How I Healed Myself From Multiple Sclerosis

Root Your Radiance

"From Multiple Sclerosis to multiple six figures" ... Sounds impossible, right? At the beginning of this season, I promised to share the full details of how I healed myself from MS by walking away from the Western medicine model and making my life about *me* instead.
This episode, I'm breaking down how exactly I went from a scared 21-year old with a life-changing diagnosis, to the prosperous practitioner and multi-dimensional being I am today.
Learn more about Prosperous Practice and my concierge style coaching at rootyourradiance.com.
Continue the conversation by sending me a DM on Instagram. I'm @thelaurabautista. Let's go!
Full Transcript: How I Healed Myself From Multiple Sclerosis
Laura Bautista 0:00

*sigh* I'm so excited, I've been asked to kind of really lay out and just like spill the tea on how exactly I healed myself from multiple sclerosis. Because this is something that people say you can't do. And so in this episode, I am going to be sharing with you how I healed myself for multiple sclerosis by making my life more about me, and how I'm going to invite you to do the same if you are looking to create major changes in your life. I didn't even know that I was doing this actually, when I was doing this, but I'll break it down for you.

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Welcome to the Prosperous Practice Podcast. I'm your host, Laura Bautista. And I am so honored, excited and happy to have you here with me. Let's get into it.

So, when I was 21 years old, I was a junior in college. I had just moved back to my parents house from dorming at college in SUNY Albany. So I was just moved back to the Bronx. And I was enrolled at Lehman College than a university getting my bachelor's in Business Administration. And I was just like living a regular life like, well, regular for where I grew up, which was like hanging out, smoking weed, going to the bar, you know, college stuff, I had a lot of friends, you get the idea.

And I remember at the time that I got diagnosed, I was working at a Jewish deli called Noah's market and Riverdale in the Bronx where I lived. And I woke up one morning to get ready to go to work. And I woke up because my hand was like feeling really weird. And so I looked at my left hand and my fingers were all gnarled up, and like all twisted up, and I couldn't straighten them out without like forcibly forcing my fingers to be straight. And it felt like there was like electric shocks like going up and down my hands. And it was really crazy. And I honestly, like, I had lived a life of chronic symptoms of always something weird happening with my body and having something weird going on, that I really literally just shook it off that morning and was like, whatever, like, I'm just gonna go to work.

Like I didn't even give it attention because I had become so used to the fact that some weird thing is happening with my body. I had struggled with digestive issues, I had had eczema my entire life. I had really bad anxiety, I had headaches a lot and stomach aches, a lot really bad allergies, I used to get a lot of colds and like infections and things. And so I was just kind of used to it, I was used to my health being kind of a hot mess, and just taking a pill and like, you know, hoping for the best. And this is what the western model teaches you about your body. And it's not like, you know, it's due to lack of access. I come from medical family. My father is a medical doctor. I had excellent insurance, I worked at Columbia University Medical Center, Memorial Sloan Kettering, I was really well connected in that world.

And so I go to work, right after this morning, you know, weird experience with my hand going, like totally numb, I go to work. And I was a cashier at this really cool Jewish market. And as I'm ringing somebody up, it starts to happen again. And my hand starts to get all again, gnarled up is the west the best way I can tell you and it's like, hands, just like fingers closing in, but not all the way. And I couldn't straighten them out without forcing them to stay straight. But then now I'm scared. And now I'm in public. So not only am I like having this, like crazy symptom, most of my symptoms had been super private, like no one could see them except for me. But this is like there's a huge line of people. And then I'm having this like moment where my hand is like freaking out. The guy who is you know, bagging the groceries, who's such a wonderful man, he notices that something's weird. And he kind of like, helps me but I still powered through and I just kind of like probably went into a deep freeze in that moment. And just like for survival mode just to get through the day, or just to get really I think, just to get through that moment. And then I went home.

