Tag Archives: als survivor

Dr. Craig Oster lives with courage, determination and inspires others

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One of the best parts of creating this documentary film is the people we meet. We spent two days with Dr. Craig Oster at his home filming and have been in touch regularly since. Craig Oster is a truly exceptional human being. He is well respected by his friends and family, his doctors and his colleagues,

Craig was diagnosed with ALS when he was only 30 years old. The day of his diagnosis he made a pact with his osteopathic physician that they would do anything and everything they could to beat this disease.

Dr. Craig has certainly kept his part of the bargain. Today his is 50 years old, 20 years into his ALS diagnosis. How has he done it? In our opinion it is a combination of things.

First, he was a PhD student at the time and he continued school and got his PhD. He then began practice as a psychologist. He lived his life like he was going to survive ALS.

Second, Dr. Craig has taken responsibility for his health. He has researched nutrition, detoxification, raw foods, low-glycemic index diets, mental and emotional healing and much more. He continues this research and is extremely knowledgeable on anything relevant to ALS as well as anything related to holistic healing. Craig has a team of advisers, medical and non-medical, to give him expertise where he needs it, he listens then he makes the decisions. Dr. Craig is clearly in charge of his own life.

Third, Dr. Craig has taken all the measures he possibly can from both a physical and a mental-emotional-spiritual level to stay healthy. He had his “silver” amalgam dental fillings removed (they are 50% mercury, and peer-reviewed journal articles link mercury and ALS directly). Daily he drinks lots of filtered alkaline water, juices, and eats a very clean mostly a Craig Still Barraw food diet, with plenty of healthy fats and protein. He takes supplements and exercises regularly. He consults with a nutritionist and his team of holistic doctors. He has regular psychotherapy for his mental health and practices Sufi healing.

Fourth, Dr. Craig is willing to experiment. Sometimes something sounds good, but it may or may not work. One of the attributes of someone who beats ALS is the willingness to try different treatments with an open mind to see if, in fact, they are helpful. In order to find treatments that are helpful, one has to go through a number that are not.

Fifth, Dr. Craig has an abundance of courage. It takes courage to get up each day when you need a caregiver to help you with the most basic tasks, and to do the things Craig does to keep his body as healthy as possible. His routine can be time consuming and sometimes discouraging, but he knows it’s what he has to do to stay well so he does it. Every day.

Sixth, Dr. Craig has amazing determination, is resourceful and has a can-do attitude. Craig knew from his research that he needed supplements and equipment far beyond his means. So he created a web and social media following and applied to corporate sponsors. He did fundraising efforts to help pay for caregivers. He developed a “no excuses” attitude. He figured out a way to get what he needed to stay healthy.

Seventh, Dr. Craig is generous. He spends many hours on his computer typing a letter at aCraigAtDesk time. He has helped countless people over the years with ALS directly, as well as via his website and also through his advocacy and his participation in research projects. He has published a peer-reviewed journal article on ALS collaborating with an Italian ALS research scientist and former Harvard Research Fellow. His “Oster ALS Inventory” aka “OAI” is being used in a Brazilian ALS research study. One of his current projects is to get the medical community and the ALS Association to change their recommended diet for ALS to one that is scientifically valid and will promote the health of ALS patients instead of being detrimental. The ALS Association, for example recommends sugar, not good for even a healthy person, but disastrous for an ALS patient because sugar raises glutamate levels in the brain, and the ALS brain has trouble processing glutamate.

Dr. Craig OsterDr. Craig Oster lives his life, not like a person with ALS, but as a productive human being who is trying to make a difference in the world. We are honored to have gotten to know Craig. He is truly an amazing human being, a pioneer and an example to all diagnosed with ALS to follow.

Eric Edney – An ALS legend. Eric has won.

