Customer Reviews

Reversing Multiple Sclerosis: 9 Effective Steps to Recover Your Health

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

This book was not written for people who are sceptical about using alternative healing methods. Nor was it written for people who have little energy to spend on reading the work of an egotist. Don't misunderstand me! I am very much a believer in natural healing methods. When I have been vigilant about using CAM (complementray and alternative medicine) I have kicked this MS into remission. I admitedly slacked off the holistic health proptocol and am suffering through a horrible relapse which has caused me to rely once again on my cane and a wheelchair for extended distances. I bought this book to help get me motivated and back on track (ALTERNATIVE METHODS ARE TIME CONSUMING, ARDUOUS, EXPENSIVE AND EXHAUSTING... She forgets to mention that).

I was sent into sheer dissapointed with "DR" Pepe. She seems to have a huge ego. The greater part of the book served as a major opportunity to massage that ego ... and/or provide some major self-psychotherapy, rather than focusing on providing a service to the reader. Only a fraction of the pages gave actual information that is helpful. I didn't purchase the book to read about her humiliating MSers in wheelchairs by doing spins on her high heels during her presentations to the NMSS. In spite of the nauseating ego stuff, what was MOST disturbing is the fact that she is credentialed as both a Naturapath (ND) AND Chiropractor (DC), yet her clinical/nutritional knowledge base and patient-doctor communication skills were DEPLORABLE. When I purchased her book, I was shocked to realize how little she knew ... making it a waste of money, time and hope (the title is really catchy and instills false hope). If you are a complete novice to alternative health care and management for MS, and don't mind weeding through 450 pages of whining and arrogant narrative, then go for it! You don't have anything to lose. If you want a book with more sophisticated content - don't bother! For beginners I would recommend a wonderful litttle book entitiled Multiple Sclerosis - The Natural Way by Richard Thomas. It offers a lot of great info and is to the point! Judy Graham is also worth reading. The Swank diet is essential .... and surf the internet! The web is packed with lots of wonderful info (but don't sit in front of the computer for too long without stretchig your legs! God bless you all (a little faith doesn't hurt iether) ;-)

Honestly, I didn't get very far into this book before I began to realize that this woman was an imposter. She claims that she used many different methods (diet, yoga/exercise, and Bee Sting Therapy) to completely recover from MS......until you learn that she has only had MS for 5 years, and only the initial attack. Most of us who have MS can say that we recovered completely from our first attack, followed by a period of time (sometimes years) where we were free of the disease. Let's see if she can remain symptom-free for 10 or 15 or 20 years.

This book is more like a "travelogue" through Ms. Pepe's brief (5 year) journey with MS than a useful tool in comparing alternative therapies. She flits around between different therapies and theories and doesn't inspire much confidence in her choices. For example, she rejects Dr. Swank's low saturated fat diet and I can surmise that it's only because she misses eating butter and red meat too much. After all, this is a nutitionist who is used to eating steak and eggs for breakfast! When she abandon's Swank's diet, she buys 2 lobsters to celebrate. In her bibliography, she lists the 1987 edition of Swank's book which is the same one I read. It allows lobster in any quantity. Must be the butter she wanted to celebrate with!

Most people interested in alternative medicine show at least a smattering of compassion towards animals. Not Ms. Pepe. She ingests a disturbing amount of pig myelin which seems dangerous considering things like mad cow disease, and she uses bee venom therapy which kills perfectly innocent (and nearly wiped out) honey bees. I was an inadvertant recipient of bee venom therapy at age 12 when a bumblebee flew up the leg of my pants and stung me 6 or 7 times on the knee. I'm not saying bee venom therapy doesn't work, but since my knee only got terribly stiff and a bit itchy I'm not convinced it does anything positive for your joints.

I would love to see a book that did a thorough and dispassionate examination of alternative therapies. I've read of a study that showed regular yoga helping alleviate the fatigue associated with MS. Yoga has helped me and so has acupuncture although it got expensive and rather time consuming. Nutrition and supplements have helped as well. I would love to hear more about MS and meditation. It seems to me that meditation could help greatly with stress and it's exacerbation of MS symptoms.

I often refer to MS as the Mystery Sickness because it is so hard to pin down. Ms. Pepe is one of those irritating people who claim to know it all and be 'cured'. It's a shame really because the does the cause of alternative medicine more harm than good with this self indulgent book of hers.

First, I must mention that I was unable to finish this book as a result of the glaring inconsistencies I found. I made it through Chapter 9, but do not want to waste my time with the rest of it. I'm not sure how much of this book is untrue but there are two things the author discusses repeatedly that I know to be false.

Betaseron is not a betablocker and is not even in the same family of drugs. Betaseron and all the other MS injectables the author mentions are interferon therapies. Huge difference.

