Fums: Giving Multiple Sclerosis The Finger

There are a number of different natural treatments available to improve the quality of life of MS patientsCaroline Craven's road to natural and holistic MS treatments is pretty fascinating. In 2001, she lost the ability to see and walk unassisted while traveling across Guatemala. Upon her return to the US, she was only given a probable diagnosis, but then started to progress rapidly. She was then placed in a three-year double blind study at USC for the t-cell vaccine. During which, she did a deep-dive into holistic nutrition, Ayurvedic medicine, Chinese medicine, and healthy eating.Now, Caroline promotes healthier living for MS patients through stress management, healthy eating, and having a positive attitude through her blog The Girl with MS.Full show notes and resources: https://fumsnow.com/fums-020-natural-holistic-treatments-with-caroline-craven

Mindy Eisenberg is a former hospital administrator, turned yoga instructor who’s dedicated to increasing the quality of life for those with disabilities. She does this in loving memory of her mother who had progressive MS.Mindy is the author of Adaptive Yoga Moves Any Body and manages the fast growing Yoga Moves MS community. In today’s episode she shares her philosophy of healing and the importance of the mind body relationship to health and healing.At the end the episode Mindy guides us with a beautiful and very relaxing breathing meditation that you can try at home, at the doctor’s office, in an MRI, and anywhere or anytime you need to feel relaxed and centered.Enjoy this episode, and namaste.Full show notes and resources: https://fumsnow.com/fums-019-adaptive-yoga-mindfulness-and-meditation-with-mindy-eisenberg

Dr. Fred Ferlic is a man on a mission. He is a recently retired orthopedic surgeon whose career spans 40 years, and 20 of those he spent as the team doctor for both the men’s and women’s basketball teams at his Alma Mater, the University of Notre Dame. He has partnered with the inventor of the TayCo Brace to take this revolutionary product to help millions of people around the world.He passionately believes that the TayCo Brace can have such a huge impact and help millions of people who are suffering from ankle sprains, ankle fractures, MS, diabetes, osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and other injuries to be able to regain their balance and ultimately function in their everyday lives. This brace will allow you to do the three things needed in the 21st century life – shop, drive and work.Full show notes and resources: https://fumsnow.com/fums-018-an-ankle-brace-to-revolutionize-ankle-braces

Alene Brennan is a certified nutrition coach, natural food chef, yoga instructor, and personal trainer who helps people with autoimmune disease heal through diet and lifestyle. Oh, and she has MS. And migraines. And she learned how to affect her chronic illness positively through diet and lifestyle – and now she helps others do the same through her coaching. She’s really an amazing person with a ton of passion to really help people. It was her tagline that first caught my attention: “less pharm more table!” I LOVE it!In this episode, Alene shares how she was diagnosed with MS in 2016 in the midst of helping her mother during the end stage of her cancer battle. After her mother passed, she turned her attention to her own battles with both MS and Migraines and found ways to mitigate the symptoms. She started by going to a conference and getting certified in Dr. Terry Wahl’s Protocol, then expanded her repertoire to include the Autoimmune Protocol Diet certification. Yoga and nutrition coach certifications along

Today I’m talking with Rachael Bubbs and Dayle James, two women who decided to ride their bikes in all 50 states to raise awareness and research funds for MS. They got their National MS Society Bike MS Passports and they’re ready to ride!  BTW – they’re carrying a “champions bandana” with them on all of their rides – with MS warrior’s names on it. So – you could go along for the ride – well, your name could anyway! Learn all about it and how you can get your name on that bandana. Listen NOW!!Full show notes and resources: https://fumsnow.com/fums-016-2-girls-2-bikes-50-states

Humble, kind, unassuming – those are just a few words I’d use to describe my guest today, country music singer Julie Roberts. I’d also say talented, brave, loving, strong and selfless.  Hers is an amazing story – from a small town in South Carolina where she, her sisters and her mother were victims of domestic abuse, to Nashville, Tennessee making gold records, to a stage in Asheville, North Carolina where she lost the feeling in her hands and her sight went blurry while on stage one evening! That led to her diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis. That’s certainly not the end of this story:  a Lifetime movie about her life – oh wait, that was put on hold; recording with Waylon Jenning’s son Shooter Jennings; starting her own record label (Ain’t Scared Records) with the insurance money from the flood – provided by State Farm Insurance; surviving a monumental (thousand year) flood and losing EVERYTHING (material); FINALLY (after 5 years) accepting her diagnosis and starting treatment; to recording a new album (“I Thin

