CHAPTER 7.
CASES OF POSSIBLE HEALING AND SELF-HEALING.
(from my latest book: "The Cure for Parkinson's. Do We Already Know What It Takes to Checkmate the Disease?").
"Tell a sick person that he has no hope (or let him find out through his
family) and the will to live will be paralysed.
Show him a way out, pull him away from fear and hysteria,
give him even a little hope and the will to live will be stimulated.
It will become a powerful ally in battle".
Harry A. Hoxsey, who set up cancer clinics in Texas
and other places in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s (until the
30s and 40s of the 20th century (until they were banned and closed).
The question that interests me in the first place is not whether the cases are true or not. What interests me more is the possibility that they were, to break through our negative "beliefs" about a disease that we consider incurable.
As we have seen in the previous chapter, on the borders of the Parkinsonian "bubble" and beyond, it is possible to find doctors, neurologists and other neuroscientists who make extraordinary claims that bring us hope.
"The future is not in the genes".
Tim Spector, geneticist and Head of Genetics at King's College.
1. A wonderful mistake of ours: the case of a woman called "Fatima".
This story, told by the famous Spanish neurologist Dr. Rafael González Maldonado in his book "The strange case of Dr. Parkinson" (pp. 198-199), shocked my father and me so much that it became part of our conversations from then on (1999):
"In my first year of residency I saw many patients but none I remember like Fatima. She was fifty-five years old although she looked like an old woman on the verge of extinction. She was, like the vast majority of our patients, a housewife who had only known the limits of a territory that she now found empty, like the sack of her illusions. Once again, a story of depression, sexual apathy, rigid education and, now, faithful widowhood. It would have gone unnoticed in my memory if we had not met, three years later, on a flight to Isla Margarita. It was she who recognised me, and my surprise was enormous when I realised that that old parkinsonian woman was now a healthy and vital woman, with a beautiful maturity on the verge of exploding. I had problems with my hotel booking and she invited me to her home, where I discovered the secret of her healing. Shortly after leaving my hospital, Fatima had met by chance a Venezuelan of her age, a painter and globetrotter who had a small estate on Isla Margarita; they shared literary interests and that was the excuse for long conversations at dinners that followed one after the other; he revived in her an old vitality and even returned to writing stories as when she was a child. Fatima forgot her western doctors, her friends in Spain and accompanied him. Today they plant vegetables, fruit trees and fragrant flowers in their gardens, and sunbathe on the wet grass. They take a siesta on a bed suspended between trees and make love, between sobs and laughter, in different and perfumed settings. Their dinners are prolonged between candles, good cigarettes and the odd joint, and the long gatherings only give way at dawn. Fatima no longer has Parkinson's (or it's as if she didn't)".
Although it is a fiction written on the basis of several real clinical cases, we took it for a long time as real (and it only turned out to be a lucky mistake, a confusion of great importance for us, because it inspired us a lot). It motivated us in a way we could not even suspect. Slowly, too slowly, that reading began to change our view of Parkinson's. My father used to refer to it as the "Parkinson's book". My father used to refer to it often. Had it not been in this book that we valued so highly from a respected and admired neurologist, we would have taken it as a joke at the time, such was our ignorance and so many were our prejudices. Even so, the surprise was enormous, disconcerting. We could not quite believe it. We thought that, in any case, it would be something unique, exceptional. Later, as the years went by, we accumulated more experiences and information, and we heard about similar cases. So the suspicion grew that something very important was missing. Our limited, conventional view of Parkinson's was insufficient.
2. The strange case of John Gillies.
In May 2008, an Australian Parkinson's sufferer named John Gillies was suffering from severe episodes of "freezing" in his ability to move. He had been diagnosed for four years. He was treated with antibiotics because his gastroenterologist, Dr. Thomas Borody, Director of the Centre for Digestive Diseases in Australia, suspected that his severe constipation might be due to an infection in his colon ("Clostridium difficile"). After treatment, the patient felt that his parkinsonian symptoms had disappeared. Two neurologists examined him and found no trace of the disease.
3. A formidable woman, Annetta Freeman.
The case of this brave and determined Californian woman came to us late for my father. Although I knew about it, I dismissed it as an anecdotal case, of no importance to us. Only after my father's death, and after several years of reading and many less prejudices, was I able to understand the value of her testimony, which survives only thanks to Steven Fowkes and the interviews of the 1990s.
4. The extraordinary work of Robert Rodgers.
Robert Rodgers is one of the pillars of the English-speaking Parkinsonian community. Although in the next chapter we will show some of the much he has contributed to Parkinson's patients and families, it seems necessary to mention his work "Pioneers of Recovery". He has books, such as the interview with John Coleman, and hundreds of radio programmes, some of them with people who claim to have recovered from Parkinson's disease.
