CONDITIONS • WESTMINSTER, ARVADA, BROOMFIELD, THORTON & DENVER METRO
Multiple Sclerosis Treatment in Westminster, CO
Multiple sclerosis is one of the most complex autoimmune conditions in medicine — and one where the gap between what standard care offers and what comprehensive lifestyle and naturopathic medicine can add is among the largest of any condition we see.
MS is a condition where the immune system attacks the myelin sheath — the protective coating of the nerve fibers in the brain and spinal cord. The neurological symptoms it produces are real, serious, and often frightening. Disease-modifying medications have transformed the prognosis of relapsing-remitting MS and are an important part of care for many patients. What they do not address is the underlying immune environment that produced the disease, the lifestyle and nutritional factors that significantly affect relapse rate and progression, or the pain and fatigue that continue between relapses and that standard neurology does not have the tools to fully manage. We address those things.
Same-Day & Same-Week Appointments Available
WE UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU'RE GOING THROUGH
An MS diagnosis changes your relationship with your body. You went from trusting it to watching it — looking for signs, reading sensations differently, carrying the uncertainty of what comes next.
Whether your diagnosis was recent or years ago, the experience of MS produces a particular kind of vigilance that is exhausting to live with. The fatigue that is unlike any ordinary tiredness — a deep neurological heaviness that descends regardless of how much you have or have not done. The sensory symptoms: tingling, numbness, the electric shock sensation that travels down the spine with neck flexion, the visual changes that come and go. The cognitive fog — what some call "cog fog" — that makes thinking feel like wading through something slow and resistant. The pain that often accompanies the neurological symptoms and that neurologists frequently undertreat because the primary focus is on disease modification. And the psychological weight of living with a condition whose trajectory is uncertain, whose relapses can come without warning, and whose management often involves powerful medications whose long-term effects are still being understood. You deserve care that treats all of this — the immune environment, the nutrition, the pain, the fatigue, the mood, and the quality of life between relapses — not just the lesion count on an annual MRI.
HOW MS PRESENTS AND WHAT PATIENTS LIVE WITH
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Fatigue — the most common and often most disabling MS symptom, present in over 80 percent of patients
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Sensory symptoms: numbness, tingling, pins and needles, or altered sensation in limbs, face, or trunk
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Visual disturbances: blurred vision, double vision, or optic neuritis producing pain with eye movement
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Muscle weakness, stiffness, and spasticity, particularly in the legs
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Cognitive difficulties: concentration, memory, processing speed, and word finding
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Neuropathic pain: burning, stabbing, or aching pain from demyelinated nerve pathways
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Heat sensitivity: symptoms that worsen with increased body temperature
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Depression and anxiety — significantly more prevalent in MS than in the general population
THE PAIN CONNECTION
Pain is present in over 50 percent of MS patients and is one of the most undertreated aspects of the condition. It includes neuropathic pain from demyelination, musculoskeletal pain from altered movement patterns and spasticity, and central sensitization that amplifies pain signals throughout the body. Neurologists focus on disease modification. Pain management is left as an afterthought, often addressed only with medications that dull the experience without addressing its neurological and inflammatory drivers.
Chiropractic care for MS-related musculoskeletal pain, naturopathic management of neuroinflammation, and constitutional hydrotherapy for autonomic regulation all address the pain picture that disease-modifying medication was never designed to treat.
WHAT YOU PROBABLY HAVEN'T BEEN TOLD
The lifestyle and nutritional factors that influence MS relapse rate and progression are among the best-studied in all of autoimmune medicine. Vitamin D alone has been shown to cut relapse risk by more than half in deficient patients. Most MS patients are never given this information in a clinically actionable way.
WHAT IS ACTUALLY DRIVING MS — AND THE MODIFIABLE FACTORS THAT DETERMINE HOW THE DISEASE BEHAVES
MS develops when T cells and B cells of the immune system cross the blood-brain barrier and attack myelin, the protective sheath surrounding nerve fibers in the central nervous system. The result is demyelination — areas of scarring and plaque formation in the brain and spinal cord that disrupt the normal conduction of nerve signals. Why the immune system begins attacking myelin is not fully understood, but the risk factors are increasingly well characterized. Genetic susceptibility accounts for part of the risk. The rest is environmental and modifiable. Vitamin D deficiency is one of the most consistently identified environmental risk factors for both developing MS and for greater relapse frequency once the diagnosis is established. The latitude gradient of MS incidence — higher rates in populations further from the equator with less sun exposure — is one of the most reproduced findings in MS epidemiology and points directly to vitamin D as a primary environmental driver.
