MISSION STATEMENT
It is the mission of
Betty's House to help all people with
Multiple Sclerosis believe that
they need not be a victim of MS, but rather that they can
be a victor; that they can be "enabled" by their MS
rather than
"disabled," and that the choice is up to them.
MY
NAME IS BETTY IAMS, AND 17 YEARS AGO I WAS DIAGNOSED WITH PRIMARY
PROGRESSIVE MS. I WELCOME YOU
TO MY HOUSE. I AM DELIGHTED TO SHARE MY VERY POSITIVE EXPERIENCE. FROM
MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS AND THE FEAR AND HOPELESSNESS I FELT AT
DIAGNOSIS, TO DEVELOPING A SUCCESSFUL HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT PROGRAM
FOR MYSELF, AND A WHOLE NEW LIFE. TODAY I AM SYMPTOM FREE AND MY
"UNINVITED GUEST," WHICH IS WHAT I CHOSE TO CALL MY MS, IS AN
INSIGNIFICANT FACTOR IN MY LIFE. I HOPE MY STORY MAY BE BENEFICIAL TO ALL
WHO VISIT BETTY'S HOUSE. MY MESSAGE IS SIMPLE
̶ I DEFEATED MS AND YOU CAN TOO!
There is a lot of information at Betty's House. Please stay awhile, bookmark the site, and visit often.
Please check out the "What You'll Find at Betty's House" contents below for details of all the information here, including recommended exercise DVDs, diet and nutrition, etc.
I believe proper exercise, basically stretching without overheating the body, together with deep breathing techniques, is absolutely essential if we are to successfully manage MS and prevent its natural tendency to progress. I also believe that diet must be an essential part of a successful wellness program to manage MS or any other chronic dis-ease.
Please sign up to receive my companion monthly newsletter,
Journey to Wellness.
You will receive an e-mailed notice when Journey to Wellness is available each
month.
To read the the current issue
click here. You may also check out the
archives
of the last year's issues.
Betty
(IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A KINDLE READER, YOU MAY DOWNLOAD A
FREE APP
AVAILABLE FROM AMAZON FOR READING E-BOOKS ON YOUR
PC OR OTHER READING DEVICE.)
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CHECK OUT THE NEW KINDLE FIRE. |
PLEASE NOTE:
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Archives of recent issues of Journey to Wellness are always available here. If you are a new subscriber I suggest you take one archived issue each week and really study the material covered. Over a period of a year Journey to Wellness covers just about every aspect of the healthy natural lifestyle that I recommend for MS. |
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I welcome any e-mails you may wish
to send to me; please be sure to use one of the following as the
subject:
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Sign up to receive
Journey to Wellness each month.
YOUR E-MAIL
WILL NEVER BE USED FOR ANY OTHER PURPOSE
Personal telephone consultation appointment:
If you are newly diagnosed, or struggling and looking for direction, you may wish to consider a personal telephone consultation with me (for up to two hours). Many people find them very helpful. If you would like some additional information about how they work, please send me an e-mail and I'll send you details. If you are newly diagnosed, the sooner you get started on a healthy life-style program, the greater your chances of success.
At 55 years of age, divorced and in a very successful sales and marketing career, I began to develop a weakness in my right leg. In retrospect it was really preceded by an increasing bladder control weakness, which I at the time attributed to aging, as well as other elusive neurological symptoms, some dating back as far as five or six years.
After being advised by several assorted health care practitioners that the leg weakness related to an old back injury, I continued my hectic life style. After a couple of years, however, during which I noticed some sense of loss of balance and hyper reflexes on my right side, as well as an increase in my right leg weakness, I began a serious search to discover the source of my problem. It became increasingly difficult to continue my state of "denial" when my friends and associates were asking me why I was limping! My excuse of "new shoes" was getting weak. And some days I was just too fatigued to make it through a full day.
It took several neurologists and other medical specialists, numerous MRIs and other neurological tests to finally make a diagnosis of Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis. That was just two months after my 58th birthday. I was told I had almost made the record books. It certainly was a distinction I could have done without! MS usually strikes young adults between 20 and 45 years of age.
