Stopping MS

By Jeffrey A. Jarry

Here are a couple of the reviews that people have given for the book:

I read this book in less than 24 hours, it was so inspiring for me to read the huge obstacles the author had to overcome! Be prepared to shed some tears and to laugh! It really put things into perspective for me and made me realize that the every day things most of us complain about really are quite trivial when compared to an illness such as MS! If he can fight thru this-and you will have no doubt that Mr. Jarry is a fighter, then surely we can overcome the mundane obstacles most of us face! I highly recommend this book! I am looking forward to his others! Thanks for sharing your story with us and showing us there is hope even if we think all is lost!!

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I have a friend who is battling MS so when this book was recommended to me I didn't hesitate. I had hoped to learn more about this terrible disease, gain an understanding of what the day to day challenges were for my friend, and maybe learn a few things about how I could help. Wow. It was all of that and so much more. My copy of "Stopping MS: Stage 1 - Symptom Control" has more highlighted sections and dog eared pages than any other I have read.

I cried, I laughed, I gained an entirely new level of respect and admiration for my friend and those facing this disease, I reflected on how I handle challenges in my own life, I counted my blessings, and most of all, I was inspired.

First, the expectations that were met and exceeded:
Not only did I learn a great deal about the disease, I learned what it's like to live with it. The author brings you into his world and gives you a very personal account of how his life has changed so drastically. It will bring you to tears but it will also inspire you to never give up, to take charge of your health in every way you possibly can, and to see the light even in the darkest times. God sends us angels when we need them most.

Second, things that I did not expect.
The author has done extensive research (on his own and with the help of an amazing support team) on how diet, exercise and supplements can effect the symptoms of his disease. I found his recommendations for those suffering from MS also applicable to me and probably most people. I have been doing my own reading and experimenting with diet, supplements, and exercise due to health challenges (nothing nearly as drastic as MS). I found that many of the same things that I have found that reduce inflammation in the body were also helping the author reduce his symptoms. So many things that he was saying "clicked" and were completely aligned with what I had been reading and trying in my own life to feel better.

I could go on and on with reasons to buy this book but my review is already too long. Let's keep it simple: Do you know someone with MS? Do you want to feel inspired? Do you want to laugh, cry, reflect and be engaged in a fantastic and true story? If you said yes, then buy the book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jeffrey A. Jarry
• Release date: May 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310957352

Jeffrey A. Jarry

I am a male who grew up in a small suburb with a great pizza place and a lot of kids. My father was a truck driver and my mother worked in collections at the local hospital. I was not brought up with a silver spoon; it was more like an ordinary metal spoon from Sears.All I ever thought that was important as a kid was sports. It was always on the TV, constantly advertised on the radio, and everyone I knew played at least one.I remember dreaming of my name being on a billboard and being shouted by hundreds of thousands of fans at some arena or stadium. I played all sports growing up and was always participating in some type of pickup game with the kids in the neighborhood. I changed the sport I was playing with the season, using the professional schedule as a guide. It was football in the fall, hockey or basketball in the winter and baseball in the spring. Summer was for a little more baseball, basketball, and for just being a kid.

Book preview

Stopping MS

Jeffrey A. Jarry

Copyright 2014 by Jeffrey A. Jarry

Dedication

This book is dedicated to two people: Kristen Mitchell for my personal well-being and Joan McLaughlin for my physical improvement.

Kristen Mitchell

I have heard about this kind of caring, but thought it was too good to be true. That is, until I met Kristen. This book would never have been written without her.

She didn't just learn all this with me, she is practicing it also. It made it so much easier that she adopted the same style of living: healthy eating, healthy lifestyle, and just an all-around healthy way of thinking like I did.

Kristen has been such a critical part of my recovery. From introducing me to Joan to never hesitating to help me, she has been there every step of the way. If I am making her sound too good to be true, then my goal has been reached.

Joan McLaughlin

Joan started the healing for me and has been with me through the entire recovery. She taught me what detoxes to take, what vitamins and supplements to use, and what and what not to eat. Basically, everything my body needed to fix itself.

She is a person true to natural healing. If she didn't have an answer, she would go and find one. And not just any answer, but the right one.

Preface

I once suffered severely from many symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis, MS, yet I always had a strong desire to fix myself. Even during my worst days, I noticed that doing any form of movement helped; including very simple exercises. I just didn't understand why this was.

