Authors: Jamuna Rangachari
T
RUE FAITH TRIUMPHS IN BOTH GOOD TIMES AND
bad. To ensure I kept busy and did not succumb to self-pity or depression I decided to volunteer at the Multiple Sclerosis Society of India (MSSI) that has chapters all over India.
The first time I visited MSSI in 2007 I was accompanied by my husband as I required emotional support. I did not know what to expect and had decided beforehand that if I saw something I found too distressing, I would simply leave.
MSSI was set up with a purpose of seeking to guide and help people dealing with MS. The society conducted regular meetings to inspire and inform and also doubled up as a kind of community centre for both patients and their families. While some people doled out practical advice about adult diapers, walking sticks and walking aids others discussed the right kind of diets to follow and the latest medical research. The agenda on the day I visited was a lecture by a neurologist from England, who spoke to the group about the various studies being conducted around the world to find a cure for this disease. He also made it a point to emphasize the importance of maintaining a minimum fitness routine.
After the talk I walked around meeting several people who had been diagnosed with MS, many of them much younger to me. While some were in a much worse state than I was, others seemed to be completely unaffected by the symptoms.
I watched as some parents were physically supporting children as they tried to walk, while adults used a cane or moved about in wheelchairs. It was very painful to see youngsters struck down by this disease even before they had a chance to settle down in their career or marriage. One lady who had a 20-year-old daughter with MS held my hand as she confessed how she wished her daughter had been married and at least had children like me before she was diagnosed with the disease. I knew what she meant as it a challenge in India to find a husband for a girl afflicted with an auto immune disease.
Although I tried my best to remain positive, I had wilted with worry by the middle of my visit. Would there be a quick deterioration in my condition? Would I also end up in a wheelchair? Would I need to use a walking stick? Would I be able to continue to speak properly, without slurring? Would I become blind? These were just a few of the many questions buzzing in my head.
It was around this time that Meenakshi Bhujwala, the secretary of MSSI, brought to my attention the insensitive way in which MS had been depicted in
Guru
, a Bollywood film that had just released (2007). As I was a reporter she urged me to write about the film and the way it had misrepresented the disease. In the film actor Vidya Balan plays an MS patient who says she will die ‘within a year’, which I thought was a gross exaggeration. MS is certainly a disabling, debilitating disease but is not life-threatening, at least in the majority of cases. Although the film hardly had much of an impact on me as a viewer I did get Ms Bhujwala’s point when she explained that people with MS who did not know much about the ailment might be disturbed to learn that it was fatal. In my capacity as a reporter I did what I could to combat the misrepresentation of MS in
Guru
and wrote about it on a variety of Internet forums and message boards.
This incident again set me thinking about disease and the way it is perceived both by patients and the larger public.
Fortunately, my visits to MSSI also allowed me to meet some people who remained positive and upbeat, despite suffering from MS. I tried to spend as much time with them as possible and understand how they had been able to stay motivated despite their condition. One of the people was Hemant Mago, a trained chef and hotelier. Hemant shared recipes with everyone and would often talk to us about the steps we could take to ensure we always ate healthy. Apart from his tasty recipes, it was Hemant’s passion for life that drew people towards him. He was always one to share a joke or make light of his limitations. Even today we are still in touch as he keeps sharing interesting articles on the Internet. Hemant’s greatest ability is his willingness to reach out to people in need. For instance when he learned I was planning to write a book, he immediately helped to put me in touch with other patients, doctors and therapists.
Hemant was diagnosed with MS in 1998. Initially he was put on steroids but stopped taking them as soon as he heard about all the negative side-effects. Luckily his family knew of a well-known homeopath in Jammu who was able to treat Hemant so as to ensure he could live a functional life. Hemant still makes a bi-annual trip to Jammu and leads an active life to this day. He works on online assignments from home and is able to drive a car and move around independently within his colony for small chores such as bank work or paying bills. However, he does use a walking stick just to be safe. Meeting Hemant set me thinking that I too should do my best to avoid allopathy and look for alternative healing therapies.