I was devastated. My mother had experienced her first MS symptoms when I was in my late teens, and she had been confined to a wheelchair for over 25 years. My mother's MS was the relapsing remitting kind (quite different from mine), so her symptoms were not at all similar. I have since learned that no two people experience MS exactly the same way. MS is a degenerative process wherein the myelin sheath surrounding the spinal chord and brain develops lesions or hardened areas called a sclerosis (scar), hence the name multiple sclerosis, or many scars. The individual symptoms vary widely depending on severity and location of the lesions.
Please stay with me - my story is all up hill from here! Today I am 75 years old, look 60, and have no MS symptoms whatsoever.
My Search for Meaning and Answers:
I believe the human body is designed to heal itself. Science calls this the Spontaneous Healing Response. When you cut your finger you can easily see this automatic healing taking place. And your body doesn't know the difference in healing a cut finger and something you or I would consider far more difficult to heal. It is only our perception that makes one hard and the other easy. I believe the body has its own innate intelligence, separate from our conscious mind, and it knows what is wrong and how to correct (heal) itself. The person who has relapsing remitting MS experiences this healing response during a period of remission.
I believe we all possess a Spirit which is connected inexorably to the one Universal Divine Presence. I believe that at some level we all create our reality. Because of that deeply embedded belief, and after being told by my neurologist that there was/is absolutely nothing allopathic medicine can do for primary progressive MS, I began to search for alternative possibilities.
I tried just about everything, and the first year and a half spent over $20,000 - all to finally reach the all-important conclusion that the answers I needed were all inside of me! I researched medical literature. I surfed the Internet for weeks and months on end. I downloaded reams of scientific data. I read every research paper I learned about. In a few months I came to know more about the MS degenerative process than any neurologist I have yet talked to.
The important things I learned were:
First: Voila! There are things I could do to stave off advancement of this degenerative disorder. Well, needless to say, I was sure glad to learn that! I share them with you through the pages of this website, and more importantly each month through my Journey to Wellness newsletter and the books I have written. Be sure to preview the latest newsletter issue here.
Second: The most important thing I learned early on to do for myself was to meditate each day, and thereby "tune in" to the infinite part of my nature. I call it the God within, but whatever one calls it does not matter. I just know that the process changed my life in a very positive way. I recommend it for everyone. Meditation is also widely accepted by the medical community as a very effective way to reduce stress. If you would like some help with meditation, be sure to read this meditation report.
'Awaken the medicine within,
and restore the natural
self-healing capacity of body,
mind, and spirit.'
One of the most effective ways to activate this formula is the regular practice of four essential self-care methods
| Gentle movement of the body |
| Self-applied massage |
| Breath practice |
| Deep relaxation thru meditation |
These techniques are easy to learn, are easy to apply, require no special knowledge or training, and can be practiced daily by all people (sick or well."
My copy of The Healer Within is highlighted and marked up throughout. I am very grateful for what I learned from Dr. Jahnke early on in my own journey to wellness. Still today I frequently refer to this incredible book. Follow this link for more information on The Healer Within.
I guess everyone who lives with MS develops their own theory or theories about the cause or causes of MS. If dealing with MS, first with my mother for over 40 years, and now myself for the past over 16 years, plus many, many hundreds of hours studying everything I can get my hands on about not only MS but so-called autoimmune problems in general, classifies me as an expert, then I believe I am entitled to an opinion on what it is not, as well as what it is.
First of all, I do not believe MS is either an illness or a disease, as we generally define those words. I believe it is rather a degenerative process, and a syndrome of otherwise unexplained neurological symptoms, most usually sharing the characterization of lesions (hardened areas) in the myelin which insulates the spinal cord and/or brain. I also believe that what we call MS today is probably a group of different but closely related neurological problems.
I believe the cause/causes are multifaceted. I think that given an underlying genetic predisposition or factor which is not yet fully understood, there are a number of triggers which can precipitate the presentation of from one to several neurological symptoms which ultimately are called Multiple Sclerosis. I believe some of these triggers are societal, while others are personal.
