"A Great Big World" singer
Chad Vaccarino announced Monday that he has Multiple Sclerosis. MS is an autoimmune disease that affects the brain and spinal cord, resulting in loss of muscle control, vision, balance, and sensation (such as numbness).
Vaccarino is best known for his band's hit song,
"Say Something." He sure is "Saying something... more" by sharing his personal story in his
three-minute video he released about him being diagnosed with MS back in 2007 when he was a senior in college.
He was working hard and playing hard and doing what most college seniors do his age.
However, Vaccarino started "...Experiencing buckling of (his) legs, vertigo, tingling in the arms and legs."
He began treatment with injectable medications for MS but said they made him
feel worse than the disease itself. (Yes, this is a far too familiar story when my daughter was battling with another autoimmune disease, Crohn's.)
Vaccarino stumbled upon a video of a
Tedx Talk by Dr. Terry Wahls, an MD who also suffered from a very progressive form of MS. Wahls spoke about how she
changed the way she ate and
became better.Vaccarino immediately changed his diet to a
Paleo diet as Dr. Wahls had. He started to eat only foods that could be
hunted and gathered such as meats and poultry, plants and nuts. He eliminated dairy and processed foods. (This story is sounding more and more familiar...)
It gets even more familiar as he describes how his
symptoms have completely gone away and that he now feels great.
"I'm sharing my story today in the hopes that it might inspire you the way Dr. Wahl's story inspired me," Vaccarino writes. "I don't know if it will work for everyone, but it did for me and I'm grateful."
Kudos to Chad Vaccarino for courageously sharing
yet another story of someone suffering with an autoimmune disease who
brought his body back into balance by giving his body
the food it was meant to eat.Sorry folks, but we weren't meant to eat foods with High Fructose Corn Syrup along with chemicals we can barely pronounce--and certainly
not like the Red Bull advertisement prior to Vaccarino's
three-minute video (how's that for total irony??)
The
best fuel for your body are the one-ingredient foods that our ancestors ate that keep our bodies in balance. Shop the
perimeter of the supermarket for foods that can help your body
build muscle, strengthen immunity and thrive instead of multiple-ingredient, processed foods that our bodies don't know what to do with.
To my daughter, Chad, Dr. Wahls and so many more...
To the world you may be just one person, but to one person you may be the world to them.
Pay it forward...
Let's have a conversation on Jill the Health Coach FB page!
