Acupuncture & Holistic Treatments For Rheumatoid Arthritis

We discuss in this interview:

Melissa’s immense RA improvements from her sessions with Dr. Wertlen
Human body’s ability to heal itself
Acupuncture, its effectiveness and implications for research
Food and oral supplements
Interferon and its benefits
The role of vitamin B6
The problems an overload of sodium can cause
Vitamin drip
Iodine solutions for local treatment
Diet adjustments

Clint – It’s Clint here, thanks for joining me for this episode. If you’ve looked at how long this interview is and thought, oh gosh, should I invest my time? You’ll be pleased to know that I have created a short summary for you at the start to go over the key points and to highlight them as the main successful strategies that were used by this doctor to help this patient with rheumatoid arthritis.

Clint – In this interview, what I do is interview Dr. Wertlen, and I reached out to him after I received an email from a woman called Mellissa based in South Africa. You will hear when the interview begins how tremendously improved she is from following Dr. Wertlen’s recommendations. Now, it’s an interesting situation because she did not go through the usual path that we talk about on this podcast. She followed the doctor’s recommendations and achieved tremendous results, and so I always have my ear close to the ground for this kind of story and want to share them with you. A couple of sort of housekeeping rules, if you like to before we continue. First of all, this information, as usual, is not medical advice. I just need to remind you to consult your doctor before making any changes to your diet, exercise, drugs or supplements. Furthermore, Dr. Wertlen did this interview out of kindness for me because I reached out to him and I think because of the way that I went about it and sharing my personal story and so forth, that he agreed to do this interview.

Clint – He is at the sort of second part of his career. He is not necessarily looking for further exposure or even international clients or anything like that. He just did this for me because I asked him and so I’d appreciate it if you actually don’t reach out to him and try and contact him and ask him questions. He did make a point of that before the interview, that would be nice just to respect his original request. And I in this interview and just acting as a curious and interested reporter, I’m simply showing you an interesting story related to rheumatoid arthritis. You’ll see some of the recommendations are not ones that I’ve mentioned before, they’re not part of the Paddison Program or the Rheumatoid Solutions Program. That doesn’t mean I don’t recommend them, it just means that I haven’t put them forward myself. So I’m in this case just saying, hey, here’s a fascinating story and I feel the urge to share it.

What To Expect

Clint – What you’re about to learn over the course of the next hour or so, if you wish to go through and watch the interesting interview is that Dr. Worland first and foremost used acupuncture, so acupuncture was his primary intervention. What he does is he uses a general treatment at first and then he goes through and targets subsequent trouble areas of the body using acupuncture on those points. But he makes the clarification that, first of all, he treats generally. At first, Melissa was going three times a week and then she slowly spread those out away from the general treatment and onto targeted treatments. Dr. Wertlen, upon my request, has also sent a video that one of his staff recorded of him actually doing the acupuncture in the general areas, so you’ll be able to go to the video when you watch him doing acupuncture on another patient and see him where he actually puts those acupuncture needles and the approach and so forth. I hope you find that valuable, that’s at the end of the interview. Then the other things that he recommended to Melissa, he simply told her to stop eating red meat, and she was taking some nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories and he said try to avoid those. She had noticed that although she got short-term pain relief from them, that they tended to make her worse afterward. That was certainly my experience in an extreme way when I used to be taking nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs before I started taking methotrexate. I found that after three weeks of taking strong and inflammatory, my disease state was significantly worse and I was not able to get back on track to the lower pain levels after that three weeks.

Clint – He uses a monthly IV drip, so that involves, just as it sounds, being connected to a drip and having a solution infused into the bloodstream with the following vitamins and minerals. I’m going to read them out if you’re listening to the audio version of this. The list of vitamins and minerals are Calcium, vitamin C, magnesium, selenium, zinc, vitamin B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, and B12. We do talk about in the interview the inclusions here, not all of them, but several, and one thing that you if you very passionately listening to these podcasts. You’ll notice that Gabe, who is doing tremendously well, keeping his psoriatic arthritis at bay. He recently came on the podcast recently, and he talked about his use of vitamin B complex, meaning all of these B vitamins as well, and he felt that that had helped him to become even better than what he was doing first time when he came on our podcast over a year ago. So I made that little note and thought I’d bring that up as well so that’s sort of a nice little aha moment there. Regarding selenium, there is a published study showing a direct link between lack of glutathione production and the lack of selenium so that’s an interesting connection there, and in the interview with Dr. Wertlen shortly, we talk about how you can get selenium by simply eating Brazil nuts. They’re very rich in selenium and just one Brazil nut can meet your daily recommended dose.

