Effective Treatment for Fatigue and Widespread Nerve Pain Found

Neil found life changing relief in just 3 weeks of starting therapy! 

Fibromyalgia Miracle

Making Dreams Possible

Kathy is now a high functioning Fibromyalgia patient. Three years ago, the old Kathy, might take a shower and be done for the entire day! Now, you might see the new Kathy tap dancing in a local show or dancing in her zumba class. Microdose Therapy gave Kathy the chance to live some of her dreams and hope in thriving, (rather than just surviving) Fibromyalgia. 

Cortisone Side Effects Debunked

(Mesa, AZ, February 25, 2013) Professor Virgil Stenberg, Ph.D., debunks the cortisone side effect myth and demonstrates effectiveness of a new cortisone use method.

Only two medicines have received the rare honor and prestige associated with the Nobel Prize: insulin and cortisone.

Medical industry has embraced insulin as a life-sustaining medicine for lifetime diabetes control.

On the other hand, medical industry has restricted cortisone to the minor role of resolving inflammation emergencies because of its side effects. 

Stenberg, medical director of the Helen Foundation, noted that the medical industry restriction conflicts with elementary medical knowledge:  hormones have no side effects, and cortisone is a hormone. 

“To resolve the conflict, it became necessary to look beyond cortisone the medicine to cortisone the hormone,” Stenberg explained.

As a hormone, cortisone is in the blood at all times.  There is a safe operating range of cortisone within the blood like there is a safe operating range of oil within an automobile engine.  If this safe operating range is exceeded, Cushing’s syndrome appears.  When the cortisone concentration is lower than the safe operating range, Addison’s disease threatens.

The relationship between arthritis inflammation and hormone cortisone within the body has been inadequately defined.

Normally, inflammation with its pain, swelling and redness is caused by an injury.  The natural role of new inflammation is to prevent infection.  After the danger of infection is passed, inflammation is terminated, and the injury heals. 

Stenberg discovered inflammation is terminated by an on-demand, short-duration, huge cortisone pulse in the blood.   As this pulse weakens, new inflammation lasts too long and evolves into old inflammation. 

To bring his wife Helen’s severe, refractory arthritis under control, Stenberg designed replacement cortisone tablet use to timely restore the pulse to its working size.    Using his design, Helen lost all pain and swelling in the first weeks and has remained as such for decades without cortisone side effects.

In a double-blind clinical trial on rheumatoid arthritis patients using the Stenberg treatment design (microdose therapy meaning a small amount of cortisone as needed), the results proved superior to standard treatments and with no significant side effects.  Hamdy Kh Koryem of the University of Alexandra (Egypt) repeated the Stenberg double-blind clinical trial with near identical results.  In a subsequent open, multi-clinic, study on 244 rheumatoid arthritis patients, the double-blind clinical trial results were again confirmed. 

Stenberg adds, “Old inflammation has many names: rheumatoid arthritis when in the joints, bursitis in the bursa, myocytis in the muscles, pancreatitis in the pancreas, carditis in the heart, and so forth.  One treatment that perfectly controls old inflammation should control all.  Thus far, the Helen Foundation has applied microdose therapy to 26 diseases and disorders of inflammation for 1,890 patients all with superior results and no significant side effects.” 

Stenberg states “By making the conclusion ‘cortisone has side effects’, a great error in medicine has been made.  No other error in medicine has caused more pain and suffering. Cortisone ‘side effects’ are merely induced Cushing’s syndrome symptoms caused by over administration of cortisone.  Over administration of cortisone was due to a lack of understanding of how the body normally uses cortisone to terminate inflammation.”

 

Dr. Stenberg is the author of “Arthritis: The Simple Solution” and “Fibromyalgia Solved” and has been 

Editor of Proceedings of the North Dakota Academy of Sciences           

President, North Dakota Academy of Sciences

President, Red River Valley Chapter, American Chemical Society

President of the Board, Listen and Drop In Center, for the mentally challenged

Board member, Interscience World Conference on Inflammation, Geneva

Lecturer in Australia, Canada, France, India, Japan, Mexico, and Switzerland.

Dr. Stenberg has published medical articles on the

cortisone pulse theory:     

Stenberg, V.I. et al. 1990. Negative endocrine control system for inflammation in rats. Agents Actions 29: 189-195.

superior efficacy on a demonstration disease of inflammation:

Stenberg, V.I. et al. 1992. Endocrine control of inflammation: rheumatoid arthritis double-blind, crossover clinical trial. Int J Clin Pharmacol Res 12: 11-18.

Parkinson’s Disease Volunteers Needed

Parkinson’s Disease Volunteers Needed 

The Helen Foundation requests volunteers for a new Parkinson’s disease study to evaluate mental function improvement during Microdose Therapy. 

Hand tremors disappeared for Max Glime while participating in a Helen Foundation study for his arthritis.  Max had tried to keep his hands from bouncing by holding one hand with the other.  That didn’t work.