5. The cases discussed by Phillipson (2013) and Smart (2016).
The case mentioned by Oliver T. Phillipson in his 2013 article is of particular value because it involves an eleven-year follow-up. (See chapter 22, section 3). What no single supplement could do alone, he achieved with a combination of them together with his antiparkinsonian medication.
Neuroscientist Karishma Smart and colleagues published in 2016. A 78-year-old man, with 16 years of diagnosed disease, reportedly experienced remission of his Parkinson's disease. Diagnosed by a neurologist, he responded well to levodopa and underwent a positive SPECT DaT scan as confirmation of the Parkinson's diagnosis, which appears to rule out diagnostic error. The practice of daily deep prayer/meditation over years would be the most characteristic and possible cause. Pagnoni in 2007 reported that regular meditation can counteract damage to the striatum and dopaminergic depletion.
6. Parkinsonisms that can be cured.
Parkinsonisms (secondary or caused by a known cause) can and usually can be cured.
There are certain nutrient deficiencies that can produce parkinsonian symptoms: tremor (magnesium), fatigue (vitamin C), loss of smell (zinc), etc. It is therefore not surprising that certain parkinsonisms have disappeared with the use of vitamins such as vitamin C (Nobile 2013, Quiroga 2014) or B12 (Priolisi 1959, Soysal 2018).
Immunotherapy to treat melanoma, although the symptoms returned after the therapy ended (Shprecher 2014).
Vascular Parkinsonism (Lobo 2013).
7. Can oriental medicines "cure" Parkinson's?
Recently, I have been able to learn about and understand cases of possible cures thanks to Indian Ayurvedic medicine and Traditional Chinese Medicine.
1) Observational clinical study with Ayurvedic medicine (Pathel 2018).
Pathel mentions cases who, after several months of treatment in two phases (purifying and symptomatic), moved from stage 3 to stage 1 on the Hoehn and Yahr scale. Measurements with the UPDRS scale were also significant. 16 patients reduced their symptoms from stage 3 to 1.5. Another 10 patients reduced their symptoms from 3 to 1.
2) Case report (Binth 2018).
A 58-year-old patient, diagnosed with Parkinson's 15 years earlier. He was taking 700 mg levodopa per day. After comprehensive Ayurvedic treatment (massages, oils, etc.) and given the improvement experienced, he was able to reduce the dose of levodopa to 100 mg per day. The improvement in his daily life was measured with various scales. Between 30 and 50% with the Schwab and England (activities of daily living).
3) 10 cases treated with Chinese medicine.
10 patients were reportedly cured of idiopathic Parkinson's disease in not very advanced stages with the use of the Chinese herbal formula.
Wang Weifang, published in the "Journal of Brain and Neurology" ten cases of possible (and controversial) cures over the last three decades, using Xifengzhizhan pills and Xifenzhizhan capsules.
These results were presented at the 7th International Conference on Brain Disorders and Therapeutics 2020, which took place in Prague, Czech Republic.
The main components of Xifengzhichan Pills are: Shudi, cornel meat, medlar, chrysanthemum, Ligustrum lucidum, Gastrodia elata, uncaria, polygonatum, asparagus, etc. The main components of Xifengzhizhan capsules are: white peony root, ejiao, turtle shell, cistanche deserticola, natural ground, radix scrophulariae, radix bidentata, etc.
Xifengzhichan Pills, 9 grams each time, three times a day; Xifengzhichan Capsules, 6 capsules each time, three times a day. Oral administration.
In other studies, it is referred to as "Xifeng Dingchan Pill" (XFDCP). For example, in:
Zhang (2013). Evaluation on the efficacy and safety of Chinese herbal medication Xifeng Dingchan Pill in treating Parkinson's disease: study protocol of a multicenter, open-label, randomized active-controlled trial.
Testing its efficacy alone and with Madopar.
8. Some neurologists and B vitamins.
Some cases of Coimbra and vitamin B2.
In the study published in 2002 by Dr. Cicero Coimbra, neurologist and professor of Neurology, several patients who took doses of vitamin B2 for 6 months, would have recovered 100% of their capacities. Brazilian television showed recordings of some of these patients who had already recovered.
Some cases of Costantini and vitamin B1.
In the studies published by the Italian neurologist Antonio Costantini in 2011 and 2015, as well as in the videos published on various websites, before and during the treatment, a spectacular improvement can be observed in many patients.
The spectacular videos of the first Perlmutter.
Although the substance was glutathione intravenously (slowly as with the serum bags), the fact is that the patients were subjected to a protocol of vitamins of the B group: 50 mg of B1, B2, B3, etc.
When Hauser and Perlmutter did their 2009 study, the results were disappointing. Perhaps because the patients did not receive these vitamins, which are so effective in treating Parkinson's and so important for glutathione synthesis and mitochondrial function.
We must remember that Sechi and his team achieved in 1996 a significant improvement in patients treated with intravenous glutathione. Their study inspired the work of Dr. Perlmutter.