Clint – The other intervention that he recommended for Melissa was oral supplements, and the ones that he recommended were colloidal silver, some iodine drops, hemp, and black human oil, and selenium tablets against selenium come up, and once again, vitamin C. As per a few moments ago, some of these supplements here are not ones that I’ve talked about or I have listed in the program, but just being an interested reporter for you here, these are simply the ones that he recommended. And you should research these, investigate these and see if there’s something that you would potentially like to incorporate.

Clint – That is what we cover in this interview. Acupuncture in detail, a couple of little tweaks with the diet, IV drip, and these supplements, you’ll hear as we transition across now into the interview, when I kind of set the whole thing up and I read out Melissa’s impressive improvements, you’ll see why I wanted to share this episode with you. I really hope you enjoy it.

Clint – Welcome back to RheumatoidSolutions.com. Now let me set the scene for today’s fascinating discussion. I get a lot of very interesting emails and this one, however, caught my attention. Let me read from you some points out of an email that I received from a lady called Melissa. She says, I’m a 40 year old woman from South Africa and I have three boys. I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in December 2019. By May of 2020, it flew through my body like a speed train, and each day I was getting worse and worse. I had made an appointment with the rheumatologist, but the closest one was 3 hours away and had a long waiting list of a few months with covid traveling was off limits, so there I sat getting so bad that I could hardly walk. By June 2020, it was everywhere in my body, my knees, the worst. It was in my feet, ankles, shoulders, neck, fingers, elbows, hips, and lower back. I’ve never wanted to actually go to sleep and not wake up, but it was that bad, the pain was indescribable. I had also lost about 20 kilograms in 6 months and I was fading away quickly. At that time, I heard about a doctor that practices holistically in the town where I live. I was very desperate and I didn’t know much about this doctor, but I had nothing to lose. This doctor is a surgeon, qualified anesthetist, and Acupuncturist. He also has other qualifications in the medical field, and he took one look at me in my awful state and he simply said, come. From the second week, I was 10% better, and then it got better, and better, as each week passed. I can tell you now that I’m almost 100%, thanks to this doctor and I have not had to take a single drug, not even an anti-inflammatory. I have watched many podcasts of people on your channel with rheumatoid arthritis and how they are dealing with this condition, and I thought my success story would also be very interesting.

Clint – Today in this episode, I am joined by Melissa’s doctor to tell us what did he do to help Melissa so dramatically over those several months, so we can learn from his approach. From South Africa, welcome Dr. Wertlen.

Dr. Wertlen – I am not introduced as an anesthetist, I’m a medical doctor healer. OK, I just happened to be practicing anesthesia for years, and now I am doing and focusing on acupuncture. For 30 years I did a lot of things in my professional life. I started doing surgery as a medical student due to the background. My father was a double specialist and he also started researching. My mother was a teacher but went on learning she’s got her master’s at the age of 54. In her last year, the age of 79, actually (inaudible) age of 80 (inaudible) in the short time because in her words, at 80, it would attract too much attention as being old.

Clint – Oh, my gosh. So she did it quicker than the time it normally takes to finish.

Dr. Wertlen – Yes. What would normally take (inaudible I went on learning all my life. As I said, I started my surgery as a student. I started by pushing the patients on the trolley form specialty to X-rays, then suturing the simple wounds and all that. I actually lost (inaudible) girlfriends due to that. I had a date on Saturday, but I was in the hospital and some emergency operations came so, what was the priority? Of course the operation. After qualifying I’ve been doing surgery and then I decided to become an Anesthetist in 1966. But due to circumstances I went on during surgery for a few reasons. First of all, this was in Czechoslovakia where I grew up, became a (inaudible) after the war. There you couldn’t go and specialize in anesthetics right away. First, you had to do a 6 month surgery, 6 months (inaudible), 6 months gynae and obstetrics, 6 months of your choice, and then 1-year surgery or orthopedics or whatever, and you had to have (inaudible) in medicine or surgery. So anesthesia was regarded as almost a simple specialty, and which to me makes sense. How can an anesthetist in an anesthetic before an operation when he doesn’t have a clue what the surgeon is doing? That has shown in Johannesburg after I eventually went to anesthetics. Then we’ve later we get subjects for medicine and all that, and it’s the subject, it’s so vast that I could talk for hours on just this bit and just little bit so, if I get carried away, you must please stop me and direct me.

Clint – Well, let me stop you right there and say that I completely see where you’re coming from and how much wisdom and experience that you have and what we could talk about. Let me try and give you some framework so that we can try and help this particular audience as much as we can. Our audience have inflammatory arthritis, they might have rheumatoid arthritis or psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis. Some people have Crohn’s disease, fibromyalgia and so on. If we can extract from your many decades of experience and lessons learned to be able to give this audience as many insights as possible as to what you’ve seen work in your clinic. Because when I’ve read out this information at a start from this email, this is not the normal outcome for people with rheumatoid arthritis. This does not happen to most people so, could you narrow down the information for us to begin with and talk about Melissa? What was it like when you saw her? What condition was she in? What did you immediately decide to do?

