Dialed In Podcast 020 ~ Healing from Autoimmune Conditions with Dr Terry Wahls

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In this episode, we Dial In with Dr Terry Wahls, clinical professor of Medicine at the University of Iowa and creator/author of the Wahls Protocol. We hear Dr Wahls’ personal story of dealing with secondary progressive MS, and how she went from being in a wheel-chair to riding a bike using diet and life-style. Dr Wahls now inspires, empowers, and helps patients with autoimmune conditions all over the world.

 

KEY TAKE-AWAYS

  • We start of by hearing Dr Wahls story, her journey with being diagnosed with MS. She was told by her physicians that with her condition, she was expected to get worse every year, even though she had the best medications and the best care. She started doing her own research, to see what she could do to cure her illness. Her journey changed the way that she thinks about disease, the way that she practices medicine. Terry Wahls is committed to restoring the standard of care and hope to people with chronic auto-immune conditions. She talks about how even though she had the best drugs from the best people, she was still getting worse. She mentions Victor Franco’s book and how about “in that space we make a choice”, and she made a choice to read the basic science and begin experimenting on herself. By this point, she had 27 years of misery and progression of her disease doing the conventional approach before she “woke up” and said, there’s got to be something else I can do.

  • She shares with us how her new ideas were received by her colleagues. She was banned as a speaker by the MS Society. Fortunately, she had done her research and had a multitude of scientific papers to support her findings. She talks about how she was seen as eccentric and a lot of people were very uncomfortable with what she was doing. Since then she has completed four clinical trials, and now her colleagues opinions have changed. Science has also made a lot of changes since that time and they now realize the importance of diet and lifestyle in treating disease.

  • She talks about the importance of inspiring Hope. To remind ourselves that we have far more power to heal our body than we think.

  • We then get into epigenetic and gene expression and how that effects a person’s disease. We talk about the importance of doing this as a family, and how important support is in regards to lifestyle and diet. She goes over the process of how she works with patients and the choices involved. She talks about the importance of starting out with getting rid of the added sugar, eating more vegetables, adding in meditation and epsom salt baths.

  • We then get into talking about root cause and all of the factors that contribute to the development of MS and auto-immune diseases. By knowing the factors that lead to these disease, in functional medicine, physicians work to improve factors in as many areas as they can for their patients. She talks about the importance of making the choice to implement a better self-care routine, better quality diet, over time you can continue improving how your cells are building you. At the very least you can slow your decline, stabilize, and then realize - hey my energy is better…

  • Dr Wahls talks about the importance of educating yourself, and to not give all of your responsibility away. She has multiple resources available on her website. She says that if we have no locus of control, then we are more likely to progress in our disease. If we have a locus of control, and take charge of our disease, the internal locus of control lowers the inflammation molecules. She emphasizes remembering Victor Franco’s book, between every event in your life is a space, and in that space you make a choice, you can take control.

  • Her book has an amazing amount of information and research in it, she mentions that is another place to start, and she also recommends looking for physicians that are educated in diet and nutrition so that you are getting good advice. Her website also includes an introductory five week course for people with auto-immune diseases, as well as courses for health professionals. She also gives tips in her book and her course on how to work with your health care professional. She emphasizes that the quality of your diet will make a huge difference in the quality of your life and progression or healing of your illness.

  • She mentions the trials that they are doing, and currently recruiting for, you can find more information below regarding those studies.

  • She gives some really good advice for medical practitioners on how to work with individuals with these diseases.

  • We then learn how Dr Wahls Dials In. We learn about her goal of teaching people with auto-immunity that “it’s up to us”, and empowering patients.

  • She finishes by giving us some tips on techniques to reduce stress and come back to our centre.

I hope you all enjoyed this episode as much as I did, thank you so much Dr Wahls for sharing your wisdom with us!

ABOUT DR WAHLS

Dr. Terry Wahls is an Institute for Functional Medicine Certified Practitioner and a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Iowa where she conducts clinical trials.  In addition, she has secondary appointments in the departments of neurology and epidemiology. In 2018 she was awarded the Institute for Functional Medicine’s Linus Pauling Award for her contributions in research, clinical care and patient advocacy. 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, The Wahls Protocol: A Radical New Way to Treat All Chronic Autoimmune Conditions Using Paleo Principles (paperback), and the cookbook The Wahls Protocol Cooking for Life: The Revolutionary Modern Paleo Plan to Treat All Chronic Autoimmune Conditions. 

 

She conducts clinical trials that test the effect of nutrition and lifestyle interventions to treat MS and other progressive health problems. Her company, Dr. Terry Wahls LLC  has an online course, The Autoimmune Mastery Course  that  teaches the public how to restore their health and vitality using the concepts she uses in her clinical trials and private practice.  Dr. Wahls also has a certification program for physicians, nutrition professionals, movement professionals and health coaches,  teaching them how to use these concepts in their clinical practices. 

EPISODE RESOURCES

RECRUITING FOR STUDY OF NEWLY DIAGNOSED PATIENTS

 

SURVEY BASED STUDIES (CAN PARTICIPATE FROM ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD)

 
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