By: Nancy Jensen
I suffered the effects of a debilitating, degenerative, hereditary disease for 30 years, although I had never gotten a proper diagnosis. By the summer of 2016, I could hardly walk a block because of inflammation in my tendons. It hurt my arms just to hold a book, and the three hours of sitting at church were filled with back and hip pain. My passion was teaching the piano, and I had re-entered Utah State University 5 years before, working slowly towards a Piano Pedagogy degree, but I had to drop out in the spring of 2016 because by then I could only play the piano for 5 minutes at a time. I lost all my hobbies, and many other abilities, even cleaning the house, pulling weeds, or chopping vegetables. I was in pain all the time. I was exhausted all the time. I saw over a dozen different health professionals that year for help in managing the pain and disability. As I attended the temple (painfully), I wondered why I was not enjoying the blessings pronounced there of strength, speed and endurance, despite “perfectly” keeping the Word of Wisdom.
While I waited 5 months (!) for an appointment to see a rheumatologist, my youngest daughter convinced me to watch a documentary she saw in high school, Forks Over Knives. The documentary was about whole-food plant-based eating and how it could prevent or relieve many chronic or deadly health conditions, among them, arthritis. I contacted one of the doctors in the documentary, Dr. John McDougall, and he told me to try eating 100% plant-based for just a week. He said I’d quickly know whether it would help. Since I could see that whole-food plant-based eating matched the Word of Wisdom, I decided to try it. It was really tricky to learn to cook without meat, eggs, and dairy, but on day four, I experienced a massive drop in pain!
I read The China Study by T. Colin Campbell, The Starch Solution by John McDougall, Discovering the Word of Wisdom by Jane Birch, and How Not to Die by Michael Greger. Once I realized that this was a perfect match with the Word of Wisdom, I wondered why I had never had the faith to eat the way the revelation recommends without reading about all the science behind it.
As I changed my diet to strictly contain only those foods recommended in the Word of Wisdom in their most wholesome forms, mobility, energy, digestion, and immunity improved markedly. Muscle, joint, and headache pain dropped dramatically within that first week. Morning stiffness became minimal.
Since I had switched to a plant-based diet during the 5 months I waited for an appointment, I already had experienced enough healing to know it was the food making the difference. By the time I got my turn to see the rheumatologist in January of 2017 and finally got the correct diagnosis of Ankylosing Spondylitis with Enthesitis, I did not need expensive arthritis drugs with unpleasant side effects. He wanted me to go on a biologic like Humira (regular injections with a co-pay of $6,000 a month). I didn’t want another bunch of problems that they would bring me. I told him I’d take Aleve and just keep eating vegan. The Word of Wisdom had nearly healed me.