Melissa’s Condition

Dr. Wertlen – I did what I did to thousands of people before, getting the bodies to heal themselves. You see any illness condition, disease or syndrome is just a local manifestation of malfunction of the system. When you have chronic sinusitis, that doesn’t mean that you’ve got disease in the sinus in the healthy body. Washing out your sinus will not kill you, it may relieve to the symptoms, but to get a cure, you’ve got to boost the immune system, and drink up and get rid of allergies, okay? The Human body can heal itself and scientific proof of this is the Placebo effect. But let’s go back just now. The Human body, but I’ve been telling my patients for 50 years, is like a motor car that has 10 carburetor’s, 10 radiators, and 10 breaking systems. If one breaks down, the next one will kick in, and the next, and the next. You can malfunction very badly without that malfunction showing up. Melissa’s problem didn’t start in December, it was most likely been there for decades but her body was still keeping up. Then the day I saw Melissa, I started this acupuncture and incidentally, when I went into acupuncture full time and after 2 or 3 years, people were asking me, did you find your niche? I said I’m doing acupuncture at the moment, but if I could find something better, I will change it tomorrow. 45 years later, I still haven’t found anything better doing acupuncture, and if people knew about acupuncture. 60 years ago when I used to teach acupuncture to doctors, I used to say, that so-called modern medicine is in principle, 19th-century medicine is using modern technology and brought to perfection. We are 21st-century medicine just in its infancy and using primitive technology. The technical know-how was there, and there were people with knowledge. In the 70’s, there were guys that got a Nobel Prize for medicine for they were called acupuncture. Endorphins were discovered as a result of research into acupuncture. Now, but this is what they have been telling for many, many years.

Clint – Did you say endorphins?

Dr. Wertlen – Endorphins, the chemical that controls the brain.

Clint – I didn’t know endorphins were discovered via acupuncture.

Dr. Wertlen – Do you want to know how.

Clint – Sure.

Dr. Wertlen – When Nixon went to China he had a doctors (inaudible), and they were watching operations done without anesthetics and only under acupuncture. So people started looking, how is it? Was it psychological? That’s what I was asked by colleagues in the hospitals when I started acupuncture. Acupuncture, it’s all in the mind. It’s all psychological. That’s why it makes better on animals than on people. Guys that did caesarean sections on cows in Germany in 1972 using just electro-acupuncture, they must have been fantastic psychologists.

Clint – Right. So what you’re saying, if I may, is that because it works effectively on pain reduction in animals who don’t know what intervention is happening, then there isn’t a psychological impact.

Dr. Wertlen – Now endorphins, they started doing a lot of experiments on animals. There was one (inaudible) when they used a thumbscrew on their pulse and they registered the time (inaudible) they started responding to pain. Now, they gave them acupuncture and they found that they could use (inaudible) three times, five times higher. Then they put rabbits on the hot plate (inaudible) then they register the temperature at which the rabbit started hopping mad. Then they give them acupuncture and they found that they tolerated temperatures much, much, much higher. Then they a sample of the cerebrospinal fluid from acupunctured rabbits, injected into non acupuncture rabbits, and they found that they could tolerate the same pressures and the same temperature. So obviously, there was some (inaudible) factor involved. They label it substance P for pain. Then later it was identified chemically that it happens to be chemically related to morphine. So they started calling it indigenous morphine hence endorphins, and a lot of other brain chemicals were discovered as a result of that. But you see, I told you I could talk for hours.

Clint – That is a fascinating connection.

Dr. Wertlen – Back to Melissa, I call my patients through their surnames.

Clint – I’m just using Melissa because just for her privacy purposes. We can and can continue with Melissa.

Dr. Wertlen – I told her to build her immune system, and to get her whole body to function the way it should so that I can help her through acupuncture, and she should take some supplements. Now I routinely recommend to my patients selenium and zinc that I have been doing for 50 years. In our days when medical aides even take food supplements, I had a combination of points of substances that I would recommend and I would be prescribed for my patients. This is the kind of thing that you can start taking it yourself as well and give it to your children. If there are still pushing, get the grandchildren as well.

Clint – What we do in our house is I give my kids one Brazil nut every morning and I have one myself. Because there’s a very high amount of selenium in Brazil nuts.

Dr. Wertlen – Brilliant, and it also has essential fatty acids, selenium, zinc, and seed oil. Now cold-pressed seed oil, it’s got all the omega’s and not just the omega’s 3 and 6. This is my routine for virtually anything.

Clint – How much have seed oil? Sorry, I might jump in a few times just because I know the questions that the audience are going to want to know. So I’m going to jump in a little bit.