Then I was introduced to Joan McLaughlin, a Natural Living educator, and she highly recommended detoxing, the use of vitamins and supplements, and the change of my diet. She also provided me with a theory of what was actually happening to my body.

Follow me through the first stage of my journey and see how I went from bed rest, to a power chair/scooter, back to a walker. I am doing what every doctor said was impossible; planning my recovery from the debilitating disease called Multiple Sclerosis.

I am in remission, but not the remission people think of when they hear that word. I am in Staged Remission, not medical remission. The difference is that Staged Remission is not some mysterious phenomenon that can't be explained. I am putting myself into remission using the Staged Remission Program and have been aware of doing it every step of the way.

Understandings

I am not a doctor of either Western or Eastern medicine, have no medical training, and believe in doctors. I'm not an extremist who thinks that doctors don't know their trade. Most of them are very intelligent, have many years of training, and provide a great service to our society. They are passing the knowledge gained by research into the caring of people with MS.

I took my own well-being into account, common sense, and the will to live a complete and fulfilling life in order to fix something that was destroying my one and only body. This book in no way tries to show how I contracted Multiple Sclerosis. It is only showing how I am recovering from it.

I do not disclose the names of the medications I took for liability reasons.

Staged Remission, and any of its claims, has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

The author is held completely harmless regarding any of the content in this book and was written with knowledge learned through 2012.

Copyright

Stopping MS

By: Jeffrey Allen Jarry

Copyright 2014

©All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of Jeffrey Allen Jarry.

Contents

Dedication

Preface

Book Layout

Understandings

Copyright

Chapter 1 - It starts

Chapter 2 - D-Day

Chapter 3 - Hitting the fan

Chapter 4 - Square One

Chapter 5 - Enter Kristen

Chapter 6 - Phase 1 - Beginning (Part A)

Chapter 7 - Phase 1 - Beginning (Part B)

Chapter 8 - Phase 1 - Middle (Part A)

Chapter 9 - Phase 1 - Middle (Part B)

Chapter 10 - Phase 1 -End

Chapter 11 - Phase 2 - Beginning

Chapter 12 - Phase 2 - Middle

Chapter 13 - Phase 2 -End

Chapter 14 - Phase 3 - Beginning

Chapter 15 - Phase 3 - Middle

Chapter 16 - Phase 3 - End (Part A)

Chapter 17 - Phase 3 -End (Part B)

Chapter 18 - The Staged Remission Program

Chapter 19 - Medical Documentation

Chapter 20 - Symptoms

Chapter 21 - Recovery living (Part A)

Chapter 22 - Recovery living (Part B)

Chapter 23 - Extra Energy

Chapter 24 - Stage 1 Complete

1 It starts

To start with the recovery chapter go directly to Chapter 6, otherwise begin reading the next line.

My name is Jeff Jarry and I have Multiple Sclerosis. I know firsthand how very unpredictable and extremely frustrating this disease can be. There was absolutely no sign that anything was wrong with my body when I was growing up. I played many sports, was very active, and had no difficulties. As I got older, athletics played a big role in my life and my physical ability was what defined me in my teenage years. I played school sports and even made the coveted High School All-American Basketball team as an honorable mention member, played college basketball, and was an avid runner.

It wasn’t until 1990, when I was twenty years old, that I first started noticing physical problems. I had only stopped playing college basketball a few months previously, but was having extremely small and inconsistent delays when playing pickup basketball at local courts. I chalked it up to age and put it behind me.

In 1992, the next oddity appeared out of nowhere. I experienced an extremely small limp in my left leg when sprinting or running very hard, but not while jogging. It went away completely within a couple of days and I again attributed to aging.

When this next thing happened, it was very bizarre. The year was 1993, I was 23 years old, and was driving to see a friend five hundred miles away from Maryland who was visiting her mother in Kentucky. I had stopped to pick up some junk food about a half-hour away from my destination, when all of a sudden my right eye went very dark.

I finished the rest of the drive using the good vision in my left eye because the right eye was pretty much useless when the dark of the night combined with the dimness of that eye. I was very glad when I got close to the house, because I had a hard time judging distance with only vision in one eye.

As soon as I got to my friend’s mom’s house, I told her about the problem with my vision and we went to an optometrist the next day. After many questions and several vision tests, he diagnosed me with optic neuritis. I had never heard of the problem and didn't think it was anything serious because there was absolutely no pain.