Beyond vitamin D, gut health plays a central and increasingly well-understood role. The gut microbiome directly regulates the T cell populations that cross the blood-brain barrier and drive myelin damage. MS patients have a measurably different gut microbiome composition from healthy controls — reduced beneficial species and elevated pro-inflammatory species that promote the autoimmune T cell activity underlying the disease. Diet shapes the microbiome, and multiple studies have shown that anti-inflammatory dietary patterns reduce neurological disability and relapse rate in MS patients through their effects on gut composition and systemic inflammation. Omega-3 fatty acids have specific neuroprotective and anti-inflammatory effects on the central nervous system. Exercise has the strongest evidence of any single intervention for reducing fatigue and improving quality of life in MS, with neuroplastic effects that extend beyond the musculoskeletal system. None of these interventions are mentioned in most MS appointments. All of them are meaningful, safe, and increasingly evidence-based.
Vitamin D and MS — the evidence is as strong as it gets in nutritional neurology
The relationship between vitamin D and MS is one of the most extensively studied nutrient-disease associations in medicine. Low vitamin D levels are associated with increased MS risk, higher relapse rates, greater lesion accumulation on MRI, and faster disability progression. A large prospective study found that women with the highest vitamin D levels had a 62 percent lower risk of developing MS than those with the lowest levels. Intervention studies have shown that supplementation in deficient MS patients significantly reduces relapse frequency. Vitamin D regulates the T regulatory cells that are supposed to prevent autoimmune attacks on myelin, and its deficiency removes a primary brake on the immune process driving the disease. Optimizing vitamin D in MS patients is not a fringe intervention. It is one of the most evidence-supported, lowest-risk actions available — and it is still not standard practice in most neurology clinics.
The optimal serum vitamin D level for MS management is thought to be higher than the standard sufficiency threshold used in general medicine — closer to 60 to 80 ng/mL rather than the conventional 30 ng/mL cutoff.
The gut microbiome and the brain — how the gut drives neuroinflammation in MS
The gut-brain axis in MS is one of the most active areas of current neurological research. The gut microbiome produces short-chain fatty acids and other immune-regulatory compounds that cross the blood-brain barrier and directly influence the neuroinflammatory environment. Gut dysbiosis reduces the production of these neuroprotective compounds while increasing the production of inflammatory metabolites that prime the autoimmune T cells that attack myelin. Multiple studies have now confirmed that MS patients have significantly reduced gut microbial diversity and distinct dysbiotic patterns compared to healthy controls. Fecal microbiota transplantation experiments in animal MS models have demonstrated that transferring a dysbiotic microbiome can induce MS-like disease and that restoring a healthy microbiome reduces it. While human clinical trials are still early, the biological rationale for gut microbiome restoration in MS is among the strongest of any autoimmune condition.
A healthy, diverse gut microbiome is essentially a neuroprotective organ in MS — reducing the systemic inflammatory pressure on the already-vulnerable blood-brain barrier.
Diet, omega-3s, and neurological protection
The Swank diet — a low saturated fat dietary approach developed in the 1950s — remains one of the longest-followed dietary studies in MS with a 34-year dataset showing significantly lower disability and mortality in adherent patients compared to non-adherent ones. More recent research on the Mediterranean and anti-inflammatory dietary patterns shows similar benefits through their effects on gut microbiome composition and systemic inflammation. Omega-3 fatty acids have direct central nervous system effects: DHA is a structural component of myelin and neuronal cell membranes, and both EPA and DHA have anti-inflammatory effects that directly reduce the cytokine production driving demyelination. Beyond omega-3s, specific phytonutrients — quercetin, resveratrol, and sulforaphane — have demonstrated neuroprotective effects in preclinical and emerging human studies, suggesting that a polyphenol-rich dietary approach has direct relevance to MS management.
Dietary modification in MS is not an alternative to disease-modifying medication. It is a complementary intervention with distinct biological mechanisms and a meaningful, independent effect on the inflammatory environment that determines relapse frequency and progression rate.
OUR APPROACH
Conventional care versus our approach
Disease-modifying therapy is the medical foundation of MS management and we support it fully. Our naturopathic and chiropractic role is to provide everything that disease-modifying medication cannot: the nutritional optimization, gut health restoration, pain management, fatigue support, and lifestyle medicine that determine the quality of life between relapses and the rate at which the disease advances.
The conventional approach
What most patients experience
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Diagnosis confirmed by MRI of brain and spinal cord and clinical assessment; lumbar puncture and evoked potentials for uncertain cases
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Disease-modifying therapy (DMT) initiated: injectable, oral, or infusion-based depending on disease activity and patient preference
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IV corticosteroids for acute relapses to reduce inflammation and shorten the relapse duration
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Symptom management medications: muscle relaxants for spasticity, medications for bladder dysfunction, antidepressants for mood, and various agents for fatigue and pain
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Annual MRI monitoring; physiotherapy referral for mobility and strength
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Vitamin D, gut health, diet, omega-3s, pain management beyond medication, and the comprehensive lifestyle medicine picture not addressed in standard neurology follow-up
Standard MS care is medically essential and we support every aspect of it. Its limitation is that it treats the immunological attack on myelin while leaving the nutritional, gut, and lifestyle environment that shapes the disease's behavior entirely unaddressed.