Dr. Wertlen – One tablespoonful is enough and to start this you can have even more. For example, you can use it in your salad or something. Then in her case, I recommended colloidal silver, Lugol’s iodine solution (oral), hemp seed oil, selenium, zinc, and silver

Clint – I didn’t understand that one, what is this? Lugol’s iodine?

Dr. Wertlen – Lugol’s iodine. Iodine is one of the most important elements for the general function of our body, but it’s been suppressed. And we think that it’s cheap and effective and also black cumin oil. This is a Siberian Pine nut oil and it’s all got the essential fatty acids, but that one is a little bit more expensive. And I always think of the patient’s finance and I try to keep my stuff just to the minimum and to do essentials.

Clint – Let me summarize what we’re up to so far. So we’ve got a recommendation of doing acupuncture, and you’ve given us some great sort of animal examples. Regarding how pain tolerance was increased dramatically through what we now know as or call endorphins, which were actually discovered by these experiments. And then you recommended to her in parallel to her acupuncture treatments to take selenium, zinc, colloidal silver, Lugol’s iodine solution, hemp seed oil, and black cumin oil. And was she nodding along and saying she would do all of these things?

Dr. Wertlen – No, it’s not just endorphins.

Clint – The acupuncture, right?

Dr. Wertlen – Not just on you but for your body’s cortisol also. The day you get cortisone pills or injections and get your acupuncture. Then, repeat the blood test for cortisone, you would see that yellow levels went up. Also, have you heard of interferon?

Clint – Interferon?

Dr. Wertlen – Interferon. Now the biologics, now you can pay 10000 dollars for it. Now, interferon is when our body’s own super antibiotics like substance that were discovered in the 70s. And you and I, we are producing our own interference and that’s how they were discovered. And when you grow tissues in the laboratory and introduce cancer cells or viruses into the cells, they respond by producing interferon. But in the growth medium, you will have to have a higher level of vitamin C. Old campaign, don’t let anyone tell you that coffee is bad for you because it is good for you. So interferon explains why my father was curing his patients with viral infections, with intravenous injections of calcium and vitamin C. Then it started the discussion and the beginning of the 20th century, then it was my grandfather’s generation, and with my father’s generation, they did Vitamin C tO it. I added the B group vitamins (inaudible) and do other things as our knowledge and technology changed the world.

Clint – I see. Okay, so there’s the additional impact then of the acupuncture that you’ve introduced us, which we didn’t cover in the first part of the acupuncture discussion. This also is helpful for the patient but you’re saying in a laboratory setting that it activates only within the presence of vitamin C and calcium. So we need to add that to the body for the body to respond to the acupuncture intervention.

The Impact of Acupuncture

Dr. Wertlen – No, the body produces its own interferon. I can stimulate the body’s interferon production by Acupuncture. The American Medical Association commissioned an in-depth study into acupuncture in the 70s, when all that involvement was happening. The team published the entire report and they had so much information. They even published a book titled Acupuncture In Medicine in 1980. They studied acupuncture institutes somewhere in America. Then, they treated patients with various diseases just with acupuncture. And they also treated rheumatoid arthritis and they had a cure rate of over 80 percent just with acupuncture. They said they were acupuncturists but I am not an acupuncturist. I only have the knowledge of interferons as well as a lot of other things. So theoretically, most people could be helped just with acupuncture. Like my father was curing his patients with shingles and he just gives calcium and vitamin C intravenous injections. And (inaudible) the other viral infections, not just shingles, but people had to come for 10 days of injections. I don’t cure but I can help your body to really settle just with acupuncture or just with the laser. I will locally stimulate the body’s immune response. I am combining now by ending the B group vitamins into (inaudible) and I speeded up again. Because I’m introducing another label that our body needs, and that is vitamin B6. It can stimulate the production or help the production of circulating antibodies. So, as I said, your human body can heal itself.

Dr. Wertlen – Now, the question is, why do we get sick if we have that mechanism to help? With humans, it becomes complicated by the fact that a lot of problems can rewind. We overload our systems with too much rubbish that we don’t need. For example toxic food and toxic thoughts, and fear (inaudible) for our western way of eating and not only Western, sodium. The human body is designed to consume sodium in single digits and very low dosages. We do need sodium, absolutely but, we are getting sodium 5000 times more, we get such an overload of sodium. 40 years ago I used to say that is the cause of most of the modern diseases and it is a major contributing factor (inaudible). And we don’t supply our bodies with stuff that we cannot produce ourselves and we need to get enough food and essential fatty acids is one of them and trace elements and minerals.

Dr. Wertlen – With Melissa, we started with these supplements that I told her that will show later and you should take it for at least 3, 4 months on a daily basis and then maybe something different. I started with acupuncture, and I started giving her a vitamin drip.

Clint – Your vitamin drip is vitamin C, Calcium, B Vitamins, including B6 and zinc.

Dr. Wertlen – No, there is much more than in my list like magnesium.

