taking that out really improved the inflammation of the fibromyalgia.
The quality of my life is now wonderful, and gets better every year. I still have issues, but they are so much easier to go through, resolve, and bounce back from. I still do take a nap every afternoon, two hours of being completely off my feet as Dr. Swank recommends. I find this helps reset my nervous system and keeps me from having more flare ups. If I can't sleep I read and rest with my dog.
I also have a wonderful service dog and we walk every day, over a mile. This is amazing for someone who struggled to get down the street or around half a block! I have a market cart and we walk to the co-op together for shopping, which is a few blocks from my house. I can type like this. I look terrific, rosacea cleared up, etc. People are always telling me how great I look--some who haven't seen me for a long time don't recognize me. This summer I am mowing the lawn myself with my push mower. I also negotiated getting a new Macbook and setting it up. And got my first cell phone. I am a poet, and haven't been able to write a lot of these years, and this year big breakthrough. All of this comes more slowly than for most, and has to be in an environment that is calm and quiet, but that's what I've created for myself. It works.
When I first went on the Swank forum and was participating there, I remember reading some woman asking about how in the world to cook different things for her family if they didn't want to follow the diet. Someone else wrote back, "you are not a short order cook," and then gave examples of what she makes for her family, and that if they want something else not on plan, they have to make it. This somehow made me laugh and realize I needed to stop eating or making things that other people liked or wanted. My son was grown and out of the house by this time. I told him what I was going to do and he has been totally supportive. He and his girlfriend now are vegan, and cook without oil.
When I first started this, I would sometimes wake up overwhelmed about it all. Then I'd remind myself "all I have to do today is take care of myself." That helped me.
I am glad I found this thread. YOU ARE ON THE RIGHT TRACK. (Something Rip Esselstyn wrote back to me in the early days of his web site before his book came out when I wrote and asked for a recipe I couldn't find.) And the kale you shared is just beautiful!! Keep eating it.
all the best,
moonwatcher