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Reversing Arthritis with the Jaffe-Mellor Technique
Alternative Medicine
November 2000

Today, after seventeen years of crippling rheumatoid arthritis, 50-year- old Linda C. has been completely free of pain for two years, and she no longer shows any signs of the joint swelling, inflammation and ankle edema she was plagued with for years. Her energy has returned, she enjoys a restful sleep each night, and the dark circles under her eyes have all but vanished. She works a full-time job, is free of depression, and is moving on with her life in a positive way. Linda's remark- able recovery is one of many cases of arthritis and other so-called autoimmune disorders (see sidebar) that have completely reversed themselves due to a revolutionary new therapy known as the Jaffe-Mellor Technique, or JMT'.

By the time Linda had turned 47, she had intense, chronic pain that migrated to every joint in her body. This was accompanied by extreme fatigue. Her appearance was blanched, her hair was thinning and she had large, dark circles under her eyes. Her knuckles were noticeably red and swollen, and her ankles severely enlarged with edema (swollen with fluid). She suffered from depression and extreme sleep deprivation due to her pain and the stress of caring for an autistic child. She had also begun experiencing worrisome tingling sensations along the length of her left leg.

Linda had been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis (see Quick Definition) through blood tests when she was 30 years old. At the time, she was seeking help for an inflammation of the blood vessels in both of her legs (vasculitis) that manifested as excruciating pain from her hips to her toes. She was subsequently placed on high doses of the synthetic steroid prednisone and warned that further debilitating arthritic symptoms were inevitable. By age 33, Linda's pain was

constant and agonizing, and accompanied by intense swelling and inflammation that affected her shoulders, arms, wrists, fingers, hips, knees, ankles and toes. "Going up and down stairs was terrifying for me," Linda recounts. "I felt like my legs would go out from under me at any time, causing me to fall."

Linda was finally referred to a rheumatologist, who ordered more blood tests. ÒWhen the results of my lab tests came back, he told me he was surprised I wasn't already crippled." Her condition continued to deteriorate. At age 38, she was placed on weekly cortisone injections for an entire year. She was also placed on the anti-inflammatory drug Naprosyri. This and other drugs caused adverse side effects, including severe stomach cramping. At age 45, Linda underwent surgery to "correctÓ 'the crippled joints in her feet, but the result was only in- creased pain whenever she walked.

Although she received minor temporary relief from water therapy and therapeutic massage, her pain continued to worsen, at times becoming so severe that sleep was impossible. She was now barely able to close her hands or bend her knees. "I felt like I was carrying my body, instead of my body carrying me," she says. "I cried frequently, wondering what I would be like at 60 or 70, all crippled up."

In despair, Linda finally stopped seeing her rheumatologist, convinced that he could not help her and concerned about the high doses of steroids and other drugs that were going into her body. She says, "I knew I couldn't continue this way. Either I was going to find an answer, or I didn't want to go on living."

Linda is fortunate to have found and to have received successful treatment from Carolyn Jaffe, D.Ac., Dipl. NCCA, Ph.D.(c), and Judy M. Mellor, R.N., Ph.D.(c), the founders of the jaff@-Mellor Technique and directors of the Health and Wellness Alternative Medical Center near Reading, Pennsylvania. After 21 sessions, Linda was free of her arthritis symptoms.

The Road to a New Discovery Jaffe and Mellor developed JMT after spending years trying to ease the suffering and pain of their arthritis patients by employing a wide range of protocols.

"Throughout the many years of our combined medical practice our goal has always remained the same," Dr. Jaffe says. "To provide our patients with the best possible care, with the least amount of intervention, in the most expedient way. We strongly believe that the magnificent human body is programmed to self-correct with a little prodding from caring and knowledge- able healthcare providers."

Guided by their holistic philosophy, Jaffe and Mellor explored numerous non-invasive techniques to ease their arthritis patients' pain. "We tried nutrition, acupuncture and herbs, vitamin therapy, lymphatic drainage and detoxification, enzyme therapy, homeopathy, naturopathy, allergy elimination, glucosmine, chondroitin, capsaicin, MSM, capsaicin, MSM, cetyl myristoleate, magnet therapyÑyou name it, we tried it," she says. "Yet even with our most dedicated patients-the ones who met the cost and commitment of ingesting large volumes of vitamins, herbs and other supplements, the ones who kept up with exhausting routines of moderating their intake of food, doing cleanses and applying topical analgesics-there was only minimal change at best. We were very frustrated, but we remained convinced that there had to be a solution that would help people with arthritis, and we were determined to find out what it was."