Clint – Oh, OK. I might have an out-of-date document here.

Dr. Wertlen – (inaudible) and acupuncture. She came back two days later. On the 27th of July, then she had 3 treatments on the 3rd of August, she complained bitterly about one knee that she could hardly move and all that so, I told her to paint it with iodine solution, strong iodine solution. You see, I’ve got some modern books and I’m watching what’s been going on so much now because a lot of it gets published (inaudible) news. But in the 80s, I was following all the research and I had a link in the Accademia, my son. But I also have old books, I got a British pharmacopeia of 1934. It’s on my desk in my office, and I use it quite a bit. In the old days, they use Iodine, so I told her to paint the whole knee with Iodine which she did. She came back 2 days later for another treatment for acupuncture, I looked at her knee and that knee was not brown enough. I said, what happened? She said she painted it and it was it was dark brown. Within a few hours or so, there was no trace of Iodine. Obviously, her body was so short of Iodine that it absorbed through the skin instantly. So I told her to repeat the Iodine for the second time. You’ve got to be careful with Iodine, although if you use it on warts or whatever skin blemishes, you mustn’t overdo it because Iodine will first damage the cells that are already damaged. But eventually it will damage even the healthiest cell. So carried on with acupuncture.

Clint – What was her knee looking like after the iodine intervention? Did the iodine intervention improve the knee by reducing the swelling or any symptoms?

Dr. Wertlen – Yeah, there was a bit of relief, but the swelling took a long time. We went on with acupuncture and when the pain eases off, then we start spreading the treatments because it’s not only the number of treatments that is needed in this acupuncture, but also the time factor. You see experiments with radio labeled protein molecules have shown that you are actually getting a new brain occasionally, periodically, All the brain molecules (inaudible) gets broken down and rebuilt. The cycle takes from 10 days for the proteins of blood and Liver. (inaudible) can regenerate. And on the other end of the scale, 158 days and 160 days, its bones and the brain. That’s why I recommend to my patients to take supplements for that period, because when your body is rebuilding, you should have these trace elements and those things present at that time. That’s why I don’t tell people you must take it for the rest of your life, because human body is a perfect recycling machine. For instance, calcium, osteoporosis, that’s not a result of getting too little calcium, your bones will build. The thing is, it’s excess of sodium. The human body can excrete excess sodium only up to 3000 milligrams per 24 hours. To get rid of more sodium, other minerals escape. So to help your body remain to recycle, you must cut out sodium. We can have excess sodium 85% without knowing about it, I’ll give you an example. It’s not that little bit of sodium put on your food. In my office, I’ve got a glass jar with salted nuts, and it there for 40 years. Everybody can see and taste sodium insolated nuts. Instant chocolate pudding has three times more sodium, and you can’t taste it. Everything that has preservatives and every instant food is loaded with sodium. Then if you cut it ou then you have a problem, especially high blood pressure. Frozen vegetables are also preserved food. When you go to your garden and pick out peas. Then eat them fresh from the pod, (inaudible) got two milligrams of sodium. When they get frozen it has 160 milligrams more of sodium. Again, they taste so sweet so be aware and (inaudible) instant coffee. This is a coffee from the coffee machine (inaudible). And in the past 10 years or so, even in newspapers and related publications, you find articles that coffee drinkers live longer and healthier.

Clint – Let me ask you some “What-If” questions then. So what if people are now motivated to go and get some more acupuncture work done. If they have had it done before or they’re now looking at finding a local practitioner. From personal experience, I had acupuncture done when I was really inflamed, probably in a similar state to what Melissa was when she presented to your clinic. I was not doing those other interventions that you recommended and I did not see any impact at all from the acupuncture. And therefore, my question is, what do people need to look for with their acupuncture treatments? Is there something you’re doing that is different or is there something they need to ask for that works best?

What To Look For On Acupuncture Treatments

Dr. Wertlen – With your experience of acupuncture, what did they do to you? You don’t.

Clint – Yes, I had. At that time, it was very severe in my left knee. But I also had little highlight pains throughout my body, just like Melissa. I think it’s very fair to make a comparison. And the treatment I had was mostly localized to the leg, targeting the area that was showing symptoms the most.

Dr. Wertlen – You see, that is the problem that most acupuncturists make. You come with that pain in the knee and they stick the needles into that knee. I would never stick the needles into your knee and then flush (inaudible). What did I say about chronic sinusitis? Flushing out the sinus doesn’t help and you’ve got to get the whole body into proper working. And I work or I try to help every department of the body. Also a very important part is your mind and I have a combination of points, which we call tune-up of general. It’s a general form of detoxifying and stimulation, it’s just a tune-up. What do you do with your motorcar? Can you tune-up and then your car breaks? So we work on the whole body, immune system, body, and mind, and that’s just the first treatment. How many patients come to me with a backache? And they asked me, why are you not sticking needles into my back (inaudible) with my hands and my legs? Then the next day the patient said, my back is better. Then also by doing this general every day, I have patients that had false statements. And they say, Doctor, I never told you I also got sinusitis or (inaudible) and you never gave me a treatment for that. Then I said, but it’s better and your body heals itself if you get it functioning properly.

