Important Insights into Reversing Autoimmune and Rheumatoid Disorders

Paul A. Goldberg MPH, DC, DACBN, DCBCN
Founder and Consultant to The Goldberg Tener Clinic
Chronic Disease Reversal

For almost fifty years I have helped patients reverse their chronic, degenerative diseases. Chief among these have been the “Autoimmune/Rheumatoid” disorders. This interest stemmed from my being afflicted by autoimmune disease myself as a young man including being diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis/Psoriatic Arthritis/Ankylosing Spondylitis and Ulcerative Colitis. This inspired me to pursue a professional career as a Professor of Public Health, Doctor of Chiropractic, Clinical Epidemiologist and Biochemist to assist others so afflicted.

I soon learned the folly of treating these medical diagnoses as opposed to taking a highly individualized approach and using the skills I had learned to identify and address the causes of each of my patient’s illnesses. My Master’s Thesis on Rheumatoid Disorders at the University of Texas Medical Center in Houston, in the mid 70’s, stood up to the scrutiny of a panel of Medical Professors and Epidemiologists to what I termed a “Biolistic” Approach to autoimmune/rheumatoid disorders.

In the decades that have passed since my graduate and professional training, the frequency of Rheumatoid and other Autoimmune problems has skyrocketed from approximately forty different medical diagnoses to currently over a hundred and forty (click here to see a complete list of Autoimmune Conditions).  It is not only the frequency of these disorders that has increased but also having a better understanding that many degenerative diseases have autoimmune roots.

There is also an intimate relationship between allergies and autoimmunity. I have determined this in numerous patients over the years and it is just now beginning to be recognized by the medical profession (read our article “Resolving Allergies and Interrelated Chronic Health Issues to learn more).

William Osler, MD author of Osler’s Textbook of Medicine, was one of the first to recognize this phenomenon of autoimmunity in the early 1900’s. He observed that rather than the body attacking invading organisms such as bacteria or parasites, the body was observed to attack itself, causing widespread damage as the patient’s immune cells damaged their own tissues. This remains the basic view Medicine takes today i.e. that the different autoimmune diseases are the body attacking itself. This mindset has led to the ongoing, explosive development of extraordinarily toxic pharmaceuticals to suppress the body’s immune system. Among this cascade of immunosuppressive drugs are Orcenia, Humira, Remicade, Enbrel, Rituxin, Cosentx, Stellara, Cimzia, Taltz, Tysabri, Xolair and many others (click here for a full list). Read our two part article “The Dangers of Biological Drugs”: Part I and Part II.

I would challenge anyone to spend a short period of time watching or listening to commercial media and not see advertisements for one or more of these massively promoted drugs which carry with them not only a huge financial cost but are accompanied by horrific potential side effects, including lymphoma and other cancers which the advertiser briefly rambles through at the end of each advertisement. Serious allergic / toxic reactions can also occur as happened with a patient who came to see us that has been diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis and was taking Enbrel (see before/after pictures below).

I am often asked why so many people are now developing these life altering diseases that lead to great suffering, disability and death. We could meander down the path of describing the complexities of the immune system, runaway inflammation, genetic predisposition and other interwoven topics but that would not lead us to a practical understanding and much sought after solutions. What I can state is that the many rheumatoid and other autoimmune disorders constitute a body in revolt and a population afflicted on a massive scale never before seen or recognized.

Etiology

There are discoverable causes behind autoimmunity that can be directly addressed yet are generally ignored by medical practitioners including those who call themselves “Functional Medicine Doctors”. In most cases this means that in addition to receiving drugs the patient will be loaded down with a myriad of extraneous problematic “supplements” that have little to any relationship to their autoimmune illness other than aggravating it. Read our article “The Facade of Functional and Alternative Medicine” Part I and Part II.

