Louise Zylstra was a professional golfer when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and she responded the only way she knew how: by pushing harder. She trained for hours a day trying to overpower MS, only to drive her body into severe inflammation and neurological symptoms that left her barely able to walk.
In this episode, Mathew Embry speaks with Louise about searching for answers beyond her initial prognosis. She shares how she pursued treatments overseas after being introduced to an immune reset style approach, and how that decision changed the direction of her journey. Louise also talks about continuing to explore lifestyle, diet, and supportive therapies as she works to improve her health. Her story will resonate with anyone facing a life changing diagnosis who refuses to quit.
Louise Zylstra was playing in a golf tournament in Nova Scotia in 2004 when she woke up with no strength in her left arm and tingling in her thumb and index finger. Her chiropractor suspected a pinched nerve, but after deep tissue massage, acupuncture, and MRIs, she was sent to Dr. Paul O'Connor at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto.
The diagnosis was multiple sclerosis.
"I didn't know about MS," Louise recalls. "I got the diagnosis and I left with Tysabri, Copaxone, and a third option brochures, basically. They said, 'Here's some disease-modifying drugs. Think about it and let us know what you'd like to do.'"
With only tingling in two fingers and no other symptoms, Louise put the diagnosis on the back burner and continued her career as a club professional.
By January 2007, Louise decided to get into peak physical condition. Training four hours a day, without changing her nutrition, she pushed hard — and her body responded with a crisis.
"I caused some massive internal inflammation. My body went absolutely haywire. It was kind of like I was almost internally electrocuted. Tingling all over and I could hardly walk."
No one in the Canadian healthcare system could help her.
Through her own research, she found Dr. Mark Freedman in Ottawa, a neurologist known for his HSCT program. After examining her, he was direct: "Within two years you're going to be in a wheelchair."
He couldn't take her as a patient — his program treated only two or three people per year — but he connected her with colleagues in Israel.
In November 2007, Louise and her mother flew to Tel Aviv and met with Professor Slavin and Professor Karussis at the Hadassah Medical Centre.
After a spinal tap and a bone marrow extraction, they began cultivating her mesenchymal stem cells — a process that would take four months to produce approximately 80 million cells.
Because Israeli regulations prevented the infusion from taking place there, Louise returned in April 2008 to receive the cells in Greece, where Professor Karussis administered them by IV.
Within one to two weeks, she felt the difference.
"Getting my legs back — that was the main thing for me. Getting stronger, feeling good. Everything seemed to be fine."
She spent the following years in relative stability.
Around 2010, Louise came across the CCSVI research — the theory that blocked jugular veins may play a role in MS progression.
A scan at a clinic in Barrie showed possible blockage, and she traveled to Poland for treatment. While others received balloon angioplasty, Louise opted for a stent.
"I felt like it would stay there — there wouldn't be the chance for things to close up."
The results were subtle but positive. She felt good and stable. Her tingling and leg weakness remained, but the rate of decline seemed to slow.
Despite the cost and the travel, she had no regrets about pursuing every option available to her.
In 2014, Louise turned 40 and decided to overhaul her diet. She discovered the Wahls Protocol — developed by Dr. Terry Wahls, an American physician who used nutrition to recover from advanced MS.
Louise went all in: massive salads, grass-fed beef from a local farmer, homemade bone broth, liver, and eventually ketogenic phases.
"The clarity of everything. Just feeling wonderfully amazing."
She sourced her food carefully and experimented with levels of the protocol. But despite the dietary improvements, she continued to notice a slow, steady decline in her leg strength and endurance — a pattern she would only understand years later.
Hearing about hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, Louise made her next move: Dr. Ruiz's clinic in Puebla, Mexico, for a full month in November 2016.
Her immune system was wiped out with chemotherapy and rebuilt with her own stem cells. She was placed in a group of five patients from around the world who became a close-knit community through the process.
"After the transfusion, you feel kind of energized, maybe alive. They call it a rebirth."
She maintained her clean diet throughout and felt genuinely good afterward — but the leg issues persisted.
The slow decline continued, and she still couldn't understand why.
The answer, it turned out, was still years away.
The answer finally came through a member at the private golf course where Louise works. They mentioned Dr. Paul Winston in Victoria, British Columbia — using cryoneurolysis: applying precisely targeted cold to relax the nerve fibers causing spasticity.
"Nobody — nobody — had ever mentioned spasticity to me," Louise says. "I'd stretch. I've stretched all my life. I have very good flexibility. But if you can't do it, you just can't do it."
Her muscles were co-contracting, fighting against each other and against gravity.
After her first appointment with Dr. Winston in August 2024, the change was dramatic.
"I can bend my knee. I can almost walk normally. The wheelchair was coming pretty fast, and this has been a serious, serious game changer."
She now works with a physiotherapist to retrain her gait, re-learning movements she'd been physically unable to do for years.
For anyone wanting to explore this treatment, Louise points to Dr. Paul Winston at Victoria General Hospital and his YouTube videos on cryoneurolysis and spasticity in MS.