One of the great things about living in a country like India is the easy access we enjoy to a range of alternative treatments. Knowing that there were so many options I could explore made me feel empowered. I decided to try them all one by one to see which ones worked or didn’t and how each one of them made me feel both on the outside and in.
Yoga
In 2007, I came across the book
Yoga and Multiple Sclerosis: A Journey to Health and Healing
by Loren M. Fishman and Eric L. Small.
1
Eric had learnt yoga from the legendary yoga guru B. K. S. Iyengar. Eric said Yoga was invaluable for people with MS. He went on to explain that regardless of what MS symptoms may arise, yogic asanas can be adapted for continued practice. You do not have to wrap your legs behind your ears or stand on your head. Anyone can do yoga – even sitting in a wheelchair or while lying on the floor.
I found the book fascinating. According to Fishman and Small, the specific physical and psychological key to yoga for MS is the sequencing of poses. Since MS is a disease of the nervous system, stress plays a major role. Restorative poses keep the nervous system quiet, establish a relationship of trust between teacher and student and gives the teacher time to assess the sequence that will be most effective. Only after a student learns to keep the nervous system cool and calm, can he/she begin to embrace the complexities of supported asanas and other more complicated postures.
Small, considered it an obligation as well as a privilege to voluntarily teach twice a week at the MS Achievement Center at University of California, Los Angeles, where students practice a range of postures, mostly seated in chairs or wheelchairs. Apart from the asanas that they have explained beautifully in the book, the fact that Small had been leading a complete life despite being afflicted with MS inspired me tremendously. I understand that it was his attitude towards life and not just the asanas that enabled him to do this. I remained in touch with him for a while by email in order to learn more about his life and work. He became a real friend and inspiration and told me that after working with others over the last thirty-five years he had come to the conclusion that yoga helped many eliminate fatigue and regain balance, focus and memory etc.
Inspired by Eric I began practicing yoga using props such as cushions although I really did not need them. They provided more of a psychological support to allow me to overcome my fear of falling.
Naturopathy
I was introduced to naturopathy when I attended a lecture on the subject by Dr Salila Tiwari in 2007. Dr Tiwari runs the Mahatma Gandhi Nature Cure and Yoga Institute in Uttarakhand. During her lecture she mentioned that many people had recovered from various illnesses just by following a plant-based diet founded on the principles of naturopathy. Dr Tiwari talked about a lady from West Africa, who suffered from lupus, a chronic skin condition in which the immune system breaks down, had been cured by naturopathy.
The moment I heard the words ‘immune system breakdown cured’, I was ready to learn more about the subject. I began to visit Dr Tiwari’s clinic and learn the basic principles of a healthy diet in tune with the fundamentals of naturopathy. ‘Food, as nature intended, provides the medicine we need to maintain a state of health; in other words, food is our medicine,’ explained Dr Tiwari. Naturopathy is based on the principle that the human body is made up of five elements – air, water, fire, ether and earth and that any disease should be treated using only these five elements. Raw foods like fruits and sprouts are encouraged as well as vegetable soup.
Moreover, meal times are linked to the functions of the body. As the processes of digestion, assimilation and elimination are linked to the day’s cycle, the body works best when we follow its natural pattern: fruits and juices till noon, lunch at 12 p.m. and dinner at 7 p.m. This pattern should eliminate 50 to 60 per cent of health problems. Naturopathy believes that all diseases are due to a disturbance in the body’s natural system that comprises of digestion, assimilation and elimination. Therefore, all diseases are cured by restoring the balance and equilibrium in the body’s method of working. The duration and method could vary as diseases could be acute, chronic or fatal. The therapy consists of various techniques such as yoga, acupressure and biofeedback; diet changes; cleansing of the bowels, as well as the respiratory tract and digestive system; fasting, mud therapy, hydrotherapy, colour therapy and detoxification programmes.