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For those of you who do not know Eric Edney, he is a legend in the ALS world. Not onlyEric Still Pic has he survived ALS for a quarter of a century, he taken the time and trouble to share what he has learned with the world. He wrote the book Eric Is Winning, and then a second book, Surviving Without You MD. He has maintained a website for years, http://EricIsWinning.com for the benefit of all who want information on how to heal ALS. Eric writes a monthly updates. These updates, as a unit, contain the wisdom of a quarter century of experience. Eric’s book Eric is Winning and blog are a must read for anyone who wants to heal ALS.

Eric Backgammon 2We had the privilege of spending a couple of days with Eric and his wife Glenna back in 2010. We saw that he lived his principles and practiced what he preached. If the world were made up people with the heart and spirit of Eric and Glenna, it would be a much better place.

Eric Edney had his first symptoms of ALS when he was 59 years old. He recently celebrated his 84th birthday, 21 years after his first diagnosis in 1993. Not a person to just accept a diagnosis, Eric got a second, third and fourth opinion. He was diagnosed four different times by four different neurologists.

Eric’s ALS disease progression was typical at first. He lost muscle mass, he had increasing difficulty walking and using his arms and hands, and like most people diagnosed with ALS, ended up in a wheelchair.

Then after his fourth diagnosis in 1996, a doctor told him he has six months to live. His first reaction was tears, he and his wife Glenna holding each other mourning the loss of a bright future together. Then something clicked. He made a decision. He would do anything and everything he could to find an answer to this disease and heal.

Eric went to the library, read all he could about disease. He read about holistic healing and it made sense to him so he experimented with various holistic protocols. He kept reading and experimenting.Eric Pac man 2

Eric discovered, over time, three basic ingredients are necessary for healing: 1) Nutrition, 2) Detoxification and 3) PMA, or positive mental attitude.

  1. Giving the body good clean food with proper nutrients is essential for the body to heal. Vitamin and mineral supplementation is necessary not only because our soil no longer has the nutrients is used to but also because if our body is full of toxins, we end up depleted in many of these vitamins and minerals.
  2. Our bodies accumulate toxins over our lives. Exposure to pesticides in our foods, medications, lead in the days of leaded gasoline and paint, mercury in our silver amalgam dental fillings, chlorine and fluoride in our water are just a few. These toxins interfere with the body’s healing mechanism and need to be safely removed from the body. This process is called detoxification.
  3. Positive Mental Attitude, or PMA as Eric calls it, is the third essential ingredient for healing. Without it, your body will not heal. It turns out that Eric is right. There is scientific evidence that our thoughts and emotional state can affect our cells positively or negatively, backing up Eric’s assertions.

Eric is not cured from ALS, but he has stopped the progression, and reversed some of his symptoms. Not bad for someone who was given six months to live almost 20 years ago.

Sometimes people will say, “I read Eric Edney’s book, I tried his method but it didn’t work”. Yet when I ask them exactly what they did, it turns out that they did a few things in Eric’s protocol, but by no means all of it. I hear, “I can’t live without sugar”, or “eating organic is too expensive” or “I hate the dentist too much to get the mercury amalgams out of my mouth” or “I couldn’t possibly take all those vitamins.”

To heal from ALS you need to do everything “until”. Until your symptoms slow, stop then reverse. If you are still declining then you need to do more. It is like a puzzle. Perhaps you have missed a toxin somewhere that you are being exposed to, perhaps you are low on anEric Glenna & Rouzier essential mineral, perhaps you have unresolved stress. Fortunately there are good holistic practitioners to help you solve the puzzle. Eric’s doctor, Neal Rouzier, MD is one of them. Two good sites to find one are http://functionalmedicine.org and http://acam.org.

The bad news is that it is not easy to heal from ALS. It takes belief, determination and persistence. The good news is that you can heal from ALS. We have seen it happen over and over again. As more and more people diagnosed with ALS follow the example of Eric Edney, it will become more commonplace, and maybe about 20 years after that, mainstream medicine will catch up. In the meantime, follow Eric. He is a winner. At 84 years old, he has won. He has beaten ALS.

Check out Eric’s latest post: http://www.ericiswinning.com/updates.html. And then please donate to our film to make sure others get this valuable information at http://HealingALS.org.