Two weeks after the incident, I got clear vision back in that eye and had no residual problems. Once more, I justified it by thinking, Oh well. It went away, so it must have been a fluke thing. In the early 90s, optic neuritis was not a known precursor for possibly getting MS.

Out of the blue, I started having trouble with PT (Physical Training) in the military; primarily with running. At first it was only once in a while, but then it started happening all the time.

The pace of my running became very erratic and I had no control over it. My speed was going from very fast, to medium, to slow, to medium, to slow, to fast, etc. It was very unusual and there was no explanation for why only my running was being affected. I'm not sure if the sergeants and commanders believed what was happening to me, because the problems I was having were so out of the ordinary.

Being stationed in Maryland, I was instructed to go to Johns Hopkins hospital to get looked at. From everything I had ever heard about that place, if anyone could figure out what was wrong with me, it would be them.

I spent seven hours in a hospital room the day I went for my appointment and was put through a battery of tests. I saw doctor after doctor, because no one could explain what was causing my problems. I had never seen doctors so stumped by an affliction.

I still have the vision of them running back and forth, shaking their heads from confusion, like it was yesterday. I met with three different doctors that day and my problem was still as much of a mystery after hours of tests as when I walked in there.

Ultimately, the doctors said they thought it was possible that I had Lupus or a form of Muscular Dystrophy, but they felt that I was much too healthy for it to be anything that serious.

At the end of 1994, I again experienced a limp while running hard. The same kind of limp as the one from 1992, but it was much more obvious this time. Like the other symptoms it went away within a short period of time. So, I put it out of my mind and continued living my life.

In 1996, I started experiencing occasional blurry vision at work when looking at a computer screen. I made a lot of excuses for why it was happening, such as: the computer monitor was at the wrong height, my seat wasn’t positioned correctly, I was working too many hours, wasn’t sleeping enough, and many others. I found almost any reason fathomable to rationalize what was happening to me.

Then, one night while working on my computer at the end of 1996, I experienced a tingling in my right leg. I again used my rationalizations theory to wish it away. It did go away, that is until the next night. This time, I actually took a minute and gave it some thought. I said to myself, It must be the hot air from the fan on my computer blowing on my leg.

This reasoning worked for two or three more days, but the tingling didn’t go away. So, my brain started digging a little deeper and I thought back. Something didn't add up. But, I concluded that maybe it was my muscles tightening up from running and that I needed to stretch more; yet another justification.

I started stretching a lot more and thought I had figured out my problem. Everything seemed to be a go, so I began training for the Columbus Marathon. I had never run a marathon before, but I felt I was fast enough to do it now. The problems had subsided once again, the tingling went away, and I thought all these troubles might be gone forever.

Strange doctor’s visits

After a couple years of no odd occurrences, unusual things started happening once again that I needed to go to the doctor for. Often the diagnosis was a, I don't think it's serious. It's probably just…. Here is a prescription. These are some of the doctor’s visits that were not quite right:

Although I saw a doctor in 1997 for having an extremely hard time moving my bowels, I was confused as I had never had bowel movement issues in my life and now I would push and push, but nothing seemed to happen. The doctor was not concerned and prescribed me pills for constipation, but that only helped slightly.

The second in my string of strange doctor’s visits was for dehydration. The advantages to having your own business and working from home are pretty obvious, while the disadvantages are not. One disadvantage was that I did not get sick days.

When I was ill, I would lie in bed and work on the laptop. One time in particular, I wasn't feeling good and was working from my bed. This time, however, it got so bad that I couldn't move or even get out of the bed. The ambulance had to be called and they used a stretcher to get me from my upstairs bedroom down to the ambulance.

The doctors at the hospital ended up giving me a saline IV and the cause of it was diagnosed as dehydration. The diagnosis seemed to fit and as a recommended preventative, I started to drink more water. As a matter of fact, I bought one of those big water dispensers that businesses have and used my empty morning coffee cup, as opposed to the standard plastic water cups, for drinking from it.

A few months later, my arms were getting strange pains and I felt irregular sensations of them being hot. I also got a creepy/crawly feeling in both of them. Once again, this happened while I was working at the computer late one night.

I kept working and dismissed it with a Here we go again with those weird problems. thought. This time was different, though. I started thinking about it more than the last time and thought to myself, Something might be wrong with me. Too many things are happening that are out of the ordinary.

