#PlantsHealHumans Tim Brown's Story

Tim Brown Lost 145 lbs and put MS into remission

A friend of mine told me I should start sharing my story of what I did for my health. Hopefully it could help someone who doesn’t know where to go

In April of 2010, I was diagnosed with MS (Multiple Sclerosis). Back then I was in high school, and just got done with one chapter in life (Little brothers kidney failure. He’s good now) and then 6 months after that…BOOM. I got hit with MS.

I think we can all agree, MS sucks. The immune system attacks the central nervous system and starts shutting everything down. Makes everything weak and numb. But also makes everything hurt at the same time.it comes and goes as it pleases.

So here I am. 19 years old, freaking the hell out. Not knowing what MS was, Not able to use my arms, and not being able to hold myself up to walk. The first few years were bad. The Avonex was not working, then the Tysabri, and Tecfidera. The flare ups were so frequent that the legions in the brain and brain stem got so bad that I ended up on chemotherapy.

Over the course of the first 6 years was filled with nothing but flare up after flare up and a lot of different meds. Which led into the pain med addiction, depression, anger, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. I mean, how could you not have those feelings when your whole entire life changes and don’t know how to make it stop? You see your health deteriorating, and you can see everything and everyone slowly start to go away. I could be doing good for a few weeks then BAM. Flare up. There were times where I couldn’t walk, I fell every 10 feet, my arms and hands weren’t working, going blind for a bit in the right eye, the overall numbness everywhere, always being tired! I remember one time, everything from the waist down went completely numb. And a buddy didn’t believe how numb it was. So I told him to smack my leg with all he’s got… I couldn’t feel anything.

When all of this was going on, I got myself to be around 330LBS. Needless to say, I was tired of being overweight, tired of waking up everyday in pain, tired of being afraid, tired of letting the depression and anxiety eat away at me, tired of being tired all the time.

Fast forward to the end of 2015. Everything fell apart. Fiends, family,
jobs, relationships, goals I wanted to achieve….screw me, right? Yeah….well that led into “THE” flare up. Numbness everywhere, yet everything hurts. Couldn’t get off the bed or couch to move, because I was too overweight and all the energy I just had is now gone from just trying to get myself in the upright position. I couldn’t see because my eyes were crossing on their own. Can’t walk, can’t use my arms and hands. The flare ups were happening every other week and muscle spasms got so intense and so painful that I pretty much exiled myself from almost everything and everyone.

Now, I couldn’t tell you the exact moment in time where the switch in my brain that says “rethink how you eat” flipped. But it was sometime during THAT flare up. I realized (sorry for the language) that I felt like shit all the time cause I was treating my body like shit. And that I needed to do it because I wanted to. So I set a goal for myself, 250 pounds.

Step 1. Booze and cigarettes needed to be taken out.

Step 2. “Start eating like you give a damn about yourself. Nobody can do this for you but you”

Step 3. Start working out once you can get the energy to do so

Between trying to get my health in check and keeping my head above water financially, 2016 (the first year), sucked. But I kept pushing the diet I made for myself which was horrible, bland, gross, I don’t even know how to describe how bad some of the meals I ate were. I was so used to going somewhere to get something to eat from some fast food place, that I really didn’t know how to properly cook. But I knew that it was good for me.

I’m realizing now how long this post can be, So I’ll finish with this

Long story short, I fell in love with this lifestyle. i went way beyond the goal I set for myself and am now 185 lbs. I did a lot of juicing, a lot of exercising, and a lot of plant based foods (I picked up my cooking skills since then). It’s been almost two years without a serious flare up and now I’m about to walk into month #11 with ZERO medication. I got myself off of the prednisone, solumedrol infusions, pain meds, antidepressants, and Cytoxan (chemotherapy).

Do I miss my old lifestyle? The one where I ate the delicious, greasy filled food on the regular? Yes. But being on the other side from where I was is definitely a lot more fun. I hate knowing stuff like that gives me an upset stomach when I used to glorify the fact that I had an “iron gut”. Nothing got me sick lol. Now, if I have biscuits and gravy (my favorite breakfast food) from the local diner, I feel like I’m going to pass out cause my stomach doesn’t agree with it. But I’m cool with it. It’s the motivation I need to stay on this healthy path. People have asked “so you cured your MS?” No. No I did not. I still have my bad days. But they are very few and far between. I just found a way to maintain this crap. Just by rethinking about how to treat my body.

I’ve had a few friends and random people get in contact with me over the course of the last few months asking what I did, what I eat, what I do to keep my head clear, what exercises I do at home and what I do to maintain my MS in general. It started to get a little overwhelming so recently I decided to turn my Instagram into a daily personal “how I go about my day with MS” log.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. If you could, share this. Maybe you know someone with MS, or someone knows someone else with it. Hopefully my story could help someone else.