Applying their determination, Jaffe and Mellor began to keep a record of all the similarities among their patients with osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, gouty and psoriatic arthritis and other arthritic conditions. The records included comparison of medical histories and lifestyle choices. "We noted many differences," Dr. Jaffe says. "For example, certain patients "followed a diet that was horrible while others ate fairly well. Arthritis was present regardless of whether they were meat eaters or strict vegans. Some diets were highly acidic, others more alkaline, and there were many other variables, as well, according to age and gender. We really did not find as many similarities as we had hoped, and so we continued looking in all directions."

Eventually, after looking at an exhaustive number of possible causes of arthritis, including allergens, parasites, different strains of bacteria, fungi, molds, parasites and viruses, they discovered several common denominators that tested positive in every one of their arthritis patients. "Finding the causative agents allowed us to begin developing JMT, which eventually allowed us to stop the pain of our arthritis patients without their needing to make any lifestyle changes whatsoever. We believe we have found a technique to halt the progression of the disease itself," reports Dr. Jaffe.

"To discover the causative agents, we theorized that a disease such as arthritis might be the result of the presence of a highly adaptive microorganism residing in the host," she continues. "Interestingly, pathogenic microorganisms are able to transform and adapt to their changing environments very quickly when necessary-often avoiding detection as a result. For the longest time, however, Western science has assumed that the extant relationship between the pathogen and its host naturally migrates toward peaceful coexistence, and the pathogen itself toward less aggressive behavior in an effort to keep the host alive. Unfortunately, this is not always true."

As Jaffe and Mellor furthered their research, they increasingly came to realize that diseases caused by pathogenic microorganisms are far more prevalent in contemporary fife than commonly believed. Jaffe and Mellor concluded that the presence of microorganisms they term External pathogenic Factors are at the heart of many modern-day chronic disease conditions such as arthritis. Further, they discovered that the immune system of every single one of their patients who demonstrated arthritic symptoms had either been temporarily or chronically stressed, opening the way for an External Pathogentic Factor (EPF) to take hold.

"When an EPF sets up housekeeping in the body, the brain alerts the nervous system to continuously send out attacks on all areas on or around the part of the body that the EPF has colonized," Dr. Jaffe explains. "This includes muscles, joints, cartilage and bone tissue itself The pattern of attacks becomes increasingly more in- tense, going ever deeper and wider, and eventually destroying the healthy tissue as the immune system wages its war against the EPF." Jaffe likens the process to a group of fighter pilots who have been commissioned to continuously drop bombs on whole villages of innocent people in an attempt to exterminate an enemy in hiding. "Add to this the land patrols with torches setting fire to every hut and shelter to snuff out the hid- den enemy, and you have the metaphor of what is happening in the body of a person with arthritis."  

How JMT works
"Once we fully understood the process of arthritic disease development," Dr. Jaffe explains, "we saw how an EPF can enter the body and colonize within it, thus causing arthritis disease symptoms to progress by triggering what is mistakenly thought of as an 'autoimmune response. ÓWe then set about isolating what we call the energetic signatures of these EPFS. Our goal was to neutralize the energetic signatures and thus to stop the body from robotically reacting against itself.

"An energetic signature, in terms of physics, is the unique vibration of any substance. In terms of an EPF, it is the perverse energy that takes advantage of a patient's compromised immune system," says Dr. Jaffe. She ex- plains that they were able to isolate the energetic signatures of various EPFs-the causes of osteoarthritis, psoriatic and rheumatoid arthritis and their associated symptoms-and contain them in water-filled vials. The energetic signatures are thus contained, she says, "in much the same way as electrical energy exists and can be con- ducted in a container of water."

In the JMT sessions, an advanced form of muscle resistance testing (MRT), or kinesiology, (see Quick Definition) is employed to determine the presence of EPFS, the underlying causative agents behind the patient's condition. During testing, select vials are placed in the patientÕs hand or against his or her skin. The vials can contain the energetic signatures of the External Pathogenic Factors as well as various body substances.