So again, I come from a family of doctors, my dad had a private practice in Washington Heights were very well connected in the medical community. I mean, I knew- we knew a guy for everything. We knew a doctor for everything and, you know, we could get in faster. It's like when you're connected in the medical world. I mean, if you know, you know, right, like if you're a doctor's daughter, you can like, talk to any doctor pretty much in their network and have very easy access. So I met with a bunch of different doctors like right away. And one of my dad's friends who's a cardiologist and very, very close friend of the family. You know, he's not, he even said he's like a not a neurologist. "I don't work with the brain specifically," he said, :but if I'm looking at you now I'm telling you that the - this symptom that you're experiencing, you know, someone could say you have MS. But that would be like, if you had, you know, if you had a really bad cough and someone's like, oh, it's lung cancer."

So it's like, that was the first time that I had heard that it could possibly be MS. But the doctor was like, you know, but it's probably a long shot. Like, don't even think about that. You know, that's just what's coming up for me like, as we were just having like a friendly kind of consultation. And so that's when it all started. And I started going to all of these different specialists. MRIs ended up in the same hospital that I was born at Bronx Lebanon Hospital, where I was where I met with a neurologist, and he told me, similar kind of thing, "Oh, these are neurological symptoms could be an autoimmune thing". I didn't know what autoimmune anything was at that point, I was 21 years old. And I hadn't gotten into this world yet. I was like studying business in college. And so we run all these tests, I have to get an EEG, they connect all of these things to my head. And then I had to do a couple of MRIs. And then I had to do a spinal tap in his office. And that was like the most excruciating - one of the most traumatizing medical traumas that I think I have experienced.

And after that, came back like a week or two later, and the results were conclusive or, you know, supportive of Multiple Sclerosis. And so in the delivery of the diagnosis, the doctor was very harsh, horrible bedside manner. Apparently, he was a good doctor, but horrible bedside manner. And he was basically like, "So the test results are back, you have Multiple Sclerosis. And this is basically going to completely change your life. And this is it for you now, and you're gonna have to take really good care of yourself, you're gonna have to start taking all of these medications, there's a chance you could end up in a wheelchair or lose control of your bowels, you know, some people that happens to them, some people go blind. And so yeah, so this is what's happening. What are your questions?"

And as you can imagine, I was completely speechless. I was in shock. And I started crying. And I had nothing to say, I think both of my parents were in the room with me, and they didn't speak either. And then the doctor looked at me and he said, "Well, you know, you need to kind of stop crying and like, get your questions together, like right now. Because this is a big deal. This is really going to change your life." And I was just like, I don't know what the fuck to say right now.

And so we went back out to the waiting room we got, I don't remember what we got. We got some prescriptions for something. I remember just sitting there and just like totally spinning. And I remember my dad sitting next to me, and I think my mom went to go get the car. We were waiting for something. And my dad was like, kind of trying to rush them along because they were taking forever and that was that. I was officially diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. And I didn't even know what it was. I just knew that it caused a lot of pain and weakness and I guess numbness in the body.

And for the next seven years, I was a really well I'd say for the next like five years I was really good patient. I was taking my daily injections not perfectly. But I was taking them often enough. I was going to the doctor's visits, getting my bloodwork done, getting admitted to the hospital, every time I had an attack or an exacerbation taking the prednisone, the steroids that they give you, which is usually the quick fix for most autoimmune issues. And it was. It would give me my power back temporarily. But then I remember going to the doctor going I saw the Chief of Staff at Mount Sinai. That was a little later on when I was diagnosed with another autoimmune disease called urticarial vasculitis, which is essentially chronic hives.

