Stem Cell Transplant/Chemotherapy

Wow, this is such a great question, Craig. I am going to first say that we aren't medical professionals here and can't give medical advice. With that being said, I think that the honest answer here is that one thing isn't necessarily better than the other, which is why we always say you should have these discussions with your physician to figure out a plan that works best for your body makeup. I've seen so many people in the community mention that tailoring their diet helped them tremendously with inflammation reduction, while others, who have incorporated the same diet and lifestyle changes, didn't see any improvement with their MS. MS can be such a jerk like that sometimes. Conversely, some people that have gone through things like HSCT have said that it has worked wonders for them in terms of progression and symptom reduction, while others saw negative reactions like increased exacerbations and quickened progression. The whole point of what I am trying to convey here is that it is important to find what works for you and your body as it may require different things than someone else. I feel that that response probably isn't the response you might have been hoping for, and I truly hope that others will chime in here and share their insights and experiences as well. Along with asking other community members, what I would recommend is to research, research, research, and bring all of that concise information to your physician to gauge their thoughts on what and when to try incorporating and exploring new things. In terms of research, we have many articles that dive deeper into both diet and other treatments like HSCT that, if you would like, I can link for your reference! Warmly, Kayleigh, MultipleSclerosis.net team

Here are some the resources I mentioned:

One of our advocates recently did HSCT and is documenting their journey of the entire process, beginning, middle and end to which you can find here:
https://multiplesclerosis.net/living-with-ms/hsct-decision

Another advocate wrote about his experience after receiving HSCT: https://multiplesclerosis.net/living-with-ms/first-steps-confessions-hsct-survivor

Research on HSCT: https://multiplesclerosis.net/clinical/hsct-research

If you search "chemotherapy" on our site, all of the articles and also member submitted forums come up: https://multiplesclerosis.net/search?s=chemotherapy (please feel free to search other keywords as well to find even more articles)

In terms of diet and nutrition, we have so much information there as well: https://multiplesclerosis.net/search?s=diet
https://multiplesclerosis.net/search?s=nutrition

I really hope this helps to at least give a place to start in terms of research Craig! Warmly, Kayleigh, MultipleSclerosis.net team

Cheers. Yeah I've had MS for 27 years so I've researched the crap out of it but no one has really nailed it yet. Popular diets Swank/Overcoming MS/ and Wahls/Paleo seem to come at it from different angles. One autoimmune, the other blood flow. The stem cell/chemo option seems to fix those that try it, Wahls being the most famous i guess, so that was my question, does that put to bed the argument that MS is a blood flow problem?


Or are there two types of MS? One caused by blood flow to the brain issues and the other your immune system going insane. That would explain why sufferers can get good results on both diets. I'm sort of halfway in between the two diets myself.


Just a note re Doctors. They started to loose me when they said diet has little bearing on the outcome. They loved to push the pharmaceutical angle. Hhhhmmm i wonder why )) : but each to their own.