Successfully Reversing Rheumatoid Arthritis and Other Autoimmune Disorders

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

In 1973 I experienced symptoms that would be diagnosed as Rheumatoid Arthritis. Over the next few years additional “diagnoses” would be added… Ankylosing Spondylitis, Psoriatic Arthritis, Fibromyositis and Ulcerative Colitis. My personal experience led me to devote my professional life to caring for and successfully reversing cases of Rheumatoid Arthritis and other Autoimmune Illnesses.

I earned multiple professional degrees and diplomates, have forty plus years of teaching Clinical Sciences including Rheumatology yet it would be my own personal experience and working with patients over a half century that would prove most valuable to conquering rheumatoid issues with our clients.

Rheumatoid Arthritis and other Autoimmune Diseases are skyrocketing in our population. We continue to hear the tragic stories of patients who have been treated for these issues with drugs which fail to address causal factors and have tragic side effects. Rheumatoid Arthritis and patients with other Autoimmune Disorders can be helped if causal factors are uncovered and the patient has the will to do the needed work to restore their health. Shown below is a recent case from our clinic illustrating the positive outcomes that are possible. Click here to see additional success stories.

A Sea of Agony

I know as a former Rheumatoid Disease sufferer the daily pain that patients endure, making life a sea of agony. Patients often go to a variety of practitioners from medical rheumatologists to a myriad of “alternative practitioners” (see article “The Facade of Alternative / Functional Medicine”). This is usually a fruitless endeavor.

What temporary symptomatic relief they find from drugs, the mainstay of treatment under medical care, comes at the price of damaging their health. The un-relenting disease can drive a person into despair without hope of being able to enjoy life again.

The Most Neglected Segment of the Medical Population

Rheumatoid Disease sufferers have rightly been referred to as the most neglected segment of the medical population. Autoimmune/ Rheumatoid Disease patients typically find physicians poorly prepared by their schooling to offer anything more than temporary symptomatic relief of symptoms with drugs while the underlying disease process continues unimpeded. Many physicians might empathize with William Osler, M.D., who commented in his Principles and Practice of Medicine, “when an arthritis patient walked in the front door, I wanted to walk out the back one.”

When I completed my Master’s Thesis on Rheumatoid Diseases at the University of Texas Medical Center in 1978, the health professions were floundering about looking for answers to autoimmune problems. Little has changed in 2023. Newer drugs have evolved that carry with them even greater risks. In addition, more alternative pills and therapies have arisen that fail to address causal factors.

Observations and Personal Experience

I noted during my graduate education in Chronic Disease Control at the University of Texas Medical Center that patients with Autoimmune/Rheumatoid syndromes have overall poor health. Digestive issues, fatigue, depression, skin problems, colitis, anxiety, depression, irritable bowel, intolerance to cold etc., are all common accompanying problems. I also noted that every patient is very different from the next and must be addressed as an individual, not simply as a diagnostic category (see article Infinite Variety). The patient’s general health and resistance must be focused on along with specific factors that are uncovered in their own case. The goal is to bring the patient back to overall good health not to “treat” the name of their disease.

We have found the value of looking carefully into the function of the GI tract in Rheumatoid and other Autoimmune patients. Over 75% of the immune system resides in the GI tract. The gastrointestinal tract is one of the most promising areas in uncovering answers to many patients’ Rheumatic Disease problems. It often surfaces that the patient suffers from some level of chronic indigestion. Patients with Ulcerative Colitis, Crohn’s Disease and Whipple’s disease all have a high incidence of arthritic syndromes illustrating the relationship between gastrointestinal function and the Rheumatoid Disorders.

We have also found the importance of uncovering any toxicological issues with patients. In the 21^st century, there are thousands of potential toxins present in our workplace, our homes, our food, air and water. Evaluating toxic levels of glyphosate, volatile chemicals, phenols, parabens, phthalates, arsenic, lead, mercury and a myriad of other toxins can be critical as these can contribute significantly to immune dysfunction. Our background in public health, toxicology and epidemiology have proven valuable in this regard.

There are many Rheumatoid Disease Titles, but most serve little use other than to terrify patients who often feel they have been handed a death sentence. This is understandable since under medical care Rheumatoid Disorders are typically chronic, painful, progressive and disabling. What other outcome should be expected when only the patient’s symptoms are addressed and the causes remain untouched?

There are about a dozen common drugs employed for Rheumatoid Disease patients by medical physicians at any point in time with frequent switching from one drug to the next as the patient’s condition worsens or pharmaceutical side effects appear. The drugs used change gradually over time, but some are still almost universally employed. Steroids, whose side effects include severe osteoporosis, diabetes, mental instability, adrenal atrophy and muscle wasting to Methotrexate (infamous for producing liver damage) to the much advertised and costly “‘Biological Drugs” e.g. Enbrel, Remicade and Humira that carry significant risks including infectious diseases and cancer. Biological drugs have now become the mainstay in the Rheumatologist’s office and are pushed heavily by the pharmaceutical industry due to the monetary profits involved in their sale.

No drug can build health. All drugs carry significant risks.

As each new drug hits the market there is initial excitement followed by the announcement of dreadful side effect(s) patients begin to exhibit. The medical treatment of Rheumatoid Diseases has the frequent outcome of ongoing disability and pain without real health restoration.

Taking a Sane Approach to Rheumatoid Disorders

What is needed is neither Standard Medicine nor “Alternative Medicine”, but a health-promoting approach that identifies and addresses causal factors. The roots of such an approach were established by the works of Hippocrates many hundreds of years ago in ancient Greece. Today, the Goldberg Tener Clinic has modernized this foundational approach, combining it with Clinical Nutrition, Nutritional Biochemistry, Clinical Epidemiology and Toxicology along with highly individualized patient care in a form we refer to as the Bio-Hygienic System™. 

The Goldberg Tener Clinic has built on the Hippocratic Tradition of seeking out the causes of ill health and developed a comprehensive approach that is neither “standard medicine” nor “alternative medicine”. The approach is individually applied to each person recognizing the wide differences in patients. We focus not on treating disease but on identifying causes and restoring health. This is the practical philosophy that has enabled us to restore the health of thousands of patients with chronic Rheumatoid and other Autoimmune Disorders over almost half a century.

The video interviews with patients from our clinic shown below illustrate the positive outcomes that are possible.