Clint – I love that. I know that you are probably unlikely to be able to assist people all around the world who are part of the audience for this episode. And so may I push this a little further and say, where are those points that you treat, or is there a document that I could share with people to share with their acupuncturist? Because it does feel like there’s more detail in this than just going to the next person that you can find in a Google search.

Dr. Wertlen – My father told me when I started medicine, medicine is a blend of science and art. So you can be an artist, but the two are completely different. In our old day’s medicine, nursing, and teaching are all calling. Today, it’s just the job of a huge percentage of the people that are doing it. And that’s why I was telling my sons when they were children or when they were little to say, good night kiss if you want to become a doctor. During one Sunday in March, my wife told me, this is the first Sunday this year that you are not in that hospital. It was because I was not on call every Sunday or seven days a week, but I was in the hospital seven days a week. Because in my intensive care unit, I have an equipment that the new doctors could not operate. (inaudible) respirator in South Africa in 1975, Johannesburg General Hospital (inaudible) only in the late 80s. I had asked to do blood gases in my intensive care unit, and there was nobody in any intensive care unit in the southern hemisphere who had that, it was in the 70s. But you see, when I did the surgery in Slovakia, then in Austria where I did some accident surgery, I worked in the hospital that was owned and run by nuns, they were the (inaudible) status orders. And they had an (inaudible) care unit and every newcomer was given what to do. Because everybody was fed up with it and I didn’t take as (inaudible) on their legs. And they had the (inaudible) and they were (inaudible) things for years, no I changed something. I divided them into three groups and the first group started using extracts of chestnuts, which are most commonly used in those days. The second group used (inaudible) and all these questions as well. And for the third group, I already forgot what they used. As a result, all three started improving at the same rate, but then the level is off. So I (inaudible) it then they started improving and then they leveled off. Your body even with acupuncture or whatever you are doing it adapts. If your body adapts, and what happens on this little course that you trying to get rid of, they also adapt. For example, resistance to antibiotics and also supplements don’t carry on forever. Deal with the basics, and ideologically you need your magnesium and all of those things. Now, let’s rewind.

Clint – Yes, let’s go back. Is there a specific set of points on the body that you like to target?

Dr. Wertlen – The most difficult thing that I helped to get across to doctors was during in the 80s while I was teaching acupuncturists. You may have two patients with completely different problems and you may have to use the same combination of points for them. Then you can have identical twins with the same problems and you may have to use completely different combination points for them. The problem is, I said 33 or 40 years ago one day we will have a scan but not like the scan we have at the moment, it was a scan that scans the electromagnetic field of your body. And you will have a blueprint of an ideally healthy human. Then you will look at the difference and by that, you will pick up where the problem is. And then how are you going to treat the problem, that’s immaterial. But this (inaudible) main diagnostic tool, we’re still worrying about the physical. I can describe it to you and tell you how much of what is in there, what matters, and whatnot. But is this better alive with chance or is it dead?

Clint – Well, I think you’ve answered it accurately, but not in the way that I expected.

Dr. Wertlen – The acupuncture points to which I recommended 30 years ago which people came to say, I’ve got a doctor in California or in Sydney, and I would like her to have that. Then I said, no problem. Then I went to my computer and typed what I use, the dosages, and what makes it happen. I have no problem sharing my experience and my knowledge with acupuncture. It’s a little bit more tricky, but every trained acupuncturist will know how to treat the whole body and that’s the main starting point. If people came to me and want me (inaudible). If I give this patient acupuncture, there would be a dramatic response. But first, for a couple of hours from every day or two, that patient would be in such a pain that I would never see this patient again. And that’s not my loss, but it was his/her loss because it is what it is. When you put the healing process on faster than what is normal, then you will get these things happening. I would still do it in emergency for the people that will be leaving the town tomorrow and they cannot come again. I would tell them to take four aspirins before. And if the pain starts and gets unbearable, take another four aspirins. And if the pain is still there, take another four aspirins. Aspirin is very safe and has been used for the treatment of arthritis for decades. And I’m sure I could send you an article about aspirin and (inaudible) that was published in 1980. When the guy said, (inaudible) until you get tinnitus. Well, tinnitus is just buzzing in the air and again, reduce the dosage a little bit and carry on with it.

Dr. Wertlen – OK, so now what points to use? The secret is to start with getting your whole body. And trained acupuncturists have ways and means of determining that. As I said, there are two people with the same problem, using two different combinations of points. I look at the tongue and I use the tongue as a guide to what combination of points are used. Always remember, every experienced acupuncturist will do that.