Mellor says, "the substance in a vial prods the patients subconscious memory into identifying its energetic signature by using the sense of touch. Meanwhile, the energetic signature of the substance in the vial travels along the central nervous sys- tem, exciting the dendrites, or nerve endings, as it does so."

Initially, patients hold reference vials filled with substances bearing the energetic signatures of various types of white blood cells-macrophages that scavenge foreign bodies, lymphocytes that produce antibodies and others-as well as proteins produced by B lymphocytes (inununoglobulins IgG, IgM and IgA). They then hold different EPF substance vials. Meanwhile, their other arm, their testing arm, is held straight in the air. "If the testing arm goes weak when resistance is applied to it," says Dr. Jaffe, "we know the patients subconscious has determined that there is something in the vial that represents a weakened link in the immune system and therefore must be treated. This weakness is an indication that something in the immune system has been compromised and for this reason has allowed the EPF to take up residence within the weakened host."

A JMT practitioner then uses energy neutralization, intervention and reprogramming techniques, along with acupuncture or acupressure, or sometimes both, to deactivate the energetic signature of the EPF. "The signature in the vial not only helps the brain to identify a physical problem on the energetic level, but also enables it to correct the energetic imbalance. Once the signal of the energetic signature reaches the brain, it is then possible for us to energetically tap out or recharge the brain into exchanging new information for the old, damaged signature that the brain has been storing."

After the suspected EPF substance has been identified, the patient continues to hold it in a vial while the JMT practitioner uses acupressure to reinforce the bladder meridian on the back of the patientÕs body. According to Jaffe, when the acupoints along this meridian are stimulated, old information is exchanged for new, and the chaos that existed in the magnetic field of the host, along with the hyperactivity of the immune system, is altered. This change is permanent. Specific acupoints are then chosen that will help carry the new message through the body via its energetic pathways. "These acupoints are empirically recognized to reinforce the three major systems of the body: respiration, digestion and reproduction/elimination," she adds.

While patients continue to hold substance vials, a JMT practitioner employs a protocol that Jaffe refers to as Essential Energy Treatment (EET), reinforcing empirical acupoints for approximately 15 minutes. Once the immune system is restored to its full potential, a similar procedure is used to deactivate the of- fending EPF, and to intervene against the patterned immune response.

JMT treatment can be thought of as a sequence: it is focused first on deactivating the EPF; then interceding in the immune system's pattern of attacks; followed by shoring up the immune system; and finally re-educating the brain to reproduce cartilage and repair worn tissue. On aver- age, JMT practitioners are able to completely resolve the pain of osteoarthritis after six to nine 15-minute treatments, usually spaced a week apart. Rheumatoid arthritic cases require approximately nine to twenty 15-minute sessions to resolve from 75% to 100% of the pain and accompanying symptoms. Due to each patientÕs unique history and symptoms, not surprisingly, the number of required treatments can vary.

"During the course of successive treatments, the immune system eventually has nothing left to lash out against," Dr. Jaffe says. "At that point, flare-ups of pain and other symptoms usually terminate altogether."

Retraining the body
When the destructive process of arthritis is not reversed, persons with arthritis can expect no more than keeping flare-ups of pain and other symptoms to a minimum. "Until JMT," says Dr. Jaffe, "keeping symptoms under control was a lifelong project that usually entailed stringent measures and strict adherence to dietary and nutritional protocols laid out by a patient's practitioner. Yet even then, rarely are patients cured, and meanwhile the immune system remains locked into its pattern of attack. A more typical progression is that, as the body's robotic autoimmune response continues, the External Pathogenic Factor, being threatened, does the only 'intelligent thing that can be done: it moves on to colonize a different body site, spreading the disease process to new areas.Ò JMT truly appears to be able to halt this process by retraining the body to cease its attacks.

