‘This Way Up’ Film tells the story of Scottish mountain bike guide Andy McKenna’s 10 year battle with Multiple Sclerosis, and his quest for a drug-free path to health.

MS is an ‘incurable’ degenerative and disabling neurological disease affecting the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves of almost 2.5 million people (mainly 20-40 year olds) worldwide.

It usually causes attacks of neurologic symptoms including vision loss, paralysis, numbness, bladder problems and walking difficulties.

Symptoms appear because nerves in the brain and spinal cord lose their ability to transmit signals. Myelin, a complex substance that surrounds and insulates nerve fibres, is essential for nerves to conduct electricity and carry out their function. Myelin is damaged in MS, as well as some of the nerve fibres themselves.

The attacks strike when cells and proteins of the body’s immune system, which normally defend the body against infections, leave the blood vessels serving the central nervous system, pour into the brain and spinal cord, and destroy myelin.

The specific triggering mechanism that releases the immune system to attack its own healthy tissue remains unknown, and the cause of MS is still its biggest mystery.

Medicines try to lessen the frequency of relapses and slow the progression of the disease. There is no medical cure for MS.

Andy and a growing community believe there is an alternative way of managing the disabling effects of MS. It is not a pill or an injection - it’s a set of lifestyle changes and holistic strategies that have been thoroughly researched, tried and tested. A set of changes that will help the healing power of the mind and body to work together.