The author completely misrepresents the Swank Diet. Anyone interested in learning more about this alternative treatment to multiple sclerosis, should buy Dr. Roy Swank's book "The Multiple Sclerosis Diet Book: A Low Fat Diet for the Treatment of MS." It is no where near as restrictive as Ms. Pepe makes it sound. Dr. Swank also provides years of research to back up his claims which this author does not.

All I have to say is that this book is the worst book on the subject of MS ever written! The only thing it succeeds in doing is engorging "Dr" Pepe's already huge ego and relaying idiotic advice from a woman who has self-proclaimed that she "healed" herself from this disease and then in turn makes fun of people with actual symptoms who looked to her for help.
I am a big believer in alternative and complementary therapies but this woman is exactly the type of person who gives CAM therapies a bad reputation.
After suffering through her long-winded self-love affair with herself, the only thing I took away from this book is that she has too much money and not enough ways to spend it.
As someone who has MS and has to deal with that reality on a daily basis I find this book to be insulting, deplorable, and detrimental to the education of others about this desease.
This book is awful and full of s**t. I would not recommend that anyone buy this book.

As an RN that has had MS for 19 years, I found this book to be very amusing! I imagine that if every person that had MS also had a housekeeper, a cook, and a chauffeur, we would all be doing better too. It is very unrealistic that us common folk would have the money to undergo the therapies that she has. There really is such a thing as remission. Please do not think that this book is going to tell you 9 simple steps to recovery, because it doesn't!

This book should be approached with caution. If you can get past the "flaunt" of Dr. Pepe's fabulous life and the fact that she would dare to show off how much better she is doing in front of other MS sufferers, some that are in wheelchairs and probably wish they too could twirl on their high heels, then perhaps you should remember that this is one woman's opinion. Her advice will not cure you. It is unbelievable that someone would tout the old wives' tales (bee vemon and dental fillings) as part of a path to successfully overcoming the symptoms of MS. If there were any significance to either of these woudn't we know it? After all, people have been trying them for decades now.

The use of CAM (complimentary and alternative) therapies can be beneficial. A very good neurologist advised me that a combination of proper exercise, yoga, good nutrition, a daily multi-vitamin and trying to remain generally positive was best. I have to say he was right. After six years of constant MS problems and attacks, I adopted a healthier lifestyle, including regular exercise, and have been relapse free for almost four years. (If you are wondering, I do take one of the ABCR drugs as well.)

A better alternative to buying this book would be to get Nancy Davis' book. It is titled, "Lean on Me: Ten powerful steps to taking back your life after your diagnosis". It is more realistic and more helful to the average person that this book.

Page 10: "My physical body was in excellent shape and looked younger than my forty-plus years. My hair was full and shone with the vitality of good care and a great cut, my smile cosmetically perfect, my face relatively unlined." Okay I got past that. Then the next thing that angered me was reference to getting into the limo, driving around staring out the tinted windows, bla, bla, bla.And what about going off to Colorado for some kind of special treatments when some people with MS can't afford their daily living expenses.

The book angered me! I kept thinking about the rest of us smucks that aren't fit, beautiful, rich, etc. Does the impact of a MS diagnosis affect us much less? Simply put, I did not finish the book and I would not recommend it.

There are different types of MS. And I know of one person who has had 2 severe exacerbations (went blind & had paralysis), 10+ years ago, did NOTHING (no injections, no pills, no special diet, no special exercise) and she has had no symptoms since. It's called benign MS., but perhaps she should look into writing some nut-job book that will give people with a disease and money something to do.

I was given a copy of this book a couple days ago by my wife because I too am fighting MS. I was intriqued by Dr. Pepe's quest for a natural "cure" for MS. I blazed through the first 200 pages which is a narrative of here life from when she was diagnosed in '94, through the life changing 5 year search for a natural way to fight the disease and up to the writing of the book in 2000. The last 200 pages is more detailed information and interviews with the practitioners of the remedies she sought out. Besides being immediately sucked in to her compeling story there is a lot of great information, told first hand, on a lot of the "natual" remedies avaiable. People fighting MS hear a lot about these other treatment options and want to know if others are really taking them and are they having any success. Dr. Pepe shares with us how they have worked or not worked for her. MS affects us all different and there is no guarentee that anything in this book will be of help to anyone other than her, but if you have considered "alternative" treatments this book is definately a wealth of information. There is some excellent information about how important diet and nutrition are for MS patients. I think that all of us with MS should be doing everything we can to give our bodies the fighting chance it needs to battle the disease, regardless of your treatment regime, and for that reason alone you should read this book. This book doesn't hold the cure, but there is a lot we can learn from her search.