"We've found that itÕs not enough to deactivate the EPF," Dr. Jaffe says. ".Even after deactivation occurs, the immune system continues to regard its attacks as normal responses, never noticing that the EPF no longer poses a danger to the body. We had to come up with a sequence of treatments to stop each attack, one by one. With each JMT treatment, we are teaching the body that it is all right not to attack itself As this reprogramming takes hold, pain and other symptoms decrease to the point where they cease altogether. In addition, JMT also helps increase the production of cartilage and healthy bone tissue. Not only do the pain, swelling and stiffness of arthritis disappear, but mobility in the joints increases." After using JMT to treat thousands of patients with a wide variety of so-called autoimmune and autoimmune-related diseases, and after training more than 500 healthcare practitioners nationwide inimt apphcation, Jaffe and Mellor can report that an EPF is present in every "autoimmune" disorder they have investigated. Based on their work and the successful outcomes they have achieved with patients, Jaffe and Mellor regard JMT as "a resolve for the pain and symptoms associated not only with Osteoarthritis, but also those of other degenerative bone diseases and a host of 'autoimmune' disorders." These include rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, fibromyalgia, multiple Sclerosis, myasthenia gravis, Guiflain-Barrd syndrome and Crohn's disease.

Diane L. was diagnosed in 1989 at age 14 with Crohn's disease and was placed on a regimen of prednisone, Imodium, Ptilosec and Pepto-Bismol, as well as vitamins and supplements. Her condition ebbed and flared up over the next 10 years, at times becoming so bad she would become severely dehydrated, or have to be hospitalized and shot up with Demerol for pain. By the end of 1997, Diane had given up almost all hope of ever living a normal fife: Surgeons suggested that her intestines were irreparably diseased, and that they should be removed in their entirety and replaced with a colostomy bag.

In September 1998, Diane was fortunate to find her way to Jaffe and Mellor at the suggestion of a friend. "Diane had been caught between a rock and a hard place," Dr. Jaffe says. "When her immune system was in full assault, she experienced the most violent attempts by her body to rid itself of the 'enemy' pathogen. She would have unrelenting diarrhea, cramping, vomiting and, ultimately, "battle" fatigue. But when she was placed on anti-inflammatory drugs such as steroids and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) that calmed her immune system, then her immune system would let down its guard, so to speak, and give the 'enemy' liberty to migrate and take over new areas in her body."

Jaffe and Mellor were ready to "meet the enemy." They isolated the perverse energies responsible for inciting Diane's immune attacks and symptoms, and proceeded to neutralize them. "One of the neutralization and brain reprogramming techniques we used," says Dr. Jaffe, "was tapping bilaterally along specific aspects of Diane's vertebrae. The Chinese paradigm embraces the notion that by stimulating certain acupuncture points along each side of the spine, the internal organs will be reinforced and their integrity will be reestablished. We then chose empirical acupuncture points on the front of Diane's body that enabled the capped-out message to be carried throughout the energy system more effectively and also served to tonify her greatly compromised defensive energy-called wei qi in Chinese."

Over a period of five months and ten JMT treatments, Diane went through a wonderful transformation, from being depleted of energy, depressed and angry, severely anemic, de- hydrated and doubled-up with intestinal cramping, to having a smile on her face, being full of energy and off all medications. "She said she felt great, and we watched her dancing eyes twinkle as she relayed the joy of sharing a pizza with a friend, says Mellor. "We then focused on restoring balance to Diane, and by her last treatment you would never have known that Diane's life had once been so threatened."  

Reversing fibromyalgia
For patients suffering from osteoarthritis, the painful muscle aches and joint pain begin to disappear after four to five JMT treatments, and sometimes even sooner. In the case of Grace S., a 68-year-old patient with a medical diagnosis of osteoarthritis and a ten-year history of severe fibromyalgia, 16 JMT sessions were required before Grace reported that her pain was down to Òzero to one" on a scale of one to ten. Dr. Jaffe says, "WhatÕs amazing is that, when Grace first came to us, she described her pain as a 12 on the scale, with ten being unbearable. She said she spent Ômany a sleepless nightÕ crying because of the pain. And she had reached the point where she found no relief despite the many prescription drugs-Elavil, Voltaren, prednisone and others-she had available in her medicine chest.

"We did a complete intake on Grace, and when we performed muscle testing, we discovered several of the EPFs often found in patients presenting with symptoms associated with osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia and digestive disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome, colitis and Crohn's. After Grace's seventh treatment, about 65% of her pain and discomfort was gone."

