I am about to complete the Phase One, the Usual Diet phase, of the MS Diet study, which compares the efficacy of the Swank Diet with the Wahls Protocol in improving fatigue for people with multiple sclerosis (MS).

My husband and I concluded the Usual Diet Phase by going somewhere unusual. We’d never been to Costa Rica before. We wanted to eat our way through a new country without making any gringo requests for “gluten-free” anything. As it turned out, we ate very healthily there, and could have followed either diet without causing a stir. At one of the bed and breakfasts where we stayed, breakfast consisted of a neighbor’s eggs, seasoned with herbs growing in the kitchen garden, accompanied by juice squeezed fresh from oranges I’d picked myself in the backyard. And the coffee was picked right there in town. Food can’t get more local than that.  Yum! Costa Rica is a much healthier nation than the USA. (More on that in a later post.)

Tomorrow morning, my husband and I will take the seven hour road trip to Iowa City, IA, the site of the Diet Study.  This town has some sentimental value to us; it was here that I went to grad school, here where our only child was born. The hospital hold memories, too. It was here where I worked for the Telemedicine Resource Center, here where I had my first MRI, first lumar puncture, first spinal headache (when the puncture went wrong.) Here was where I got the diagnosis, twenty two years ago, that made me think I’d have less than ten years left outside a wheelchair. I’m still walking. But more slowly than I’d like.

On Wednesday, after my fasting blood is drawn, my food records are handed over, and my motor assessments are taken, my husband and I will meet with the study nutritionist, who will announce which diet we will be expected to adhere to for the next twenty four months. My hope, of course, is that whichever diet we get will reverse my disease course, that this will not be a mere twenty four month change, but the beginning of a lifetime shift. Are my hopes too high? My husband thinks so. He thinks we eat pretty darn healthy already. But he’s open to giving either diet a chance. I am so grateful for that.

The Swank Diet is a low saturated fat diet that eliminates red meat and high fat foods and includes whole grains and fat free dairy products. The Wahls Elimination Diet eliminates all grains, dairy, legumes, eggs, and nightshade vegetables/spices. Both diets include fruits and vegetables and dietary supplements.

Wish us luck!