Getting to the Root Cause of MS and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Hey, everybody, it's Dr. Mark Hyman. Welcome to my weekly house call. Your chance to ask me your questions. And today we're covering some really important subjects. Multiple sclerosis, chronic fatigue, and fibromyalgia. Now, these illnesses can be devastating, and I want to dive in and give you some hope and some strategies. First, let's listen to our question.

Hi, I just have a quick question. I was diagnosed with Ms. About 15 years ago, and I've never taken any of the medicine that they wanted me to take. And for the last year or two, I have weakness in my left leg when I walk. And I have eliminated dairy and grains and gluten. And I'm not really sure, like, what else I should do at this point. Like, I don't know if acupuncture would be beneficial. I was doing that but a while, but it just kind of didn't really make it completely go away. But I'm just trying to figure out what I can do to completely restore my body back to perfect health. And any of your suggestions would be extremely helpful. Thank you.

The question is from somebody who didn't provide their name, but it was a voicemail, and this was the question. I was diagnosed with Ms. About 15 years ago, and I haven't taken any of the medication that my doctor wanted me to take. And for the last year or two, I've noticed more weakness in my left leg and I've eliminated dairy, grains, gluten. I'm not sure what else I should do at this point. I'm not sure if I should try acupuncture. What can I do to restore my body? Well, Ms. Is an autoimmune disease of your nerves and it can affect your entire body. It can cause all sorts of havoc, including nerve damage, prevents you from walking bladder problems, and it can be devastating and even deadly. So let me tell you about my friend and colleague, Dr. Terry Walls. She's a doctor who was diagnosed with Ms. And she used the power of functional medicine and food as medicine to manage and treat her Ms. She actually used the hunter gatherer diet, basically what they call Paleo, to create her own food plan and went from using a wheelchair to actually participating in and completing an 18 mile bike tour. She literally couldn't even sit up by herself. She could barely work anymore. She was highly dysfunctional. And she really, really changed her diet, which led to a dramatic change in her biology and literally reversed her Ms. And now she's lecturing all over the world. She has a TED Talk that's had millions of Views. I'm going to provide a link to the TED talk. So you can see in some of her work there really are a number of things that we do to fix Ms. It's mostly looking for the cause. Hidden infections, viruses, molds, food sensitivities and allergies. Gut problems we call dysbiosis, or imbalances in gut and leaky gut. And there's a lot of things you can do to optimize your diet. Basically a diet that's high in healthy plant foods, high in fat, low in sugar, no grains, no beans. And she outlines this in her book the Wahls Protocol, which is a really great book. She came to Cleveland Clinic and did amazing grand rounds for us and taught physicians, medical students. It was really quite astounding what she showed in her case. Now, other things are important like vitamin D deficiency, those been linked to Ms. And other neurologic issues. Exercise is critical, finding ways to reduce stress, getting great sleep. All these things are simple things you can do. And if you're really stuck, you need to go see a functional medicine doctor, have them help you figure it out. So nobody wants to hear their doctor say the words multiple sclerosis or any autoimmune disease for that matter. It's scary and you know, that's real. But it's also manageable and often fixable. I've seen literally hundreds of patients over the years with autoimmune disease that have been successfully reversed or dramatically improved using the power of functional medicine. So there's some great resources and tactics we talked about, but there's more. You know, you can check out the written companion, this blog, so you can get all the resources you need to address through functional medicine, Ms. and other autoimmune diseases. All right, now let's listen to our second question, which comes from Margo.

Hi, Dr. Hyman, it's Margo Kaler. I am desperate for help. I've been diagnosed with chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, rhinoids, mixed connective tissue disease, pot. I have tried everything. Integrative medicine, western medicine. I wish that I could afford to come see you. I am hoping that you pick me for one of your house calls. I really need some help and want to get better. I need energy and stamina and to be able to sleep. Thank you.

This is a topic, Margo, that's near and dear to my heart and you'll learn in a minute why. I'm sure you've heard from your doctors and the many ads on TV that the only way to treat your symptoms is with a drug. But I'm here to tell you that that's simply not true. And, and let me tell you why I'm so sure. Because I had chronic fatigue syndrome. It's actually what launched me on my career in functional medicine. Because over 20 years ago, I went from being super healthy, riding my bike 30 miles a day, even more, 100 miles a day, and being able to remember huge amounts of information, to being completely laid out, couldn't walk up the stairs, couldn't remember where I was at the end of a sentence, where I started. And I had severe symptoms. I had cognitive problems, sleep issues, muscle pain. I had gut issues. My whole system broke down. And everybody told me it was, you know, just emotional or psychological, but I knew it wasn't, that there was something really going on. It turned out I had mercury poisoning and I had gut issues, and I fixed those. And using the power of functional medicine, I completely recovered. And, you know, I've been working for the last oh plus, decade plus doing, doing, writing books, traveling all over the world, doing the things that I need to do to tell the story of how there's a different model of medicine. So let's talk about the role of what the root causes are here. So the root causes of chronic fatigue are real. They're not just someone's, you know, whining and doesn't go to work. It's a real condition. And the challenge is that most doctors and science doesn't really understand it and isn't applying the knowledge that we do have. So it can be caused by gut issues, it can be caused by Lyme and tick infections, it can be caused by mold, it can be caused by heavy metals. So, so there are real things we look at to actually fix this problem. So what ends up happening is that all this inflammation and free radicals ends up damaging your mitochondria. These are the little energy factors in your cells that keep you running and functioning and thinking and doing all the things you need to do. So you have to fix your mitochondria, and that involves a comprehensive approach, including diet and lifestyle stress reduction. It includes gentle exercise, it includes things like meditation. But it also includes fixing the causes, which is dealing with Lyme, if that's an issue, dealing with mold, if that's an issue, dealing with heavy metals, if that's an all these things are really critical to fix the problem. And then you need to support the body, support the adrenals, support the mitochondria with the right nutrients. We use a whole host of things. Those are symptomatic treatment. They're not going to fix the cause, but you can support people to feel better. So I want you all to know that my story had a very happy ending. And yours can too, Margo. So check out this week's housecall blog for resources, and consider visiting a functional medicine doctor to figure out a personalized plan for you to heal and and better yet, thrive. So that's all the time we have for house calls today. And if you like this video, be sure to share it with your friends and family on Facebook and Twitter. And if you have any questions, you can tweet them to me or send your video submissions to drhyman.com and maybe next week I'll make a house call to you. Thanks for watching.