Clint – Thank you. There is obviously a lot of your own diagnostic experience that goes into making a decision on those points. And your comment around is that you cannot suggest points because every individual is case by case. Therefore, people should ask their own acupuncturists to do their experience diagnostic. But you would add to that, that the first approach should be a general wellbeing approach with the points of a targeted approach

Dr. Wertlen – To system, hormones and (inaudible)

Clint – One thing that strikes me when you speak of acupuncture is the potential immense impact that it can have. And I think that this does contradict with a misconception that it is subtle and that it is potentially in the noise with regards to its ability to make changes. And you know what I mean? Like in the noise from a scientific measurement point of view. However, the way you speak of it is that its impact is profound. Can you tell us or can you reinforce that through just some examples other than Melisa’s or in what you’ve witnessed in your clinic?

Dr. Wertlen – Particularly about arthritis?

Clint – Yes, please! Arthritis would be even better.

Dr. Wertlen – If you’ve got arthritis or you’ve got whatever it is about or any malfunction of the body with acupuncture, it can help your body to heal itself. The problem is like in 1983, the first couple of patients are newly diagnosed with diabetes and one of them was a schoolkid then I treated them with acupuncture. I waited for 18 months, then I didn’t take any blood because somebody would say I was fiddling with it. The blood was taken in the laboratory by uninvolved people. They were okay then I wrote it up, sent it to the South African Medical Journal and it was never published. The first acupuncture course I went to was in Cape Town and it was organized by the ex-captain of the (inaudible) in McCullom. He did a course in the UK and when he came back, he started doing acupuncture. His friends were asking him to do a course here. There were others like an anesthetist, there was a rheumatologist, and there was a professor of radiology from Stellenbosch with two consultants. The medical schools around the world are losing it so we decided to retire as well. Two years later, I was organizing a course in (inaudible) I found everybody and said, let’s get together and compare notes. The professor said I’m not doing acupuncture anymore. I was given the ultimatum that if I want to remain a professor, no acupuncture. This is our problem. I gave anesthetic to people or to Jehovah’s Witnesses that were so anemic that no anesthetist would go near them in Johannesburg. They directly had to get me through all the difficult cases because with my surgical background that the other anesthetist didn’t have. I would go there and I would examine the patient from a surgical point of view. And sometimes I would say, did you try this or this or that, so try this first, or if I was (inaudible) that the patient will die when he’s left alone, then I would give anesthetic. The patient still may die, but at least we are giving the patient a fighting chance. I never lost a patient and I had given an anesthetic to the patients for Emergency Operations Guidance medical intensive care unit, that had heart attacks the day before. Spinal operations that normally would take often take three or four hours, it a very major surgery with me, half an hour or even less. How and why? I would position the patient and it would bring the blood pressure down to below 60 because normally the blood is oozing from all over the bones, the surgeons will stop the bleeding for a moment and they can work for 10 seconds, and then it fills up with blood again. But then, I gave them bloodless care so they could work without interruption and they could do what they wanted to do. Then I would tell them to step aside and I would bring the blood pressure to about normal.

Clint – Well, goodness. How do we draw this conversation to a conclusion? Now that there are some fascinating things there and I was really drawn into that story that you just told about how you reduce the surgical time, that’s very clever. So let’s say someone’s watching this and they have enjoyed our conversation. About the path that we’ve taken to try and understand all of the nuances of how you intervened with Melissa. They’re motivated to go and take some action to improve their health. And they’ve heard about your supplements that I will list on the show notes on the website where we publish this. They could be thinking that they can go to one of these new clinics where they can get these I.V. drips. Wherein, they can get some high mineral or high vitamin drips, if they choose to. And they’re interested in acupuncture and they’re going to speak to the acupuncturist about getting some diagnostic work and then some general work first.

Clint – Do you expect that if people do this by following your protocol, but on their own, do you expect that they will improve or there are some things, little tweaks that we need to also know? What do we got there?

Dr. Wertlen – They brought her to me when she was 3 or 4 years old. And the vet said, listen, we either do a hip replacement or put her down. The parents or the owners said, listen, how about acupuncture? And I said It’s okay you can try. And until (inaudible) years ago, a young lady walked in and I recognized that I didn’t see her for many years because she left Africa. And I remembered her and she said, she lived to be 13 and a half. And I actually even found ger old card the other day. I was looking for kind of some other patient. She had just a handful of treatments recovered fully. And in the last days, she was still hopping around, when her (inaudible) was sick. She was bringing her toys and all that, she was in perfect health. And when he passed away, then she stopped eating in order to get (inaudible). But (inaudible) (inaudible) by the time of her death. It’s tricky because I hear so often, nothing will help me or nothing can help. Well, if you’ve made up your mind that nothing will happen, then of course nothing will help you. But that’s why (inaudible), there was that attack on acupuncture and doctors that were doing acupuncture. I used to say I’m going to treat only animals and babies. They respond very well and they respond one-hundred percent. The problem with us humans is our genes get programmed.