Since going to several doctors and trying to get a confirmed diagnosis of what was happening to me had not worked thus far, at the end of 1999 I decided to research my symptoms online to try and figure this out for myself. Physicians advise people not to attempt to diagnose themselves, but I was the bread winner of my family and I could not spend another year not knowing why I was declining both mentally and physically.

Everything I looked at led me back to the same thing; Multiple Sclerosis. I said to myself, There's no way I have that, MS was never even a thought to any of the medical professionals.

As a result of my research and findings, I made an appointment with my family doctor in 2000 in hopes to finally put an end to all of this uncertainty. That doctor agreed with my findings, said that it de finitely could be MS, and referred me to a neurologist. I had never been to that kind of doctor before and the title he held was rather intimidating. I will never forget my first visit to his office because it was the most unnerving doctor visit of my life. Knowing that this could be the doctor who might finally be able to figure out what was wrong with me.

I made an appointment, drove to his office, and took a seat to wait for my name to be called. When I was called by the receptionist, I was escorted into one of the examining rooms and sat on the bed waiting for the doctor. Many thoughts were going through my head and I wasn't sure what to expect.

I looked around the room and it appeared to be a standard doctor’s examination room. There were the usual tongue depressors, the doctor’s stool on wheels, and a large poster of the eye detailing all the parts. Nothing out of the ordinary, but I felt so out of place. Could this be a wild goose chase with a simple answer like I am just getting older?

The doctor walked in and to my surprise he looked like a normal doctor. I'm not sure why, but I expected him to have a gigantic head. Big enough to fit an enormous brain, enabling him to get the distinguishing title of neurologist.

Instead, he looked like a regular guy and he didn't say, Hello there, how are you today, sir? It was more of a regular, Hi Jeff, nice to meet you.

Then he continued on by saying, I have read your files that your family doctor faxed me. We talked about my problems and how there was suspicion that MS could be in the cards. He said he would do some field tests to see my reaction, take some spinal fluid, and would send me for an MRI.

A couple of the tests he did were: following the light from a small, thin flashlight as he moved it from side to side. The reason for this was so he could watch how my pupils reacted and moved.

Another test he performed was to check my nerves using wires and electrodes. This was done so he could look at the nerve continuity on my legs. Gait tests were also performed; walking and balancing were the objectives of these tests.

He did many other tests, but I do not remember what they were. That could be from natural memory loss or from my apprehension during the exam.

For the last test, he said he would do a lumbar puncture and my brain instantaneously relayed a few messages to itself. One of them was That doesn’t sound too pleasant. The words lumbar and puncture don’t belong in the same sentence. It was performed and to my surprise the test was completed quickly and without any pain.

The tests had concluded and I sat on the hospital bed in the examining room again, waiting to hear his professional opinion. The doctor returned from his review of all the data and said that all the test results pointed to one thing; Multiple Sclerosis.

He further said, I would like to get an MRI to make the diagnosis conclusive. Then he told me that there were some good medications that could help, if in fact I had MS. The appointment was concluded by handing me a prescription for the MRI and a short discussion about which hospitals I could get it done at.

A couple of days later, I drove to the hospital to get my first memorable MRI. I say memorable because I was probably given one when I broke my neck at age sixteen, but being unconscious for two days can put a rather large kink in someone’s memory.

I ran the scenario of what getting the MRI might entail over and over in my head about twenty times. I pictured getting a blood test, combined with some electrodes taped to my head and chest, and several sets of x-rays.

Was I ever wrong? It was a very simple and interesting test. First I was instructed to remove any metal and put it in my assigned cabinet. Next, I was walked over to another room that contained the MRI equipment. I was so amazed at the technology; an igloo-looking electronic container, with a sliding table I laid on that would automatically move me in and out of it.

The next thing done in preparation for the test was putting the Friday the 13th type mask on my face for protection. Then, finally I was given noise cancelling headphones to shield my ears from the loud noises the machine makes.

I was actually excited to get inside the apparatus to see what it did. I was a little apprehensive initially, but the excitement soon outweighed the nervousness. I laid in it for over forty five minutes, while several tests were run. All I could think of was that the H.G. Wells book The Time Machine had come to life.

The lab technician said, Each test will take about five minutes and the first set of tests will take a total of about 30 minutes to complete. I will then pull you out to give you contrast dye. Following that, you will go back in and it will do a few more tests that last another 20 minutes.

