I, Diny Cohen, am now 63 years old and was diagnosed with A.L.S. in the beginning of 2006. In hindsight, it started much earlier, of course. I was working in a fashion store and I started having trouble with squeeze coat hangars. I still remember that I kept complaining to my husband that our shed door was always stuck. Also, I asked him not to screw on bottle caps so tightly. I couldn't open them any more. This was the beginning of the loss of strength in my muscles. On holiday in Malaysia my fingers started trembling regularly. My general practitioner first recommendend physiotherapy after which he referred me to a neurologist. The diagnosis hit me like a hammer. My condition started to deteriorate more and more. My rehabilitation team recommended swimming. I was able to get into the pool by myself, but I needed help getting out. After four laps I was always exhausted. I had already given up driving. Turning the key and taking a turn simply wasn't possible for me anymore. I needed a walker and a scooter. My son was doing a lot of research on the internet. On American websites, specifically on Steven Shackel's site, he discovered certain vitamins. http://home.goulburn.net.au/~shackel/ He kept telling me to also start taking vitamins, but I didn't believe in them. My first thoughts were that this was just a way for him to be able to cope with my disease. Children just don't want their mother to die, no matter what. So I understood he needed the feeling to be able to do something about it. But he kept insisting and I decided to give it a try.
At the moment I'm taking:
Vitamin E200
Vitamin B50 complex
Magnesium200 (UltraMag)
Selenium
Fish Oil
All this is available in store and I take one pill a day of each, nothing extraordinary. But after a few weeks I realised I was able to do more thing. Suddenly, I was able to swim ten laps and I could get out of the pool myself. I really had the feeling I was making progress. When I saw a flyer of a four day swimming event I decided to participate. After that my capabilities improved even more. Currently, I can swim 60 laps and I can climb stairs again. On one occassion I even drove our car for a while and it went perfectly! Everyone could see I was improving. I realise I'm not suddenly cured, but I am able to do much more than I was in the beginning. The physiotherapists were also amazed. My doctor even wrote a note that I don't have to go to rehabilitation any more, even though I'm always welcome again should the need arise.
The scooter, the walker and the wheelchair are now in the basement. I won't get rid of them, I haven't suddenly been miraculously cured. But I am able to do so many things now I wasn't able to do before.
We can go on holiday again, which has been my dream. We've always travelled a lot, but that was not an option any more. Now we have been to Bali and we've already been to the a travelling agency for the next journey. It's so amazing I'm able to do all this again. I'm not absolutely sure these vitamins are the cause of these developments, you can't prove things like this. But i would like to tell other people about my experiences.
Diny Cohen
07/07/2007
Richard JL Cohen
(Fighting4ALS) https://twitter.com/Fighting4ALS