Since Max, 30 people with Parkinson’s disease completed the Helen Foundation arthritis study modified for Parkinson’s disease.   Progression was arrested, patients walked without a shuffle, arms swung while walking, and tremors were reduced.  Professor Virgil Stenberg who led the research explains  “The importance of this study is finding a complementary, FDA-compliant treatment that can be used with leva-dopa for Parkinson’s disease.”    

The Helen Foundation encourages physicians to use patient self-administration of cortisone for chronic disease.  This use is similar to insulin use for diabetes and aspirin for headaches.  Staying within safe use limits, patients are taught to use cortisone tablets on the bad days and not on the good ones.  In this way, so little is used that no significant side effects occur yet inflammation control is excellent.  This is Microdose Therapy—a small amount when needed.

The 1950 Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to discoverers of cortisone for solving arthritis the first time.  Then ‘moon-face’, bone weakening, thinning of the skin, bleeding under the skin, weight gain, and cataracts appeared in patients using cortisone.   “These observations are perfectly correct, but the conclusion that cortisone has side effects is perfectly incorrect.”  states Dr. Stenberg.  “Cortisone is a hormone of the body and as such can have no side effects.   The observations are due to overdosing through lack of understanding how to use cortisone.”

“Parkinson’s disease appears due to that same difficult-to-detect cortisone deficiency that causes arthritis.”  says Stenberg.  “When the missing is replaced, the lame walk again, pain is gone, fatigue disappears, and cortisone is solved arthritis a second time.”

Robert Van Cott, a software engineer with Parkinson’s disease, explained that he could only concentrate on a subject for 15 minutes before restlessness drove him away.  After the Helen Foundation study, he could concentrate for five hours.  The Helen Foundation requests volunteers for a new Parkinson’s disease study to evaluate mental function improvement during Microdose Therapy.  The Helen Foundation telephone number is 1-480-983-8376.

Micro Pain Manager

Micro Pain Manager                                                                                                

Arthritis sufferers find relief in cortisol microdoses                                               

by Tammy Swift, The Forum                                                                                     

At the age of 59, Oliver Sorenson thought he would have to spend the rest of his life in a nursing home.  The Ada, Minn., farmer had developed such bad arthritis that he could barely lift his arms to comb his hair or dress himself without assistance.

“I figured life was over,” he says.  The Sorensons were seriously considering an around-the-clock care facility for him when his wife suggested they check out one last option:  Microdose cortisol treatment.

The treatment, developed by retired University of North Dakota professor Virgil Stenberg, teaches patients to take microdoses of the hormone cortisol only when the body needs it.  Used this way, Stenberg claims symptoms in auto-immune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia can be relieved without harmful side effects. 

Within weeks of taking prednisone, a synthetic form of cortisol, Sorenson says he felt significantly better.

That was 20 years ago.  Today, Sorenson reports that he is pain-free “95 percent of the time”
 and only takes a prednisone tablet a couple of times a month.  “I told Virgil today, thanks for the last 20 years,” 

Sorenson says.

Now one of Stenberg’s clinics has opened in Fargo.  So far, nurse practitioner Tracy Beecher has treated 40-plus patients with microdose therapy at the new clinic in the LilyCare Building in West Fargo. 

A former nurse practitioner in neurosurgery at Essentia Health in Fargo, Beecher says she got involved with microdose therapy as a favor to a friend.  Soon, she found herself convinced by the treatment’s results.

“The changes are just astronomical,” she says.

A skeptic converted

The friend who introduced Beecher to microdose therapy is the Rev. Vern Baardson.

Baardson’s arthritis was once so severe he had to give sermons while sitting down and took five minutes to climb out of bed in the morning.

The disease had been in remission for years but flared up again last year.  Baardson noticed he could barely get around the tennis court on certain days and struggled to play his beloved guitar.

“The thing that really pushed me is when I started losing use of that hand,” says Baardson, a pastor at Triumph West in West Fargo.  “I’ve had it so bad that it really scared me.”

Baardson discovered he was allergic to many of the powerful medications prescribed by doctors.

Then he heard about a Moorhead teen who found relief from arthritis with microdoses of cortisol.  He attended an informational seminar, hanging around afterward to ”ask some hard questions.”

“I was born an incredible skeptic.  This sounded like snake-oil stuff to me,” he said.

But with few options in sight, Baardson asked his physician to work with him on a microdose regimen.  The doctor refused.  So he approached Beecher, a frequently tennis partner.

“He was at the end of his rope,”  Beecher says.  She decided to help him out.

Baardson saw a quick and dramatic improvement.  He could run again and pay guitar without pain.   As an added side benefit, his psoriasis began to clear up.

The cortisol riddle

The medical community has long known that cortisone effectively controls the pain and inflammation of arthritis.

The problem is that long-term, high-dose use of the hormone causes severe side effects: bone loss, weight gain, bleeding under the skin, cataracts and an unnatural rounding of the face called “moon face.”  Long-term, high-dose cortisone use can cause the adrenal system to shut down and stop producing natural cortisol.

Fearful of its many side effects, doctors long ago abandoned cortisone as an arthritis treatment, favoring instead high doses of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs.