Some of those common triggers are stressors of various kinds - psychological, environmental toxins, food allergies, physical traumas, etc. Sometimes it seems that several of these stressors being present at a given time, when an underlying predisposition exists, pushes the body "over the edge" and we end up with a diagnosis of MS. In other words, it is simply lifestyle related. As with many other physical disorders, MS is a demonstration of a body out of bio-chemical balance. The challenge, of course, is how to return our body to a state of perfect balance, or homeostasis.
Because there is no single cause of MS, there will, in my opinion, never be a real cure, until the genetic predisposition is unraveled. Most scientific and allopathic medical research into MS has been directed toward a "magic bullet," which after hundreds of millions of research dollars has failed miserably to help the vast majority of people with MS. Given the unfortunate status of MS research today, those of us who live with it as part of our daily lives are on our own. Fortunately genetic research is today beginning to open the door to understanding a whole host of physical challenges which have a genetic origin of some kind.
But for now, in order to manage MS where we can live relatively normal, healthy lives — and I truly believe that we can do that — we need a multi-faceted approach. In the "Suggestions for the Newly Diagnosed" section of this website, you will find an extensive guide for starting on a holistic program to manage what we call MS. Actually, this information applies equally to both the newly diagnosed and the person who has dealt with MS for a longer period of time. The earlier one begins this program after the onset of MS symptoms, however, the better our chances of preventing major neurological damage.
I also strongly recommend this program for anyone with any degenerative or so-called autoimmune physical challenge. I believe all will respond positively to this program.
A new addition to this website is an extensive report on Qi Gong. With each passing year I become more and more convinced that Qi Gong and meditation are the most important aspects of my personal wellness program. Please read this Qi Gong Report.
Note about Stem Cells: The research world continues to conjecture and experiment with the potential of implanting stem cells for treating many disorders, including multiple sclerosis. It remains to be seen whether this potential promise materializes. I continue to watch news of this research.
Note about Chronic Cerebrospinal Venous Insufficiency (CCSVI): The MS world is abuzz with news of a recent innovative approach to perhaps understanding not only the cause of MS but an effective treatment, commonly called CCSVI.
Chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency is described as a chronic problem (ongoing) where blood from the brain and spine has trouble getting back to the heart. It is caused by a narrowing in the veins (stenosis) that drain the brain and the spine. Blood takes longer to return to the heart, and it can reflux back into the brain and spine or cause edema and leakage of red blood cells and fluids into the tissues of the brain and spine.
Blood that remains in the brain too long creates a delay in deoxygenated blood leaving the head ("slowed perfusion"). This can cause hypoxia, a lack of oxygen in the brain. Plasma and iron from blood deposited in the brain tissue can also be very damaging leading to iron along with other unwelcome cells crossing the crucial brain-blood barrier.
Very definitive information about CCSVI and MS can be found at: www.Direct-MS.org.
Every issue of Journey to Wellness contains the very latest up-to-the-minute information. (See the archives of the newsletter below for currently-available issues.)
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and
check out my blog at
www.BettysHouseNaturalHealth.blogspot.com
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| 2011 | 2012 | ||
| January | January | ||
| February | February | ||
| March | March | ||
| April | April | ||
| May | May-June | ||
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| Fall 2011 | |||
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Betty Iams
o Davis, California o USA
Contact:
I honor and salute my son, Kevin, a
brilliant civil litigation attorney, who graduated to his next experience on November 18,
2006 after a valiant 2-1/2 year battle with Adenocarcinoma Lung
Cancer. The greatest gifts he ever gave me were his son, Zachary, and his
beautiful wife, Christine. I love sharing their lives, and I feel Kevin's
presence frequently. I know that he lives on through the love we shared.
May 30 1964 - November 18, 2006
PLEASE NOTE: I AM NOT A MEDICALLY TRAINED PERSON, AND I DO NOT GIVE MEDICAL ADVICE. BUT I HAVE BEEN A VERY SERIOUS STUDENT OF MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS FOR MANY YEARS, AND I HAVE DEVELOPED A PROGRAM THAT KEEPS ME SYMPTOM FREE, ABOUT 17 YEARS NOW SINCE PRIMARY PROGRESSIVE MS FIRST MADE ITS APPEARANCE IN MY LIFE.
LAST UPDATED 5-14-2012
