If you have MS, you absolutely need to know about Dr. Birgitta Brunes work. Unfortunately, there is very little information translated into English. Fortunately, I have done some research, and I emailed Dr. Brunes to learn more about her treatment.

Who is Dr. Birgitta Brunes ? 

Dr. Birgitta Brunes  is a Swedish  medical doctor who has MS. She has been living symptoms free for the last 20+ years and helped over 1000 people with MS to improve their lives, thanks to her  extensive work and research in this field. Dr Brunes works almost exclusively with MS patients since 1987. This is her website in English. 

How did I come across her research ? I was looking for success stories of reversing MS in the scientific database (Pubmed) and I noticed a few exceptional cases were actually Dr. Brunes’ patients. One is Anna, and I described her success story here. During the same time I was quite obsessed about  the link between norepinephrine deficiency and MS, and her book confirmed my thoughts that optimizing norepinephrine levels is essential for improving MS.

I really wanted  to read her book “Slurred signals” (2011), but Dr. Brunes told me it is not published in English. The book was not published in English, and was unavailable in any language on Amazon, but this did not stop me from reading it. I found a couple of solutions you could use too: 1. Buy the book from  Google Books in Danish, and  2. Use Google translation and/or get a Danish speaking friend to help you. Dr. Brunes told me that the translation in German will be soon available.

 

This is Dr.Brunes’ book in Danish (Google Books)

 

The details below come from Dr. Brunes’ reply to my email earlier this year (2017) and her book “ Slurred speech “ (2011).

Her  method is absolutely brilliant, and is called “Psycho-Neuro-Immuno-Toxicology”.

“Psycho” or psyche is an important aspect of managing MS, as stress and  depression  are strongly connected with the symptoms (we have now plenty of research studies confirming this fact, some explained in her book as well). Dr Brunes observed that many people have a very hectic and stressful period in their lives, usually 4-6 months before they noticed neurological symptoms, and later to receive the diagnosis of MS. Talking about the personality of someone with MS, Dr Brunes says “A lazy egoist never gets MS” because the MS patient  is always kind, responsible and hardworking, full of compassion for others and has a lot of ambition.

My note : Don’t be surprised to see a link between MS and your personality. It may sound strange to evaluate an individual personality in relation to a medical condition. However, I have to tell you that many diseases are now linked with a certain personality.  The list would include not only MS [3], [4] but also other brain conditions such as Parkinson’s disease [1] and Alzheimer’s disease [2]. 

By understanding the link between stress and MS it becomes obvious that an effective way to manage MS is to cut off stress from your life, improve your mental-emotional well-being and make significant changes in the lifestyle.  

“Neuro”- this part of the treatment addresses neurotransmitter imbalances, which also had been associated with MS. Dr. Brunes treatment relies on the importance of neurotransmitter imbalances. Dr. Brunes helps improve the neurotransmitter levels with precursors, agonists and reuptake inhibitors.

Each person has unique needs and imbalances.  For one person the neurotransmitter norepinephrine might be deficient, yet for another  would be serotonin, dopamine, acetylcholine or  GABA.  In her book, Dr Brunes gives us examples of three of her patients who had different neurotransmitter deficiencies and how beautiful her treatment worked (by addressing neurotransmitter imbalances).

The “Immuno” aspect of her treatment aims to improve the immune system function by eliminating factors that disturb the immune system. Her treatment involves  optimizing the  gut-brain axis, treating  dysbiosis, vitamin D deficiency and decrease the levels of  heavy metals from the body- more about metals in the next section.

In the “Toxicology”  section, Dr. Brunes explains  in great details how mercury from amalgam fillings and other  toxins can influence our health, the link between these toxins and MS symptoms and how to reduce these toxins. Heavy metals come from surroundings, food, vaccines, cosmetic. Most of all, the silver amalgam fillings, containing 50% mercury. Gold and nickel can also cause sensitivities). Dr. Brunes suggests Melisa testing. Check  out Melisa website to learn more about metals and autoimmunity.

At the core of Dr. Brunes plan lies the functioning of the nervous system (mentally and physically) while reducing immunologic and toxic stress on the brain.

The goal of the treatment is to improve  the nervous system impulses and the communication between nerve cells  by increasing the amounts of neurotransmitters (which are often deficient in MS). Her treatment includes medications, amino acids, vitamins and minerals.

Why are neurotransmitters so important ? Neurotransmitters are the chemicals which allow the transmission of signals from one neuron to the next across synapses. 

I will cover them in several blog posts. Here, I will mention a few details from Dr. Brunes’ book:

Neurotransmitter imbalances will cause symptoms, and improving them will help nerve signals to function properly. If you look from this point of view (focusing on neurotransmitters), it is easier to manage MS, and the form of MS (whether is RRMs, PPMS or SPMS) becomes irrelevant. This way, her treatment becomes individualized based on the symptoms related to neurotransmitter deficiency. She suggests  3 types of MS: too little noradrenaline relative to acetylcholine (key symptoms: excessive fatigue, sensitive to heat, frequent need to urinate), too little acetylcholine relative to norepinephrine (sensitive to cold, high pulse, little sweat, urinary retention, constipation), too little serotonin relative to norepinephrine (always worried, sometimes depressed, often tired, numbness, tingling and pain).

Dr. Brunes’ approach to optimize the neurotransmitters: first will be restored the most deficient one and some symptoms will improve. Over time, another neurotransmitter will become the most efficient and will be treated. Her treatment will boost gradually the levels of neurotransmitters, until healthy levels of the key neurotransmitters are achieved.  This process can take years in some cases.

Dr. Brunes’ method works along with prescription drugs, and includes a healthy diet Norwegian MS diet based on clean, unprocessed food and excludes gluten and dairy.

Adopting the right mindset and addressing the mental/emotional aspect  of MS are also important – more about this topic in this blog post.

It is worth reading the entire book, as includes many other aspects of MS:  B12 deficiency, vitamin D deficiency, the dangers of amalgam and other metals, the importance to balance activity and rest, the link between MS and free radicals/oxidative stress. Dr. Brunes discusses various diets (ie. Norwegian MS diet, Dr. Swank, Dr. Jelinek and Dr. Wahls’ work).

I am looking forward to reading Dr. Brunes’ book in German, as I believe  she will include some updates and perhaps some recent studies that were not available back in 2011 when she wrote “Slurred Signals”.

The results of a 2001  study  (20 participants with MS) that evaluated Dr. Brunes method : at the end of the program, the average EDDS (Expanded Disability Status Scale) improved by 13%. Most of the participants (76%) showed improvement in EDDS and five of them actually had decreased their EDDS score by 44%.