Daniëlle - cured of lifelong arthritis

Daniëlle - severe joint problems and immobility (see also video below)

Sometime during my adolescence, I had occasional problems with stiff, swollen and painful joints. The smaller joints were just as likely to play up as the larger ones. I didn’t pay too much attention to this as the symptoms were sporadic. I used various natural remedies and followed a restricted diet which seemed to keep the problem at bay right up until I was 50. At that stage, the stiffness and swelling were so prominently present in my life that I consulted a rheumatologist. 

The specialist diagnosed chronic arthritis and the prognosis was lifelong dependence on medicines. I refused to take them because the doctor admitted that they would do nothing to heal the disease. During various holidays, I had discovered that my symptoms were not as intense in the warm, dry climate of the South of France, as in the Netherlands. Because it made such a difference to my quality of life, my husband and I decided to move to the Cote d’Azur permanently. We hoped that this would mean that I would not have to take the symptom suppressants that had such aggressive side-effects. It was a major upheaval in our lives – especially for my husband who had to find a completely new job, and for our two sons. One of them stayed behind in our flat in Amsterdam.

For about eight or nine years, living in that climate really reduced my symptoms. But gradually, despite the wonderful weather, they returned. In the winter of 2008 my chronic complaints were suddenly exacerbated. In a short space of time I couldn’t move my right hand because the wrist was so swollen and painful. I began to wear a sling permanently to restrict the painful movement of my arm. My left foot echoed the same problems and I could hardly walk anymore. This time I consulted a rheumatologist in Nice. The results and the prognosis were identical to that made by the Dutch specialist 10 years previously. The symptoms of the inflammation could be suppressed with medication and this would reduce the pain, but the deterioration would continue unabated. The possibility of unpleasant side-effects of the medicines was the same.

A happy accident brought me back into contact with Dr Kunst, a physician who had treated me with probiotics and dietary advice 20 years before, when he had helped me throw off a nagging vaginal infection that had played up after I had had a hysterectomy. The antibiotic courses that I had taken on advice of my gynaecologist in the months before I consulted him, had not solved the problem. 

Because I had had mild joint pain most of my life, I never considered that the problems after the hysterectomy and the severe exacerbation of my chronic arthritis were in any way connected.

Dr Kunst suggested that there was very likely a connection between acute infections I had undergone in the past and chronic inflammations that developed a long time afterwards. His research had led him to the conclusion that remnants of bacteria can persist in our bodies long after the infection has disappeared. These remnants seem to be dormant and harmless until – for some unknown reason – they pass a critical stage and begin to cause chronic inflammations. He thought that the joint complaints of my youth could possibly be connected to the bronchitis and the severe throat infections that I had suffered regularly at the time. 

The course of autovaccine therapy that I would undergo under his guidance meant that I would be injected with a couple of millilitres of my own blood that he had taken from me some six weeks previously. The blood had been treated and then checked in a laboratory to ensure that it was completely safe. He also warned me that this was not going to deliver immediate results. My husband was instructed on how to give me the injections so that we could return to France. Month after month there was no obvious improvement in my situation. I had pretty well given up on getting any results until I woke up one morning during the fifth month and said to my husband: “I think the pain is gone.” 

That was a bit overly optimistic, but there was a distinct improvement in the continual pain that had accompanied me like a shadow. I still had little strength in my right arm and left foot. But as the pain faded away I could do more exercise. I could even put the sling aside. I continued to do the autovaccine therapy for a full year and the pain did not come back. Unfortunately, the weakness in my right hand and my left foot still hampered me.

18 MONTHS LATER (April 2012)

The weakness in my right arm and left foot has slowly improved. I continued to do exercise after the pain disappeared and now they function normally. I really do feel that I have been healed – all without medicines! Now we live most of the year in Amsterdam again and my health is holding.

Postscript

(written by Dr Kunst) 

After receiving the above testimonial from Danielle, I received a call from her in which she told me about a rather disconcerting development. She was in France at the time. According to a doctor there she had developed a fistula in her left buttock that was continuously leaking a cloudy fluid. A fistula is small opening which the body makes to eject hidden sources of infection. These can be up to 10-20 centimetres long and they link the buried infection site with the outside world. A CT scan revealed that Danielle had an infection site the size of a ping pong ball. It was situated in the place where her womb had been. The surgeon suggested doing a major operation to remove the infection, something he himself was not keen to do. I suggested she delay the decision and come over for me to have a look at it. Danielle had no other symptoms of illness and my examination of her led met to conclude that she should not do anything dramatic and leave her body to do the work. And sure enough, after a few months of leaking, the fistula cleared up.

I am convinced that the autovaccine therapy had stimulated the body to clear up the bacterial remnants left in her pelvic cavity after the hysterectomy undergone more than 20 years earlier. Because she does not have any signs of illness anymore, the health insurance company is unwilling to reimburse the costs of a CT scan to check if the infection site is indeed cleared up. The scientist in me would have liked that objective confirmation.

 

 

(click on 'subtitles/closed captions' to add English subtiles)