Soon after my diagnoses I went to see a nutritionist who specialised in autoimmune diseases. Im so glad I did. It got me off what was a sort of attempt at the swank diet and onto the right path. On their advice I took a NutrEval test which is like a full body MOT, and also a test for leaky gut to see if that was possibly the cause of my MS. It wasn’t, but it was good to eradicate that from the picture. I was at this point a vegetarian, deeply committed to the cause, occasionally vegan for spells, eating what I considered to be a very healthy diet. It was interesting that one of the first doctors to suggest I may have MS, when told I was vegetarian, asked if I took any supplements. I did not – and her look when I said this was one of ARE YOU MAD?!

So, there I was with the nutritionist, asking me if i would consider possibly eating meat, NO WAY! Maybe fish? NO WAY! Not even a mussel? How about a prawn? FORGET IT!  She was understanding, I hadn’t eaten meat or fish for twenty five years, I couldn’t think about starting now.

Or could I?

This is the point when the autoimmune protocol was first mentioned to me, and that I should follow it.  I was told that my diet had basically no protein in it, so therefore I would be allowed to eat eggs. This was a good call as they are one of my favorite things! Although I always battled on and off internally about eating them!

I left the nutritionist’s and hit google HARD! I ordered The Paleo Approach by Sarah Ballentyne PhD, I ordered The Autoimmune Paleo Cookbook by Mickey Trescott. I watched all the you tube clips I could on the subject.  I studied this thing! I was about to go on holiday to Australia so I thought to myself, maybe I could try and eat fish out there. A couple of days later I had fish and chips – totally not AIP but it tasted okay and I could eat it! It was a breakthrough – I ate fish and didn’t feel sick, didn’t throw up, didn’t beat myself up about it. All was about to change!