Pastor Eliminates M.S. Symptoms
Pastor Michael Sustar - Arizona

About 10 years ago my feet started going numb; I’m an evangelist so I travel quite a bit. At that time they figured it was pinched nerves from traveling so much. I went to a chiropractor to get some relief but the feeling would come right back. With what I know today, it’s possible that those symptoms were the beginning of my battle with multiple sclerosis (MS).

Four years ago I began getting MS-type attacks in my hand. I would try writing, but my hand just wouldn’t cooperate. Then it would go away and come back again without warning. I went to a neurologist to get tested and they said it could be MS, but advised me to “ride it out” to see what happens. So I did that for about a year, during which time I began having to drag my leg and it was getting harder and harder to function from day to day.

What was happening is that my body was attacking itself. It attacks the myelin sheath, which is like an insulation surrounding the nerve endings. When the body eats away at that insulation, you’re left with a bare nerve ending, just like a bare electrical wire, and it starts short-circuiting. Those short-circuits confuse the signals between your brain and the part of your body you’re trying to move.

I began getting worse, so we switched neurologists, and he advised me to get a spinal tap to be sure that MS was indeed the diagnosis. When a spinal tap is performed, the fluid is supposed to have about 2 or 3 oligoclonal bands (spinal fluid markers that indicate an MS diagnosis); my fluid had 13. This not only confirmed the diagnosis but also indicated that I had a pretty aggressive form of MS.

MS is a major diagnosis; my doctor told me that things would never change for me and that I had one of the most aggressive forms of MS they had seen. I was concerned by that because I’m a pastor with a televised ministry that goes all over the world. Not to mention that I’m a musician too. It affected my left hand to the point that I would try to play the piano and my hand would just stop working. I’d be leading worship, so I was concerned it would start affecting our ministry to our church, and our foreign audiences, too.

I dealt with symptoms for about another year; then in February of 2008 I was working at the church and, when I came home, I had an attack like I’d never had before on my optic nerve; I couldn’t see. I went into exacerbation; it felt like millions of ants going up and down my spine and into my head. I’d get a fever, my blood pressure would go through the roof, and it would all last for an hour then stop. Four hours later, the whole process would begin again.

This went on for weeks — every single day — to the point that I lost all my strength, the nerves in my hand felt like they had been shredded by a knife, and I thought that I was going to die. I couldn’t work, I was stuck on the couch, it was horrible!

After going to several neurologists, I finally found one that was willing to do something right away. He was surprised that nothing had been done to this point, and said that my exacerbated condition had been causing irreversible damage to my nervous system for six weeks. I was given a drug called Solu-Medrol that stopped the attacks, but only temporarily. After 12 weeks, it started again.

I prayed and said, God I need an answer! All the while, my wife Monica (a registered nurse) was doing all the research. She had talked to a lot of people who had said that drugs would slow down the attacks and give me a few more years before I ended up in a wheelchair, but that was the best-case scenario.

Then, my mother in law came for a visit from Peru and saw the condition that I was in. When she went back home, she heard about a young woman in Peru who had overcome MS with The Hallelujah Diet; the story was all over the media. We wanted to find out more. So, through my mother in law, we called this lady on the phone, whose name was Rosa. Rosa had come to a Hallelujah Acres Lifestyle Center in Plant City, Florida where she learned principles of diet that enabled her body to heal itself of MS; she was completed healed of MS by utilizing The Hallelujah Diet for one year.

So we went online to find the Lifestyle Center in Florida and found that Dave Orcutt (the Lifestyle Center host) had been healed of MS. I figured, if I’m going to any of the Lifestyle Centers, I’m going to Florida to find out what Dave did.

I can truthfully say that I didn’t really understand The Hallelujah Diet at first. My wife was the one saying that we needed to go down to Florida, but I started saying “I just don’t understand how some lettuce and carrots is going to help me.” But she told me that she felt that there was really a whole lot more to it than that, and if we can just get to the Lifestyle Center, they could teach us how to do this. Indeed, it wasn’t until we came to know of Hallelujah Acres and made the trip to the Lifestyle Center that things changed.

We spent a week there and asked the Orcutts every question we could think of. Their story was not an easy one to hear. Dave and Sherry Orcutt told us that after eight months on the diet, Dave’s MS had not improved at all and they were ready to give up. But in that eighth month, he woke up and said he could feel his thumb, which was a major accomplishment because it had been numb for a very long time. That was the week they were going to give up; so they stayed on the diet and today he’s completely healed as well. Just hearing that story first-hand gave me tremendous hope.

When we came home, we changed everything about our diet. We went cold turkey overnight and didn’t cheat. We juiced every day and did everything we were supposed to do according to The Hallelujah Diet.

In a matter of three or four weeks, I noticed something strange. I went up the stairs to turn on the air conditioning, and I actually ran up the stairs – I stopped myself because I haven’t been able to do that in two to three years. It scared me for a minute because I couldn’t believe I actually ran up the stairs; I would usually stumble. So I did it again just to prove it to myself. Sure enough, I really could run up the stairs.

After a few weeks of symptoms coming and going, I began to notice a real difference. By about 11 weeks into the diet, I improved so dramatically that we came to Shelby to become Health Ministers.

I’m almost 100% better today. I was fighting terrible attacks, but every day I’m getting stronger and better. I’m able to walk farther without my leg dragging; I have more energy; I’m able to work at the church again; I’m able to play the piano again – I’m able to play for 35 to 40 minutes now and my hand doesn’t give out; my hand doesn’t lock up anymore. To me, it’s a miracle.

I understand that God made our bodies to work this way, but to me, The Hallelujah Diet itself is a miracle. I’m a firm believer that in a few months from now, I’ll be totally, completely healed.

I definitely believe in The Hallelujah Diet. I had a man in my church whose blood sugar levels were in the 400 range. He was starting to have terrible problems with his feet, hands and his eyes, so his doctors wanted him to go on insulin, but he refused to do it. When we came back from Hallelujah Acres, I asked him to consider The Hallelujah Diet. He’s been on it now for several weeks and his blood sugar readings are now down to between 100 and 110 each morning. He just can’t believe it.

We’ve got the whole church excited about this now. Everyone at our church would see me shuffling on stage and no one knew what was going on. We just made it a private prayer item for God to provide healing. We never shared it with our congregation until we went down to Florida. When we came back, things started changing, so I shared what The Hallelujah Diet had done for me and that led us to pursue HM training so that we could share the information with everyone. We’ve got about 20 people signed up for our first class.

You know, from a pastor’s standpoint, it’s just like Reverend Malkmus says: the church is just as sick as the world. We’ve got all these problems with illness, yet all the answers are right there in front of us in the Bible.