Katie Collett is an Emmy-nominated news anchor on WAVY-TV 10 and Fox 43, the local NBC affiliates in southern Virginia – where I live. She’s also a wife, a mother, a daughter, a friend, etc. – and she has MS. She’s up at 2:15 am and works from 3:30 am – 1:00 pm! And that’s just her day job. She has a 4-year-old little boy at home too! AND she is a very vocal advocate for MS awareness and a participant in a multitude of fundraising efforts.  She’s pretty amazing – but I think she’d deny that. She’s also really humble and down-to-earth. She tells me all about her first symptoms and how she was diagnosed. We talk in depth about disclosing at work and she offers some great advice. This is a “can-do” woman and she’s got MS in her sites.  I’m really glad she’s on our team. She’s not going to give up until there’s a cure. And she’s got a great FUMS attitude, always looking at the bright side and using phrases like “I’m very fortunate,” “I appreciate life,” and “I refuse to lose.” Hers is an interesting and inspirati

In today's episode, I talk to Dr. Victoria Leavitt, a clinical neuropsychologist and the director of the Multiple Sclerosis Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at Columbia University Medical Center in New York. I had a TON of questions about the dreaded COG FOG (linked to a previous blog post I wrote about it)!  Chances are, if you have MS, you've experienced COG FOG. Dr. Leavitt is a brilliant clinician and researcher, which gives her extra authority on this subject based both on her experience with MS patients as well as her research. And she had plenty to say. She gave great, understandable explanations and a multitude of suggestions on how to try to mitigate and alleviate the rat bastard COG FOG!!Full notes and resources: https://fumsnow.com/cog-fog-in-ms

In today’s episode, Occupational Therapist Gabe Byars shares all the ways that assistive technology can help us in our everyday life with MS. Learn about integrating various technologies to turn your lights off and on, adjust the heat or air conditioning, see who’s at the door and let them in, raise and lower the blinds – all on voice command! Imagine the energy you’d save. Gabe also shares tips and tricks like using your smart phone’s calendar to free up your mind from having to remember everything, using a medicine reminder app to keep us on track with all of our meds, setting a reminder to prompt us to stretch throughout our day or use an app to track us when we go out for a walk so our loved ones feel reassured of our safety. Learn about the future of smart tech for healthcare, including smart monitoring of health conditions like using a contact to continually check blood sugar as opposed to a diabetic having to stick themselves repeatedly. There is a lot of research going on now regarding biomarkers in M

Erin Glace, MSPT, PRPC, BCB-PMD, is the clinical director of the Physical Therapy and Urodynamics departments at Urology of Virginia. She is a graduate of the University of Florida with her bachelor’s degree in Physical Therapy and a graduate of Old Dominion University with an advanced master’s degree in Physical Therapy. Her sole focus of treatment is pelvic floor dysfunction.She has a TON of initials behind her name for all of the training she's done and she's respected throughout her specialty and beyond. AND - she's one of my oldest and dearest friends! When I asked her to write a book about pelvic floor dysfunction for my MS audience she said she would - if I'd write it with her. The result of that is the book "Bowel and Bladder Issues In Multiple Sclerosis by Two Pee Brains With Potty Mouths Talking Shit About MS"!In this episode, we talk all about what's in that book, what issues she sees most commonly in her practice and she answers some of YOUR questions. We cover o

Dr. Terry Wahls is a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Iowa where she conducts clinical trials. She is also a patient with secondary progressive multiple sclerosis, which confined her to a tilt-recline wheelchair for four years. Dr. Wahls restored her health using a diet and lifestyle program she designed specifically for her brain and now pedals her bike to work each day! She is the author of The Wahls Protocol: How I Beat Progressive MS Using Paleo Principles and Functional Medicine, and the cookbook The Wahls Protocol Cooking For Life: The Revolutionary Modern Paleo Plan to Treat All Chronic Autoimmune Conditions. In this episode, we discuss her journey with MS, how she found her way to nutrition as a treatment and all of the lifestyle components of her protocol as well – exercise, meditation, e-stim, etc. She is currently involved in an NMSS-funded study comparing her diet with the diet of Dr. Roy Swank, author of The Multiple Sclerosis Diet Book: A Low-Fat Diet for the Treatment of M.S.