Dr. Wertlen – This genetic thing is a bit overdone but some genes are loud and some genes are also quiet or silent. They get programmed in the fetus by what the mother eats. And the problem can only be seen in the second or third generation. The mother (inaudible) was eating correctly, the mother is (inaudible). But while she was expecting, she was not eating correctly. And it resulted in damaging the genes of the baby. But with acupuncture, we can reprogram these genes. And that has been also tested on animals and nobody knows about it. Today’s sports news is all over and medicine is not an exception. I’ll give you one more example.

Clint – You are holding up a published newspaper article that’s been laminated called, Depression Drugs Don’t Work. Can you tell us about the relevance of this?

Dr. Wertlen – The guy says that if did licenses for some antidepressants. They had access to all the clinical trials that were done on drugs that they might not have been on the market. In 2008, some researchers started digging into how to release this statement. And about a year, they came with results about antidepressants and there were thirty-five clinical trials. They said, yes, (inaudible) is good for you. They were all over when they published and their own intake of the drug companies. They were five studies that said maybe there is some benefit of those to be published. And there were 31 studies that said this is not only useless, but it is also actually dangerous and none of those was published. The detail of the (inaudible) is on record as saying that scientific journals today may be 50 percent is used.

Clint – I must say that when I look through just for specifics, to create arguments around things that ought to provide evidence that’s published. For things that I’ve witnessed with other people with arthritis or myself, it’s actually normally fairly straightforward to support the claims with published literature. But it is also somewhat common to then be able to contradict myself by searching for the direct opposite outcome. So not in all cases, but in a lot of cases, I can find two very conflicting scientific outcomes or something that I am curious about with arthritis. So I do have firsthand experience of observing that sort of inconsistency in the literature.

Dr. Wertlen – Well, I am subjugating things and I’m listening to myself. And I hope this doesn’t get too much into your mind (inaudible). Because I am living healthy here and I am just doing my own thing.

Clint – I think you’ll be just fine and I don’t think you’re going to be inundated with requests for telehealth appointments around the world. I think what we’ve gotten most out of having this conversation is just a reminder that every symptom that shows up, whether it looks like arthritis or it looks like tinnitus or some other that will give it is all from some kind of imbalance to the system, that we were given to to correct itself. And your analogy or metaphor at the start where we have a lot of backup systems to our well-oiled car, we’ve got multiple brake systems. When they start to all breakdown, then we show problems in different areas depending on our genetic predisposition. And so your approach has been to work on the core of giving the body its tune-up rather than directly going to the symptom. You’re all about addressing the underlying working principles to rebuild health and let the body do the work.

Dr. Wertlen – Unfortunately, that’s one aspect that your grandparents, since you take into account. But basically, for ourselves, don’t overload our system with too much and here inhibits your brains. Do make sure that you get the supply of everything that your body cannot produce. Two years ago, there was a woman in Italy that died that was the last known person to be born in the 19th century. When they ask and she was in good health, when they ask her what does she contribute (inaudible)? She said I was having 2 raw eggs every day, the yolk is life, And that gives you a sense of fatty acids and all that sort of thing. So they supply your body with everything it needs, and that’s an element in all that nutrition like sunshine and love. You need love (inaudible) used to say, all you need is love.

Clint – Yeah, it resonates with all of us, you talk about intuition.

Dr. Wertlen – And to yourself, it’s never gonna be somebody like yourself and I think everybody.

Clint – Yeah, that’s a wonderful place to close. I was just about to say, you mentioned before about intuition, and you kind of get a sense and knowledge as to where the truth is at. And when you speak of love, the truth becomes apparent in vastly apparent that without self-love. Every other action that we take is futile if, we’re not really deeply trying to give ourselves not just the physical interventions and also all of that non-physical structure building within. So it’s been a very interesting conversation, as I knew it would be. We’re doing this without Melissa and I should have mentioned at the top of this call and I will put this back in. I’ll edit this back into the top of the call. Melissa wasn’t able to attend this call, but we’re grateful for her story because it’s brought us together. And I’m very grateful that you’ve helped Melissa as part of our community and also helped all the people prior to Melissa with this awful condition. And for that, I express my gratitude. So thanks for coming on this call, I really appreciate it.

Dr. Wertlen – One last thing, acupuncture is not an event. It’s such a process and that’s why try to seek treatment and if no response, give it a break and try and try again.

Clint – Lovely, will do.

Thanks for listening to rheumatoid solutions. If you’d like to get more help to live an easier, healthier, and happier life. Visit rheumatoidsolutions.com.

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