What we do differently
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Comprehensive nutritional and immune assessment: vitamin D at therapeutic MS-relevant levels, omega-3 index, gut microbiome health, inflammatory markers, B12 (critical given neurological overlap with deficiency), and metabolic status
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Vitamin D optimization at the higher target range supported by MS-specific research, with appropriate co-factor support — vitamin K2, magnesium, and calcium balance — for safe high-dose vitamin D protocols
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Anti-inflammatory dietary guidance: Mediterranean and low-saturated fat patterns as the primary framework, with individualized modifications based on gut health findings, food sensitivities, and specific nutritional gaps
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Gut microbiome restoration: targeted probiotic and dietary fiber protocols to rebuild the gut immune environment that supports neurological anti-inflammatory signaling through the gut-brain axis
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Pain and fatigue management: chiropractic and soft tissue care for musculoskeletal pain from altered movement patterns and spasticity; constitutional hydrotherapy for autonomic regulation and fatigue; naturopathic support for the neuroinflammation sustaining pain sensitivity
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Stress and HPA axis management: the same cortisol-driven immune dysregulation that triggers other autoimmune flares is relevant in MS; constitutional hydrotherapy and autonomic regulation reduce the immune sensitization that chronic stress maintains
We communicate fully with the patient's neurologist. We are a complementary partner in MS care, providing the nutritional, lifestyle, and pain management layer that neurology does not have the scope to deliver — never replacing, always adding to, the medical care that is managing the disease itself.
WHAT MAKES OUR APPROACH DIFFERENT — IN A SINGLE PARAGRAPH
Standard MS care modifies the immune attack on myelin. Our approach creates the best possible biological environment for the immune system to be less likely to attack — correcting the vitamin D deficiency that removes a primary brake on autoimmune T cell activity, restoring the gut microbiome that regulates the neuroinflammatory environment through the gut-brain axis, implementing the anti-inflammatory dietary pattern with the strongest evidence for reduced relapse rate and disability progression, and managing the pain and fatigue that are present between relapses and that neurological medications alone consistently fail to resolve. For patients whose MS lives alongside chronic musculoskeletal pain, our integrated model treats both simultaneously — because the central sensitization and neuroinflammation underlying MS pain is addressed through the same pathways that our whole-body approach works through for every pain patient we see.
MS AND THE REST OF YOUR HEALTH
MS produces consequences throughout the body that extend well beyond the nervous system. The fatigue, the pain, the mood changes, the musculoskeletal effects of altered movement — all of these deserve dedicated, skilled attention that standard neurology does not provide.
At True Health Centers, we have worked with MS patients at every stage of the condition — newly diagnosed people building a comprehensive lifestyle foundation, people in relapse recovery working to regain function, and people with progressive disease focused on protecting quality of life and functional capacity for as long as possible. We meet each patient where they are.
Fatigue — the most undertreated MS symptom
MS fatigue is neurological in origin — driven by demyelination, central sensitization, and the metabolic cost of impaired nerve conduction — but it is significantly worsened by nutritional deficiencies, poor sleep, deconditioning, and systemic inflammation. Exercise is the most evidence-based fatigue intervention in MS with neuroplastic benefits beyond simple fitness. Vitamin D and omega-3 optimization reduce the neuroinflammatory contribution to fatigue. Constitutional hydrotherapy supports the autonomic nervous system recovery that fatigue depletes. Addressing the whole picture produces fatigue improvement that medication alone cannot replicate.
Musculoskeletal pain and movement quality
MS alters movement patterns in ways that load joints and soft tissues asymmetrically, producing musculoskeletal pain — in the neck, back, hips, and knees — that is secondary to the neurological condition rather than primary. Spasticity changes the resting tone of muscle groups in ways that strain the opposing structures. Chiropractic care and physical therapy address these musculoskeletal consequences directly, improving movement quality, reducing compensatory pain, and supporting the functional independence that MS patients prioritize most highly. This work is distinct from and complementary to the neurological management, and it represents a gap in MS care that very few patients are told to fill.
Depression, cognitive function, and the neuroinflammatory link
Depression in MS is partially a psychological response to a life-altering diagnosis, and partially a direct neurobiological consequence of demyelination and neuroinflammation affecting the brain's mood-regulating circuits. Cognitive dysfunction — the "cog fog" that many MS patients describe — is similarly driven by both neurological damage and by the systemic inflammatory burden that impairs neural signal efficiency. The gut dysbiosis underlying MS reduces serotonin synthesis and increases neuroinflammatory mediator production. Addressing gut health and systemic inflammation is therefore a direct intervention for MS-related mood and cognitive function — one that medication manages symptomatically but that only upstream treatment can address causally.
TAKE THE NEXT STEP
Your neurologist manages the disease. We help you build the best possible internal environment for living with it — and slowing its progression.
Vitamin D optimization, gut microbiome restoration, anti-inflammatory nutrition, pain and fatigue management, and integrated whole-body care alongside your neurology team.
Not sure where to begin? Give us a call and we'll help you choose the best first step.