Teri Heede is an MS warrior, cannabis advocate and activist, mother, grandmother, wounded vet, widow and an inspiration. In this episode, she tells her story of her MS diagnosis, trying ALL the meds available, failing on them all and finding cannabis to immediately relieve her MS pain and spasticity. She’s explaining the legalities, what to look for, the various forms (edible, tincture, lotion, oil, smokeable, raw cannabis in smoothies!) it comes in, what works best, and the legislative battles she’s fighting to gain legalization and regulation for us all. As Teri says, this “isn’t a Cheech & Chong movie.” She’s not getting high – she’s getting well!Full notes and resources: https://fumsnow.com/ms-and-marijuana

Getting an MS diagnosis has been more about exclusion than a definitive answer. Until now. IQuity, Inc. has cracked the code. They introduced a simple blood test that provides an answer in a week with a better than 90 percent accuracy rate! This. Is. Big.Most of us with an MS diagnosis went through a battery of tests - including a lumbar puncture - to settle on a diagnosis of MS likelihood. And even that could take years to get. Listen as IQuity, Inc. CEO Chase Spurlock and CFO and Chief Strategy Officer Julia Polk describe the process of discovering this amazing technology, and all of the potential it has for revolutionizing diagnostics for Multiple Sclerosis and other previously difficult-to-diagnose diseases.Full notes and resources: https://fumsnow.com/revolutionary-ms-diagnostic-blood-test

Michelle Nelson woke up one day and was totally blind in her left eye! The doctors at the ER thought she was faking!! She finally received a diagnosis and within 2 years was unable to work, began losing her hair, she was exhausted, blind off and on, and in pain. She found herself declining further and further into disability from MS. A chance meeting at a garage sale changed everything. A chiropractor suggested she make an appointment because she was confident she could help Michelle. She did - and the results were miraculous. Learn what Michelle did and how it worked. Maybe it could work for you!Full notes and resources: https://fumsnow.com/chiropractic-care-and-supplements-reversed-her-ms

On today’s episode, we’ll meet Erin Clayton, a fellow MS’er who views her diagnosis as a blessing in disguise. WHAT?? I know – I’ll ask her about that! She was diagnosed 8 years ago and since, has raised over $200,000 for the National MS Society!! She’s back in school getting her Certified Nonprofit Professional certification and I’m sure we’ll all be hearing a lot more about her in the future. She’s got a lot of energy and a great FUMS attitude!! What more do you need??Full notes and resources: https://fumsnow.com/fums-006-erin-clayton-raising-money-and-awareness-of-multiple-sclerosis

In this episode of the FUMSnow Podcast Show, I interview Susan Stuart, President & CEO of CORE – the Center for Organ Recovery and Education.  We talk about the need for organ donation and the easy process for sign up.  I had no idea there are 58 organ procurement centers in the U.S.  Such an interesting conversation.  And we FINALLY get the answer to the question:  can MS’ers donate organs???Full notes and resources: https://fumsnow.com/organ-donation

In this episode, I interview Mary Ray, Co-Founder and COO of MyHealthTeams.com - a wonderful resource for many health-challenged communities - and for our purposes - MS in particular - at MyMSTeam.com.  We talk about her drive to fill a void in the chronic health community - making technology work for us all.  She's a kind, upbeat, energetic woman with personal experience in the MS realm.  I like her a lot - and I think you will too.  Have a listen!Full notes and resources: https://fumsnow.com/fums-004-myhealthteams-dot-com-interview

In this episode of the FUMSnow Podcast Show, I interview Bobby and Judy Edwards, co-founders of the very successful Squatty Potty company.  You may have seen them on the American television show “Shark Tank,” where Lori Greiner (the “warm-blooded shark”) was lucky enough to have partnered with them.Judy Edward’s interest in toilet posture came when she had 7 children, many of whom had constipation issues.  In fact, Judy herself, though she ate a healthy diet and got plenty of good exercise, still found herself battling with constipation issues.  She learned about other cultures using the “squatting” posture with great success, and she, her husband and their son Bobby got busy producing prototypes originally used just for family and friends.  Thankfully for the MS community, many of whom experience bowel and bladder issues, the Edwards family decided to share this revolutionary idea with the world – hence, Squatty Potty was born!Full notes and resources: https://fumsnow.com/fums-003-squatty-potty-interview

 In this episode, I interview Kathy Bolen, an RN who went the extra mile to become a certified MS nurse.  Nurses are special people – MS nurses are extra special!! Full notes and resources: https://fumsnow.com/fums-002-kathy-bolen-ms-nurse-interview

In this episode, I interview Dan & Jennifer Digmann, a wonderful married couple who both have Multiple Sclerosis. They've written a book called, "Despite MS, To Spite MS" and we talk about what their journey has been like:  how they met and married, how they deal with their challenges, and how they advocate for all MS'ers.Full notes and resources: https://fumsnow.com/fums-001-dan-jennifer-digmann-interview