After partial paralysis left her unable to walk, feed, or wash herself, Amanda Campbell fought her way back to full mobility — and has now been in remission from multiple sclerosis for 16 years.

At 29, Amanda Campbell barely recognized her life. With one side of her body paralyzed, she couldn’t walk, drive, feed or wash herself, and one side of her face had dropped.

Amanda had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at 24 after an MRI revealed two lesions on her brain and spinal cord. But she had pushed through as a business owner and active young woman. Five years later, a relapse debilitated her and doctors gave her a 50% chance of walking again.

Then hope fell at her feet — literally. A dinner with her twin sister and friends, who wheeled her out and helped her eat, gave her the chance to laugh and forget her illness briefly. Upon her return, she moved her toe for the first time in months.

“The joy that was rising up in my body — we were all laughing like we usually do — something very special happened that day after feeling such immense joy… I came back to my room and my toe moved for the first time,” she says. “It was in that moment I found hope, and I started to focus my energy differently. I started to focus on what I wanted, which was to walk again.”

And within six weeks, she was running.

Regaining Mobility After MS

Leading up to the relapse, Amanda, as always, was giving 100% to everything she does — dancing, running a business, and recording music. To address her symptoms, she tried various medications, with some working and others leaving her with unwanted side effects.

When that toe movement brought a ray of hope, she was inspired to take more proactive steps. Her parents had always encouraged a blend of Western and Eastern medicine, and she tapped into both.

Channeling her type-A drive, she began researching therapeutic approaches. With focused help from an applied kinesiologist and a neurophysiotherapist, Amanda rapidly regained function on her left side — and could soon run, even if a little clumsily.

“Whether it’s a stroke or an MS relapse, if you’re experiencing paralysis, the faster that you can intervene is the best chance you can get of gaining mobility,” she says. “And not everybody recovers, but I was very lucky I did.”

Going forward, Amanda kept her body moving with walking, yoga, Pilates, and weight training.

Nutrition and Gut Health: Fueling Recovery

While physical therapies helped her regain function, Amanda concurrently researched other paths, including nutrition. She explored anti-inflammatory, autoimmune diets from practitioners such as Dr. Terry Wahls, Professor George Jelinek, and Dr. Roy Swank, and began connecting the dots between gut health and autoimmunity.

She started with the Wahls Protocol but found her gut didn’t easily digest the large amounts of vegetables it required. As she worked on her gut health, Amanda shifted from a full paleo-style diet to more pescatarian, eventually settling on her current approach: a combination of ethically sourced meat and fish with fresh produce.

Mind-Body Strategies for Healing

Alongside physical steps, Amanda recognized the deep interconnection between her physical, mental, and emotional health. Growing up, her twin sister had been seriously ill with Crohn’s disease. The stress of that, plus her parents’ separation, had weighed on her and left its mark on her nervous system.

To bring her system back into balance, she addressed residual trauma and slowed down with daily rituals such as meditation and journaling, while learning to open her heart to both difficult emotions and joy. As she puts it, “If we block difficult emotions, we’re also going to block joy.”

“When you return back to yourself — often after being split off, disconnected, dissociated, stuck in the head, overanalyzing — it’s coming out of that and returning back to self, which regulates the nervous system,” she explains. “And then from there, we can promote the growth and repair pathways. But it’s heart healing work as well.”

Like many on complex healing journeys, Amanda’s path was multi-layered. She also uncovered heavy metals and Epstein-Barr virus as potential underlying contributors to her symptoms, and turned to ozone sauna therapy to address both.

A New Mission: From Patient to Resilience Coach

Amanda has now been in remission from multiple sclerosis for 16 years. Her journey dramatically changed the course of her life, leading her to study Chinese medicine, sports kinesiology, nutrition, motor learning, meridians and emotions, and mental health.

She is now a resilience coach, sports kinesiologist, author, and keynote speaker. She helps executives and individuals with chronic health conditions transform their relationship with stress and build sustainable resilience through The Bend Like Bamboo Method. She works with two distinct groups: successful CEOs and small business owners experiencing burnout despite their achievements, and women navigating autoimmune conditions and chronic symptoms.

She is also the author of Bend Like Bamboo: How to Transform Trauma to Triumph and host of the podcast Bend Like Bamboo. She recently married her childhood sweetheart — a fitting reminder of her own philosophy that love heals in ways we are still yet to understand.

Like bamboo, she encourages her clients to flex with life’s changes — to bend, not break. Her own journey reflects that balance of yin and yang: returning to self while striving toward her health goals.

“My mission is just to share my story, to inspire everybody — with what I’ve learned, educating myself with what I’ve studied, but also on my personal journey — of how to give ourselves the best environment to heal, but also to navigate those challenging times when we’re not well and we’re stuck there,” she says. “And all parts of the journey are important.”

“We’ve got different things to learn in the different chapters, and they’re all important.”

Find and follow Amanda on Instagram: @bendlikebamboo

Amanda created a course that teaches the complete system she used to achieve MS remission. If you’re looking for a structured approach to guide your healing journey at home, this might be a helpful resource.

→ Foundations Course (50% off): https://www.bendlikebamboo.com/bamboo-foundations
→ Use code: CASEYHIBBARD50 at checkout

The Steps That Helped

  • Applied kinesiology and neurophysiotherapy — Intensive hands-on work with both practitioners helped Amanda rapidly regain mobility on her paralyzed left side, and within six weeks she was running.
  • Anti-inflammatory, autoimmune nutrition — Exploring the dietary protocols of Dr. Terry Wahls, Professor George Jelinek, and Dr. Roy Swank connected the dots between gut health, inflammation, and autoimmunity, guiding her toward a whole-foods diet.
  • Movement — Amanda keeps moving with weight training, yoga, Pilates, and daily walking.
  • Ozone sauna therapy — After uncovering heavy metals and Epstein-Barr virus as potential underlying contributors to her symptoms, Amanda used ozone sauna therapy to address both.
  • Nervous system regulation — Recognizing that unresolved childhood stress had kept her locked in fight-or-flight, she actively worked to process past trauma and bring her nervous system back into balance, shifting toward the growth and repair pathways her body needed to heal.
  • Heart healing and emotional openness — Opening her heart to the full spectrum of feeling — and releasing old stories about only being worthy when achieving — became central to her recovery.
  • Daily mindset rituals — Morning meditation, journaling a daily intention, and writing three evening gratitudes helped shift her mind out of survival mode and into a state where healing could occur.