Welcome!
Hi … my name’s Ken Bull and I live in subtropical Australia. I have MS, diagnosed last year but according to the neurologist I’ve had it much longer (17yrs in fact, when I was wrongly diagnosed with ciguatera fish poisoning*). I’m an active researcher – it’s a passion of mine, and I have post-graduate qualifications in research – and I enjoy writing. I’m a lawyer by qualification, but an artist by interest – in ceramic sculpture and portrait painting. But more importantly I think I can help you with MS, which is the intention of this regular blog site. So, thank you for reading and welcome to installment number 1 of www.kensmsrecovery.com.
For some time I have been emailing my thoughts and accumulated research to a group of people I met when I attended a 5 day retreat run by Professor George Jelinek and Dr Ian Gawler at the Gawler Foundation in scenic bushland Victoria, about 1.5 hours drive outside Melbourne, Australia. Ian Gawler is Oz’s most pre-eminent and prominent cancer survivor (who’s cancer-free 30yrs after being given 3 months to live), and the foundation he set up is supported by some of our biggest corporate and philanthropic institutions. It flourishes as a cancer-survival and related lifestyle centre, but twice a year runs an excellent retreat on MS. The time I attended there were several people who’d traveled down under from the UK, USA and mainland Europe … which is testimony to how well regarded on the world stage Gawler retreats are in “taking control” of MS. Certainly for me it was life-changing … in that fears I went there with were diminished with knowledge – reminding of the old adages firstly that “knowledge is power” and secondly that “sunlight is the best disinfectant” (the sunlight in this case being knowledge of how to take control of, rather than to figuratively battle, MS … with a little double entendre on vitamin D).
I thought however I’d take my research and knowledge to a wider audience by doing a blog – and by doing so I hope to be able to provide you the reader with some useful information on MS. Please understand I’m not medically trained – that’s not my skill set – but by pointing you to research and developments, and giving some details of what I have learned on my journey with MS, I hope I might assist you to gain knowledge on how to arrest the irreversible slide of this condition.
As we know there are 2 big ticket items on MS – firstly it’s incurable and secondly it’s considered progressive (tho’ the latter might depend on your definition of “progressive”) 
. From what I’ve learned however, and from what I believe, it is incurable at the moment and, very importantly, I believe that its progressive descent can be held at bay by diet, exercise and lifestyle. In my forthcoming short blogs I intend to point you to research from various websites which detail steps towards making MS curable in the hopefully-near future, and to information I’ve either found or had shown to me which convinces me that the downward progression of the condition can be halted.
I have found a number of sites which I hope you might find interesting, and to which I’ll point you if you were to read my blogs. For the moment however I’ll leave you with the following:
* firstly George Jelinek’s excellent website www.takingcontrolofmultiplesclerosis.org (Professor Jelinek being one of the co-presenters of the MS retreat I mentioned above … note that George, a medical academic, has MS and his mother had MS);
* secondly a website on how the brain’s ability to repair the myelin sheath possibly holds the key to why there are stable interludes in Relapsing Remitting MS, and how that gives hope generally – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090701102908.htm;
* and thirdly one of the many (many!) practical youtube video clips by LA-based UK comedian Jacalynn Flax, who has had MS for 30 years. This one deals with leg lifts and foot exercises: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAaSDkFQBZ0&feature=related.
And I guess that will do for my first foray into blogland! I hope you enjoyed reading, and if you were inclined to travel I’d strongly recommend the MS retreats run by the Gawler Foundation in Australia (www.gawler.org).
Best wishes, and I hope you wish to keep reading my blog
KB
*as for ciguatera, I see that Wikipedia states it is often misdiagnosed as MS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciguatera#Symptoms). I had the reverse situation and, being philosophical, in many way I’m glad that was the case – because in 1992 Dr Roy Swank had not published his groundbreaking research in Lancet, and those who have built on his work so well (such as George Jelinek who I have mentioned above) had not themselves been diagnosed with MS nor commenced their journey to help others.