Some of the inter-related causes affecting children and adults that we often identify leading to autoimmune/rheumatoid diseases include:

• A lack of exposure by children to the outdoors and the microbes that live in it, leaving their immune systems subject to over-react to normal environmental microbes later in life (the Hygiene Hypothesis). Rather than being outside in the natural world, today’s children and adolescents too often spend their days behind computer screens and bent over their cell phones on TikToK. The sun, micro-organisms they need to be exposed to, fresh air and activity their bodies require are left behind. It is as if we are growing a new species of creatures disconnected from the earth they came from.
• Exposure to toxins that heighten immune responses has increased dramatically, both from the indoor and outdoor environment. Compared to our ancestors we are being literally bathed in toxic materials now found in the air, food supply, drinking water, a myriad of pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, building materials and other sources. These, over time, overwhelm our body’s coping ability. The immune system puts out a literal code red causing it to become highly aggressive and damage our own tissues in a “friendly fire” fashion. Read our article “Environmental Toxins and their Role in Chronic Disease”.
• Emotional Stressors – Life has always involved stress, but the stressors were of a nature we evolved to handle. Today in our modern, rapidly changing world this is often not the case.
• Diets comprised of materials the body did not evolve to ingest both qualitatively and quantitatively.
• Dramatic increase in the number of vaccinations given to children and adults placing an additional burden on the immune system.
• Changes in the microbiome resulting from antibiotic usage, chlorinated water, poor diet and other factors causing alterations in our immune responses.

Each individual has different factors at play. These factors must be identified whether it is a child labeled with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, a teenager with inflammatory bowel disease, a young man with ankylosing spondylitis or psoriatic arthritis, a middle-aged lady told she has Systemic Lupus or an older patient told they have polymyalgia. Each case necessitates a thorough case history going back to birth and followed carefully to the present time.

A thorough initial interview might take one to one and a half hours to conduct, employing our skills in Clinical Epidemiology and as Chronic Disease Detectives, to uncover the causal factors behind each person’s illness so that they can be addressed. This is tedious, time-consuming work but of exceedingly great importance. Even with two doctors our office can at most only effectively see three or four new patients in a full day’s time while other offices routinely run from thirty to a hundred patients through their doors per day. This is just enough time to slap on a diagnosis for insurance purposes, collect the information to file an insurance claim and write prescriptions and/or sell supplements prior to the doctor rushing out the door to see the next person and repeat the same scenario.

To evaluate a patient with autoimmune disease of any type requires focus, good interviewing skills, understanding and interpreting laboratory tests correctly and putting all the information together in a comprehensive, practical manner with which to begin the process of health restoration.

Understanding the nature of autoimmune disease, identifying the causes of ill health through the history, examination and laboratory studies, asking the right questions and getting to know not only the patient but also the person, are all essential for a successful journey back to health. These are the foundations we have built our practice with… not in treating disease, not on symptom suppression, but on restoring health and reversing rheumatoid and other autoimmune disorders.

Shown below are before/after pictures and video interviews with our patients illustrating the successful outcomes that are possible. 

Before/After Pictures

Watch More Patient Interviews / Case Studies:

Autoimmune and Allergic Disorders
Digestive Disorders
Rheumatoid / Joint Disorders
Hormonal and Weight Disorders
Diabetes / Blood Sugar Disorders
Chronic Skin Conditions
Cardiovascular Disease
Chronic Headaches
Thyroid Disorders
Fibromyalgia
Chronic Fatigue
Goldberg Tener Clinic Kids

Related Articles by the Goldberg Tener Clinic
1) Reversing Autoimmune Disorders
2) Reversing Rheumatoid Arthritis and other Rheumatoid Conditions
3) Reversing Chronic Skin Conditions
3) An Effective, Causal Based Approach to Digestive Problems
5) Reversing Thyroid Conditions
6) Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO): A Symptom of Impaired Health
7) Irritable Bowel Syndrome: A Meaningless Diagnosis
8) The Facade of Functional and Alternative Medicine
9) An Effective, Comprehensive Approach to Reversing Allergies
10) You have been misled… the way to lose weight is NOT trying to lose weight.
11) Click here to see our full library of articles.