And with that diagnosis, I had islands of hives popping up all over my body hot, itchy raised. This was a few years after the multiple sclerosis diagnosis. And apparently these were unrelated, right? This is what I was told, completely unrelated. And so not only was the MS medication not making me any better, but now all these other things were popping up. And the answer was also prednisone. Every doctor that I knew and I'm I was very well connected. I mean, they weren't all you know, dermatologists. Dermatologists couldn't tell me anything. That immunologist couldn't tell me anything. I was working for a bunch of oncologist and they're brilliant people. So doctors are brilliant and they can give you insights, whether they're in one specialty or another there they start out as as internal medicine doctors and then they specialize and everybody looked at me like this huge ass question mark. They just like couldn't tell me what was going on, even after the hives and after everything that had been going on.

So finally, the last straw for me was when I went in to see my doctor and was given a new option. I was given a new option so at that point This was about seven years in about 27-28 or so. And I've been dealing with this since I was 21. And I went in, and they said, Oh, we have this new medication that you can take it's been clinical trials. And it's showing some similar results as to the injections, which is not that anyone's getting any better, but that people are, you know, it appears that some people are not getting worse, taking this daily drug. And it's, it's a pill form. So you know how to no longer have to take the injectables. And so I was really, like, Okay, this might be a little bit easier. So I don't have to, you know, put a needle in my belly every single day. And then she says, Oh, but the only thing is, is that it has one really kind of important side effect, which is that it slows down your heart rate.

And when it slows down your heart rate, you know, because it slows down your heart rate, we're going to have to start monitoring your heart. So you have to have regular EKGs done, and it might lead to other side effects and other symptoms. And so, but this is the direction that we're gonna go. And at that moment, you may have heard me talk about in the last episode worthiness and what you believe your body is worth, and who you believe gives it that value. And in that moment, I was just like, "You know what? No." My dad was there sitting with me at the doctor's office. And I looked at him and I just said, I'm not doing this. And he looked at me with like, total understanding.

And then he started asking questions about functional medicine, to the physicians and nutrition and gluten and inflammation, chronic inflammation and gut dysbiosis, and all of these things. And they looked at him like he had, you know what I'm just gonna say, they looked at him, like he had a fucking dick on his forehead. And then I knew that I couldn't trust them. Because like, at that point, my dad was the only one who was like, somewhat advocating for me and trying to find answers for me. And so how did I heal myself for multiple sclerosis?

So the first step was "no more." Right? No more, I'm not doing this anymore. And this is not a recommendation. This is just my path, where I said, you may hear me say this over and over again, right? Which fear is greater? Is it the fear of the potential prognosis and the path that the doctor is telling me? Or is it something else, because I know that there's other possibilities out there, because I've been exploring them. And we talked a little bit about that in the last episode as well.

And so that is when I decided to switch approaches. And I decided to go the holistic route. And the first book that I read was The UltraMind solution by Dr. Mark Hyman, and how to understand the gut brain connection, and everything that's going on there in terms of autoimmune reactions, and inflammation. And all of these things, nutrient deficiencies and functional medicine and supplements and mitochondrial health and all of these things that I had no one to talk to me about. Nobody was even talking to me about food.

I remember asking the doctor, and early on I was like, okay, "so I smoked Newports I smoke weed, like almost every day". And it was schwag disgusting. Like New York like rags, like, you know, it wasn't like organic, like hydroponically grown like none of that. And I drink a lot of alcohol, and I ate whatever I wanted. And they basically were like, well, smoking will kill you. But everything else in moderation is probably fine, which is really dangerous advice for someone who has like an active disease process, inflict- flaming up their entire body and destroying the signals from their brain to other parts of their body. That's basically what happens in Multiple Sclerosis is the messages from your brain that go throughout your nervous system and throughout your body. They get all janky which is why you end up with a wonky hand, or, you know, the other symptoms that I experienced were weakness on the left side. So there were times where I couldn't even shower alone. Like I would have to have my mom like kind of hanging out to make sure that I wouldn't fall down. I was a falls risk. You know, when I was having certain exact exacerbations when I was having certain flare ups like depending on how intense they would get.

