How "What Doctors Dont Tell You saved my life." 

In October 1996 I started experiencing strange symptoms. One day I work up with blurred vision in my left eye. This was followed by a numb sensation around my midriff, and by tingling in my fingers and paralysing cramps in my right hand, which caused a loss of sensation and deprived me of my ability to write properly. 

My GP referred me to the Neurology Department at High Wycombe General Hospital, where I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis following an MRI scan and lumbar puncture.

From the start I was dubious about the diagnosis because the neurologist made it on the basis that my blurred vision was the required 'third' symptom of MS within the specified first two to three months of the disease. Yet, when I called the consultant who had examined my eye at the Windsor Eye Hospital, she told me that it definitely had not been optic neuritis.

My doctor wanted to send me for clinical trials, but I refused because I was concerned about the effects of untested drugs. I carried on getting worse.Then a chance discussion with a healer put me on the track of alternative medicine, which led to me being handed an article from WDDTY called 'MS - Slow-Motion Poisoning'. This stated that there were a number of possible causes of MS-type symptoms, including mercury fillings, vitamin deficiencies, food allergies and the Pill. I had started seeing a specialist in the field of alternative treatment for MS called Dr Kingsley, who lived in Leicestershire. Together we worked through these possible causes.

A year before I started getting ill, I had been given a form of the Pill called Diannette by my GP for an excessive hair problem because I had been having electrolysis for 11 years. Diannette is an anti-androgen Pill, which means that it blocks off the male hormone locally in the body. From the beginning Dr Kingsley noticed the connection between the Pill and symptoms, but I was loath to stop taking it because it was providing a useful and reliable form of contraception. 

I worked my way through all the other possible causes. I had my two small mercury fillings removed. I had food allergy tests and tried changing my diet, and I also had vitamin infusions, but nothing made any difference. Finally, I agreed to stop taking Diannette on a trial basis. I slowly started to get better. I wasn't absolutely sure that I was getting better as a result of coming off Diannette. 

A few months later I started taking it again. Within four days I nearly lost the use of my lungs. Then I suffered numbness all over my body, more vision problems and shaky legs. Eighteen months ago I came off Diannette again.. I have never experienced another MS-type symptom and all my existing symptoms have cleared up, with the exception of a slight tightness and grittiness in my hands. I know for sure that my symptoms were caused by the Pill because on one occasion I had to take the morning-after Pill, which brought on another attack of neurological symptoms.

I feel so angry. It clearly says in the instructions for Diannette that it may cause neurological symptoms. Yet at the time my GP insisted that it couldn't have any bearing on my symptoms. Dianette didn't even make any difference to my excessive hair problem. There is no double in my mind that if I had listened to my GP and neurologist, I would probably be in a wheelchair. Thank you, What Doctors Don't Tell You for saving my life.

D P
Beaconsfield, Bucks 

Source: What Doctor's Don't Tell You