Allen C. Bowling - Optimal Health with Multiple Sclerosis: A Guide to Integrating Lifestyle, Alternative, and Conventional Medicine

Also by Allen C. Bowling, MD, PhD

Complementary and Alternative Medicine and Multiple Sclerosis, Second Edition

Dietary Supplements and Multiple Sclerosis: A Health Professionals Guide
with Thomas M. Stewart, JD, PA-C, MS

Multiple Sclerosis: The Guide to Treatment and Management, Sixth Edition
with Chris Polman, MD, PhD; Alan Thompson, MD, FRCP, FRCPI; T. Jock Murray, MS, and John Noseworthy, MD

A Guide to Integrating Lifestyle, Alternative, and Conventional Medicine

Allen C. Bowling, MD, PhD

Physician Associate

Colorado Neurological Institute

Englewood, Colorado

and

Clinical Professor of Neurology

University of Colorado

Aurora, Colorado

Visit our website at www.demoshealth.com

ISBN: 978-1-936303-70-0

e-book ISBN: 978-1-61705-208-8

Acquisitions Editor: Julia Pastore

Compositor: diacriTech

2014 by Allen C. Bowling. All rights reserved. This book is protected by copyright. No part of it may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Medical information provided by Demos Health, in the absence of a visit with a health care professional, must be considered as an educational service only. This book is not designed to replace a physicians independent judgment about the appropriateness or risks of a procedure or therapy for a given patient. Our purpose is to provide you with information that will help you make your own health care decisions.

The information and opinions provided here are believed to be accurate and sound, based on the best judgment available to the authors, editors, and publisher, but readers who fail to consult appropriate health authorities assume the risk of injuries. The publisher is not responsible for errors or omissions. The editors and publisher welcome any reader to report to the publisher any discrepancies or inaccuracies noticed.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bowling, Allen C.

Optimal health with multiple sclerosis : a guide to integrating lifestyle, alternative, and conventional medicine / Allen C. Bowling, MD, PhD, Physician Associate, Colorado Neurological Institute, Englewood, Colorado and Clinical Professor of Neurology, University of Colorado, Aurora, Colorado.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-936303-70-0 (alk. paper)

1. Multiple sclerosisAlternative treatment. 2. Multiple sclerosisTreatment. I. Title.

RC377.B69 2014

616.834dc23

2014027383

Printed in the United States of America by McNaughton & Gunn.

14 15 16 17 18 / 5 4 3 2 1

To my wife, Diana

by Rosalind C. Kalb, PhD

Let me start by sharing my personal bias. As a psychologist providing individual, group and family therapy for people living with MS, I always recommended Dr. Bowlings previous, very valuable book, Complementary and Alternative Medicine and Multiple Sclerosis to my patients as the go-to, comprehensive and objective resource for their questions about the role of complementary and alternative strategies in managing their multiple sclerosis (MS). And when my husband and I recently down-sized to a new home, Dr. Bowlings book was one that I was determined to make room for on my MS shelf.

With this new book, Dr. Bowling has gone far beyond his earlier effort to explain what is known and not known about the wide variety of treatment strategies that lie outside the realm of conventional medicine. He provides an evidence-based roadmap for fully integrating lifestyle and unconventional medicine strategies into MS management so that readers can knowledgeably attend to their physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being while utilizing a comprehensive approach to disease and symptom management.

The layout of the book allows readers to delve deeply into the current knowledge about more than 50 different lifestyle and unconventional approaches and hundreds of dietary supplements and herbs, while also providing quick-reference summariescomplete with helpful iconsindicating approaches that are safe and effective for use by everyone, those for which we have insufficient data regarding their safety and effectiveness, and those for which the risks clearly outweigh any possible benefits. If only all our roadmaps could be this clear!

To live fully and well with a chronic, unpredictable disease like MS requires a comprehensive and integrated approach to managing the whole you. I can think of no better reference tool to guide you. Dr. Bowling brings to bear his years of training and experience as an MS specialist neurologist, his passion for promoting health and well-being, his determination to support informed and collaborative decision-making by people with MS and their health care providers, and his endless curiosity about the potential benefits and risks of the wide range of conventional and unconventional approaches to disease and symptom management. Keep this book handy just as I do.

Rosalind Kalb, PhD

Vice President, Clinical Care

Advocacy, Services and Research Department

National Multiple Sclerosis Society

This book provides objective and practical information and guidance about using lifestyle approaches, unconventional medicine, and conventional medicine to optimize health in those with MS. Medical care of MS typically involves the use of conventional medical approaches to slow down the disease course and treat the symptoms of MS. In its most narrowed form, MS care focuses exclusively on administering and monitoring the safety and effectiveness of FDA-approved disease-modifying medications. However, there is much evidence that many other treatment strategies, which generally are not components of MS care, have significant health effects on those with MS. For example, lifestyle approaches, such as nutrition, tobacco smoking, and physical activity, may have beneficial, as well as harmful, effects on MS. Similarly, among unconventional medical approaches, some may be beneficial and others may be harmful. This book aims to fill these gaps in MS care by providing information and guidance on incorporating lifestyle and unconventional medicine into a broad-based treatment plan for people with MS.