And so, when I learned from Dr. Mark Hyman, how all of the body is connected and that and the concept of restoring function, instead of putting band aids on symptoms with drugs. This felt resonant. This was speaking my language. And then I learned about juicing and green juice is an smoothies and gluten and I kept having these autoimmune attacks these auto immune reactions. And so if you've ever had those, you know that it makes you desperate and you'll do anything. And so that was that's really where it all started. So the first thing that I did was I started taking a lot of turmeric. Tumeric was like my gateway herb. Tumeric with black pepper and water. And again, I don't recommend this, I probably wouldn't recommend this today. But it helped me clean my blood, it helped me clean toxins out of my body.

And I remember that I used to get really bad hives, and rashes and even anxiety and I would take my Tumeric shots because I would just take the Spiced, put a little black pepper in it, put in a little bit of water, chug it, and then eat some chia seeds or some or some coconut oil because I heard that that it was fat soluble and that we needed the pepper to activate the curcumin. And so I'd heard all of these things. And so that's what I started doing. And I started experimenting with my body. And I started taking these things, I removed gluten from my diet because I had just read, you know all of the damage and dangers of eating gluten, especially when you're inflamed or when there's a live autoimmune process.

I followed a lot of the recommendations in that book diet wise, which is just a lot of like mitochondrial health and anti inflammatory foods. And then I started drinking a lot of vegetable juices. So I start I would get kale and spinach and frozen strawberries and frozen pineapple. Again, I don't think I would recommend a lot of this stuff today. But it was my path and what I was doing what I was feeding myself fiber and nutrients that had been totally depleted because I didn't eat like that. I eat like shit. I eat pizza every day I eat processed food - or not every day but in high school like a ton like I eat processed food, a lot of bread, a lot of rice, a lot of genetically modified foods, a lot of toxic chemicals and in the seasonings that I was using like you know a lot a lot of toxins, a lot of toxic buildup.

And so the food was such an important huge piece, such an important huge piece. And then I also got on an herbal gut cleanse, where I completely removed parasites, fungus, bacteria, a lot of just gunk that was hanging out in the gut. And I actually didn't do any testing prior or after. It was just like if you're struggling that hard and you have all of these symptoms, you can be sure that you have severe gut dysbiosis. And that's according to the book and also, you know, I had my dad, obviously kind of supporting me along the way I took 50,000 units of vitamin D that I got prescribed, I was taking that once a week, because my vitamin D levels were really, really low. So I was doing that. And just really giving my body as much nutrition as possible and removing as many inflammatory foods as possible.

I stopped eating processed foods, I was doing a lot of like spiralized zucchini, a lot of Greek salads, I would make Greek salads, like all the time because I just love the flavors and I need a lot of flavor in my food. And so I would do like Greek salad with chicken. I was making chia pudding. Actually, at that point, the very beginning I wasn't even sprouting the chia seeds, I was just putting Chia in water and chugging it and I was doing that multiple times a day. And you know, it's still really really, really helped. So now I would probably recommend sprouting the seeds overnight which all that means is that you put it in water and let it you know let the seeds soak up the water overnight it's easier to digest but at the time my body needed everything that I could get. It was like just screaming for help.

And so as I started doing these things, my body came back to me. I could finally stop like having these insane horrible reactions. My, my symptoms lessened I stopped having these horrible attacks or they weren't as bad it was just getting less and less and less severe and my my brain stopped feeling so clogged and limited and more and more possibility felt like it was opening up to me and then the the toxins in my life. Another huge piece I had to remove all of these toxins from my life, the amount of designer perfume the Pantene Pro V the the herbal essences, the Bath and Bodyworks the bleach the Windex, the horrible horrible mainstream chemical load that I was being exposed to was making me so ill. So So So So So So ill.

And so I had to completely revamp the way that I you know, thought about what's touching my skin. What am I inhaling What am I breathing in, I grew up in a household, my mother has the cleanest house you will ever go to. She's She was not as affected by it. But I was really affected by those chemicals, and how they impacted my body. And so I started to clean all of that up. And then the final thing, the final thing, probably the most impactful was the spiritual and energetic process of calming down, of remembering who you really are, as a multi-dimensional being in this body and finding so much trust, and peace and calm and strength in that.