While it’s true that I felt more energized after starting a naturopathy diet it was a pretty challenging habit to maintain. Not only was asked to avoid non-vegetarian foods, dairy products (giving up paneer and curd was the toughest), bananas and mangoes, I also had to eat chapattis made out of healthy flour (a mix of four different kinds of flour, green
rotis
and
lauki
(bottle gourd) soup. At that time, I had a house help who was quite distraught that I was ‘dieting’ so much as she could watched me eliminate one food item after another from my menu. ‘You are not fat, madam, so why are you starving yourself?’ she would often ask. When I told her this was part of a therapy and not really a diet, she decided to help. Besides going to the market to buy different kinds of fruits and vegetables for me she would often bring me food from her home, keeping in mind what I was allowed to eat. I was touched by her kindness and generosity.
Thanks to my naturopathic diet, my entire family soon became extremely conscious about the kind of food we consumed. But pretty soon my young daughter started showing an unhealthy amount of interest in ‘dieting’. Alarm bells began to ring in my head. I felt she was much too young to understand the difference between healthy eating and denying oneself food for reasons that were unhealthy. I felt I should perhaps not continue this kind of a routine anymore, and just revert to my normal diet but keeping some of principles of naturopathy diet in mind.
Acupressure, Oil Pulling and Reiki
My first introduction to Acupressure was at a workshop conducted by Ketan Shah in 2006. Shah miraculously healed himself using this technique after a surgery for removing his appendix went awry. He is now a well-known Acupressure practitioner and advocate and has even authored a book
2
on the subject.
Shah assured me that this traditional science could indeed be of help to me and taught me the various acupressure points I could work upon. Since he was so full of hope, I followed his instructions to the T and made sure I met him whenever he was in town. Shah devoted a lot of time and energy to helping me by using all the techniques of alternative medicine he knew apart from acupressure such as Reiki, Oil pulling and Swasio. These techniques are elaborated upon later in
Chapter 8
.
Shah also conducted regular distant healing through Reiki sessions for me. He always knew when I had been feeling better or worse, even when he was in a different town. Each time I met him, he would give me a sort of status report to prove the efficacy of Reiki in distant healing and motivate me to continue my efforts to heal myself. Although I had heard about Reiki earlier and had even attended a workshop on it years ago, it was Shah who introduced me to this holistic healing technique.
Reflexology
As my capacity as a reporter I had visited Prashanti, a clinic in Lajpat Nagar in New Delhi in 2007 in order to see the kind of work they were doing to rehabilitate and help cancer patients. It was here that I first met Rafat Jahan, a reflexologist. ‘Your feet are the best barometer of your health. Never ignore any discomfort there,’ I heard Rafat say, while she was working on a patient. It seemed almost as if she was addressing me.
I decided to write an article about reflexology as it was not a very well-known therapy. During my research I met I.P. Bahl, the doyen of reflexology in India. He told me that he had been able to help many people recover their health and well-being simply by the application of appropriate amounts of pressure to specific points and areas on the feet, hands or ear. Inspired by this, both I and my husband joined a course in reflexology near our house. A quick learner, my husband picked up the therapy much faster than the others and became sort of a ‘star pupil’ in the class. We then made acupressure and reflexology a part of our daily lives, healing each other with the therapy when required. Even my children learnt the basics and when they have minor ailments like a headache or common cold, they are able to give themselves a healing massage.
Acupuncture
I met Karen Cioffe, a publisher and author, over the Internet. We began corresponding after I read an article by her about her MS journey. Karen was first diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and fibromyalgia (FM) in the 1990s and then around 2000, she was diagnosed with MS. She didn’t take the recommended steroid, Interferon, because she had Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) and was allergic or highly sensitive to most medicines. Acupuncture however had proved to be the answer for Karen. After her MRI reports confirmed the improvement in her condition various doctors and nurses came up to her to ask for the contact details of her acupuncturist.