But when Virgil Stenberg’s own wife, Helen, was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, he developed a special interest in how it was treated.  His wife lived in constant pain, had to take massive amounts of medication and received 18 surgeries on her hands, knees, hip, wrists and toes.

Stenberg thought there had to be a better answer.  Armed with a doctorate in biochemistry, he turned his attention to the long-shunned cortisol.  He knew the human adrenal gland daily secretes a small level, natural dose of cortisol and that it’s essential to the body’s healthy functioning. 

“I thought, ‘It’s made by the body, it control inflammation perfectly, so what mistake have we made in logic (in using it)?” says Stenberg, now retired and living in Mesa, Ariz.

In 1983, while reading a book on hormones, Stenberg had an epiphany.  He realized that when the body suffered injury or inflammation, the adrenal glands produced a massive spike of cortisone.  That spike, or “pulse,” would reduce the inflammation before dropping to normal levels within 10 hours.

Tests on laboratory rats confirmed his suspicions.  Stenberg realized people with arthritis couldn’t seem to produce that big pulse of cortisol any more.  As a result, their bodies could no longer control inflammation, resulting in severe, long-term inflammation and autoimmune disorders. 

The answer, Stenberg deduced, was to amp up the weakened cortisol response by giving a booster dose of man-made cortisol or prednisone, only when it was most needed.  The prescribed amount would fall within FDA-recommended levels and be stopped when the person’s pain subsided.  Used this way, cortisol’s side effects would be minimal.

A double-blind study on human subjects confirmed his theories.  In the trials, 86 percent of rheumatoid arthritis patients treated with his therapy averaged a 75% reduction in pain.

Treatment has critics

Microdose therapy requires plenty of vigilance on the patient’s part.  The patient must check in regularly with his doctor, plus keep a daily pain journal in which he rates, on a scale of 0 to 10, the pain level in all affected joints and tissues. 

If the total pain score is high enough to indicate an imminent flare-up, patients take just enough cortisol over a  five-day cycle to provide the booster pulse they need.

“We want them to be off the medication more than they’re on it,” Beecher says.

She likens the daily monitoring to how a diabetic learns to monitor blood sugar.

In efforts to control inflammation, patients also receive a blood test to screen for 90 different food allergies and may receive antibiotics to combat any existing infections.

The pain journals of every patient are entered into a software program for data analysis.  Based on their data, Stenberg says fibromyalgia patients have reported an average of 77 percent symptom relief while rheumatoid arthritis sufferers report 80% relief.

The results make some wonder why more people haven’t tried this therapy.

The biggest roadblock, Stenberg says, is that the medical profession has been trained to fear cortisone.

“The paradigm that cortisone has side effects is a paradigm that is incorrect,” he says.  “This paradigm has done more damage and caused more pain and suffering than any other state(ment) in the history of medicine.”

He points to patients who have been on microdose therapy for 20 years yet have strong bones, good vision and normal body weights.  That group includes his wife, Helen.

Stenberg, now 77, also says he doesn’t have the resources or influence to convince Medicare or other insurance companies to pay for the treatment.  (A few patients have been able to get some costs reimbursed by Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota, Beecher says.)   As a result, patients have to pay an upfront cost of $6,995, although Stenberg says he’s willing to offer a money-back guarantee to anyone who doesn’t find relief.

The treatment also has detractors, including a couple of the co-investigators on Stenberg’s 1992 clinical trial.  They criticized Stenberg for claiming his treatment could help all inflammation-related maladies when the research only involved people with rheumatoid arthritis. 

Stenberg replies that cortisone has long been approved for all kinds of inflammation, and so it makes sense that microdoses of it would also alleviate other inflammatory diseases.  His detractors, he says, “are right as scientists but I’m right in theory.”

Stenberg says the mainstream medical community first viewed him with suspicion but now seem to see him as a harmless maverick.  “The powerhouses in medicine are looking at us and saying, ‘You’re not killing anyone, and you’re getting a lot of good reports, and we’ve got a lot of other concerns out there that are worse.”

And for patients like Baardson, the proof is in the pain-free results. 

“Skeptic that I was at one time, I can’t see why anyone wouldn’t want to do this,” he says.

Tammy Swift

A Message from the Founder of the Helen Foundation and Helen Foundation Clinics

Dear God,

You restored my wife Helen’s health after years of hurting and surgeries to greet me each morning with a lovely smile, to give gentle encouraging words during the day, to pray daily for our family and the Helen Foundation family, and to wish me a wonderful night of rest each evening.

You provided talented students and faculty at the University of North Dakota to discover patient self-administration of cortisol to control inflammatory/autoimmune diseases.

You provided Medical School administrators, physicians, pharmacologists, biostatisticians and faculty to plan and implement clinical trials.

You provided patients with restored lives to establish the Helen Foundation, contribute funds, and hire staff that work through difficult and blissful times to serve patients.

You provided physicians to do the doctoring for the Helen Foundation treatment throughout this wonderful country.

For all these things, I give you thanks and praise daily on this day of Thanksgiving.

Virgil I. Stenberg
Founder & Chairman
Helen Foundation and Helen Foundation Clinics