And when I started meditating every day, my intro to meditation was Deepak Chopra's free guided meditations, I think they still exist on a website somewhere. And they were like nine to 15 minutes, I listened to them on like my, like a Nokia or something. I mean, you know, some old ass phone, definitely on my Blackberry, I would listen to it. And I would just remember feeling so different, after a meditation, after pausing, after focused breathing, after getting my body calm. So I started to understand that there was this connection with me being calm, and my body healing, which later- I now know is everything is that the nervous system is running the show, the nervous system is running the show, the nervous system is in charge of everything that is going on inside of your body and all of your behavior.

And when we talk about the energetics and the spiritual, and I won't go into this too much, but that the energetics and the spiritual, I believe, are what are informing your nervous system, your field around you, is what's informing your nervous system. And then your nervous system is what's informing everything else.

And so it's a journey in multi dimensions that healed me from multiple sclerosis and all that other stuff. But this is like the unhealable shit that you hear about- and call it remission, call it whatever you want. I have not had symptoms of MS and it's been like 10 years. And I take excellent care of my body. I know how the mechanisms work, I know what is missing in the western model. And I know how to use the western model in a really cool new way where I can actually leverage it instead of be mad at it. And that is my hope for every single person who is mad at the Western medicine system. And I get it like I was mad for years. And I would and I was like Crusader coming after that model. But now I know, it's actually more beneficial to show people new models to do what my friend Seth Blaustein did with his amazing, amazing events when he was hosting them in Austin, which is a total digression, but the the tagline was criticize by creating. And so that's what we're doing here. We're creating new pathways, new ways of looking at things.

If you are someone who has been struggling with your health, if you're a practitioner, or if you see people struggling with their health, right, I mean, that's if you're helping them. Remember, this is a multi dimensional process. The one thing that I didn't mention that I know is also a big part of it is the relationship piece. My relationships were so toxic, and it was really contributing to how I felt in my nervous system. And it came from a life like a traumatized childhood. So we have to look at all of these areas. And the ones that I really mentioned in the beginning there, right the the gut healing, the nutrition, the detoxing and the learning to calm down. Those were the places where I found the most leverage.

And then it's a journey from there on to continue to embody the truth of who you really are, which is oftentimes unlearning and shedding all that you are not I hope that this was encouraging. I don't typically take this much time to just talk about myself. However, I understand that when we can see what others are doing. We can align much more easily aligned to that possibility for ourselves. And as we ended the last episode are always want people to look at me to hear me to see me and say to themselves, "damn, if she can do it, I can do it."

Sending you so much love and like hope on your journey of healing and transformation. I really invite you to DM me and connect if this resonated with you today. And if you have any questions, I just love talking to people. I could talk talk, talk, talk, talk. Okay. Love you. Bye for now.

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Thank you again from the bottom of my heart for joining me for this episode of The Prosperous Practice Podcast. To catch all the magic that's being offered here, I want you to subscribe to the show. Or if you want a weekly dose of wisdom in your email inbox. As you evolve your wellness practice, sign up to receive my letters at rootyourradiance.com.

Like all good things, this podcast creates space for a diverse range of voices to be heard. We share the mic and we work to lift these voices to create a higher standard of health care for the planet and for the future. To increase the voice of our community, please consider sharing this episode with a friend, a colleague, a loved one, or on your social media to keep this conversation going.

And thanks to those who make this Prosperous Practice Podcast so friggin special. Our wonderful music is by James Wilder and prospers practice is produced by Particulate Media. The ideas and inspiration come from beautiful humans like you that I truly feel so lucky to be in circuit with. Once again, I'm Laura Bautista take good care and be well.

Until next time, bye for now.

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