Jaffe and Mellor report that this relief was achieved without prescribing any herbs, topical or internal remedies, cleanses or dietary restrictions. By the time they finished her treatments, Grace was so excited she went on a hometown radio show to tell her good news. A year later, Grace reported that she was "living a fairly active life." She had in fact gone roller skating. By the end of a patient's last treatment, Jaffe reports that there is usually a 100% resolution of all symptoms. Resolution appears to be permanent based on follow-up evaluations con- ducted three, six, nine, 12 and 18 months later. Persons with rheumatoid arthritis, as well as those with Crohn's disease or fibromyalgia, and a high percentage of lupus and MS patients, usually demonstrate, according to Jaffe, between a 75% and 100% decrease in symptoms, with no further relapse shown during the same follow-up period.

"JMT does not require patients to change their diet or lifestyle for its benefits to occur," Dr. Jaffe points out, "nor do they need to take any drugs, herbs, or other special ingestants or other substances. We do encourage healthy nutrition and lifestyle choices to further assist the immune system, but even when patients continue to eat a junk food' diet, it does not ap- pear to reduce the efficacy of JMT in any way.

"Once treatment ends and the body is again restoring cartilage and body tissue, we also usually suggest that patients use glucosamine or the homeopathic remedy Polygonum #7, which is available through Marco Pharma International in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Both of these products are recognized for their ability to help repair cartilage. Aside from that, no further treatments are needed, and patients are free to resume a normal, active lifestyle."

While both Jaffe and Mellor hesitate to use the word "cure" to describe JMT's ability to resolve symptoms of arthritis and other degenerative diseases, they do believe they have developed a simple, risk-free and expedient method for relieving the suffering from such conditions. And their view is shared by the many physicians, nurses, chiropractors and other healthcare practitioners whom they have trained in the use of JMT.  

Seeing everyone benefit from JMT
Jaffe and Mellor continue to oversee JMT training and certification nation- wide in addition to maintaining an active practice, and are developing a website and planning to write a book on JMT for the general public. They are also currently running research groups of patients with multiple sclerosis, fibromyalgia, lupus, Crohn's, colitis, interstitial cystitis and irritable bowel syndrome, and are having highly successful results using JMT.

"Our goal at this point," Mellor and Jaffe agree, "is to train and certify as many qualified healthcare practitioners as possible, so that people around the world may benefit from JMT We would like to see arthritis and other so-called autoimmune disorders become a thing of the past during our lifetimes."

The misnomer ÒAutoimmuneÓ disease
According to the typical basic definition of an autoimmune disease, which is how many types of arthritis and many other diseases are commonly classified today, it is a degenerative condition caused by an immune system that has simply lost Its ability to distinguish between "self" and "non-self" and has begun using its immunological defenses to attack "self," the body's own tissues or organs. This type of response is sometimes called "hyperactive" but is more often known as an "autoimmune response." Many prevalent conditions that are so classified include lupus, Crohn's disease, fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, myasthenia gravis and others.

The problem with this definition, say Dr. Carolyn Jaffe and associate Judy Mellor, R.N., is that in the context of arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis and conditions such as lupus, "autoimmune" does not exist. In other words, the immune system of a patient with arthritis is not attacking body tissues without reason; it is doing exactly what it should, what it is programmed to do to save the host: It is attempting to eliminate a pathogen.

"Pathogens are the actual triggers of what appears to be an immune system attacking the body's own tissue for no reason," says Dr. Jaffe. "When we isolated External Pathogenic Factors, which are the causes of arthritis and many other diseases typically labeled autoimmune or autoimmune-related, in a sense we turned the theory of autoimmune response inside out. We demonstrated that these factors instigate the immune system's so-called hyper- active response, and we can therefore dismiss the notion that the immune system acts somehow irrationally.

"This 'autoimmune' response is in actuality a normal, pathogen- induced immune defense reaction that occurs in arthritis and in many diseases besides arthritis. A good example is Crohn's disease. Crohn's is thought to be an 'incurable' autoimmune disease in which the immune system invades the intestines and wreaks havoc. But the horrible symptoms such as cramping and bloody diarrhea are in fact the immune system's attempt to spew out the pathogen. "Fortunately, we have been able to reverse Crohn's disease using JMT. Yet, if we had not seen these Crohn's patients before and after treatment with our own eyes, we would have found it hard to believe how quickly they reversed. These successes contradict the popular notion of intractable 'autoimmune' disease."