When it was done I drove back home and on the ride I thought many things. Things like What if the MRI comes back and it says I have issues?, What if the neurologist diagnoses me as having MS?, If I do I have MS, will I eventually be disabled?, If I have MS and I become disabled, how long will it take?, and Whatever I’m diagnosed with, will I still be able to play sports with my kids?

Those were just a couple of the thoughts that were racing through my head, but I did like I always tried to do; hope for the best and prepare for the worst. I truly felt that there was no way I would have MS. Maybe when I get older I might have something like that, but not at this point in my life.

Like the doctor said, "I was young and healthy, added to the fact that I showed no signs of a disability. I needed to calm down and wait for the call from the doctor's office saying that the results were in. Before I left the hospital, the receptionist told me I should hear from my doctor within a week. I had to just keep telling myself that everything was going to work out just fine.

2 D-Day

The anticipation of finding out if MS had been the problem all along was very high. Relevance regarding anything of importance seemed to be a thing of the past. Everything in my life was taking a backseat to the call from the doctor’s office that I anxiously awaited.

I felt like I was spinning a roulette wheel and on one spoke of the wheel was the writing, You DO NOT have Multiple Sclerosis. On another spoke it said, You DO have Multiple Sclerosis. I wanted the doctor’s office to call so bad, that way I could get this waiting game over with.

There was always the very slight chance that I somehow had Multiple Sclerosis, but the odds seemed so small that it wasn’t a likely possibility. I was sure that I was not one of those people that got MS. I didn't know much about the disease, but it didn’t sound good and like something I would ever be diagnosed with.

A few days later, which seemed like weeks, the physician’s office called because the results from the neurologist’s field tests and the MRI were in. My family doctor wanted to see me, so I made an appointment to go in and see her immediately.

The office was only five minutes from the house, but it's amazing how many thoughts can run through a person’s mind in such a short drive. First, I envisioned the results from the MRI coming back negative for MS and I would still be in the dark as to what was wrong with me. The doctor would then say, Jeff, we need to keep doing tests and if we absolutely cannot find what is causing the issues, we are going to elevate your situation to another specialist.

Then there was the second scenario. I somehow contracted Multiple Sclerosis and some things in my life might change. I would probably be on a cane when I was sixty and taking a weekly pill as my medication for it.

I walked into the large waiting room and was then called into the small examining room, filled with energy because I hoped I was finally going to put this uncertainty to rest. At this point, though, I almost didn’t care what the diagnosis was because I was finally going to have an answer.

Besides, I was confident it would not be too serious and all my problems were probably being caused by something simple like stress. I had read that stress can cause a myriad of difficulties that can be the basis of completely inexplicable and random symptoms. I thought I was prepared for anything I would be told, but I was wrong as my thoughts weren't even close to what happened.

The doctor came in with a friendly, but somber face. She was much more serious than she had ever been in the past. She said the results were back and I responded, Okay, what is wrong with me?

She scooted her chair next to the bed that I was sitting on and the next series of events are something that I will never forget because they changed my life forever. She said, Jeff, I did not expect this, but you do have Multiple Sclerosis. The doctor then waited for me to respond.

About twenty seconds later, after sitting there and absorbing what she said, came my reply. Okay, there is a cure for this, right? She answered, No, there isn’t, but they have made tremendous strides with medication to try and control it. I truly hate to be the bearer of this news and I know it is a very confusing and hard situation for you to be in.

This is the reason the chapter is called D-Day. It can be considered my personal D-Day or Diagnosis Day. Either one is very applicable. I thought there would be some clarity in finally knowing what was wrong with me, but there wasn't. I was in complete shock. I felt that MS might be the problem, but being told that it was actually the issue made it that much more confusing.

We talked for a little bit about future difficulties I might encounter, what other people have done for their MS, and the chances that they will find a cure. She then set up an appointment for me to see the neurologist again. I said, Ok doc. and left her office to drive home.

Time didn't just stand still. Nothing had sound and all I kept saying to myself was, This can't be possible. However, the paperwork from the doctor that I read when I got home disagreed with my wishes. I thought, It's confirmed that I have a serious illness, but it will probably be many years before it affects me to the point that I have to worry about it.

Now that I knew what the problem was, it was time to start treating it. First thing I was instructed to do was to get on medication. Using the protocol defined by the manufacturer of the treatment prescribed by the doctor, a nurse came to the house to instruct me on how