Jerry Thompson - Curing the Incurable

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I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to do what cant be done.

Henry Ford, 18631947

This is a book about healing against the odds. It looks at those people who have inexplicably got better from a potentially fatal illness and how they achieved it. Its an exploration of some of the most exciting methods of healing that exist today. It also looks at the science and logic behind what they did.

For a long time I have been fascinated by these people. We are seeing more and more of them. I have called these people survivors though they could equally be called trailblazers or exceptional patients. There was a time when I could scarcely believe these healings were possible. Nothing in my medical training prepared me for them. Now they no longer surprise me. They are no longer a rarity. Dozens of books have been written by these patients. Magazines like Healing Our World and What Doctors Dont Tell You (now re-named Get Well) regularly give accounts of healing against the odds. More can be found on the internet. What was once a trickle has become a flood.

These survivors have described their experiences and they want us to understand what they did. Just as importantly, they want the medical community to know. Their discoveries are of great importance and they know it; something very special has taken place.

By far the commonest experiences are recoveries from cancer. These have typically been against their doctors expectations. And what is fascinating about this trend is that this has all been occurring outside the radar of conventional medicine. I have long wondered if there was a common thread to these cases. I sensed that we could all benefit from this unique knowledge. I believe these discoveries can shed light on how our body heals. Recent discoveries, as we shall see, have confirmed that many of the methods used by survivors are grounded in science.

I believe they have an important and timely message for all of us, especially for those with a serious illness. I have long wanted to know why one person heals but another does not. I have wanted to understand what works best and most reliably. Success leaves clues. I have wondered what makes the biggest differences. What have been the underlying methods? What have their thought processes been? Are these methods reproducible? How much untapped healing potential exists within the human body? How can we use this knowledge to help treat and prevent cancer and other serious illnesses? And why have these patients succeeded at a time when mainstream medicine has so often failed? Is medicine missing something fundamental?

My approach has been purely empirical to look at whatever works, however unusual. There is an inevitable emphasis on cancer. As I have said, accounts of recovery from cancer far exceed those from other conditions, but this book is not just about cancer. Cases of recovery from multiple sclerosis, motor neurone disease, chronic fatigue syndrome and even Alzheimers disease have been included.

After reading this book, I hope you will never again believe there is nothing you can do about an illness. I hope you will see that the limits of what modern medicine can do are not the limits of what is possible and that there are ways to reverse even the most serious of diseases.

Anyone unfortunate enough to develop a serious illness needs to be smart when it comes to health. They need to know all the options available. Ultimately, this is empowering, and this is the purpose of this book.

The quote from Henry Ford at the start of this chapter was not about health. But what if it had been? This book is also about doing what cant be done; it is about discovering new methods to reverse major illnesses. Could this knowledge perhaps help in the crisis that medicine is undergoing today? For make no mistake, there is a crisis.

Lets imagine travelling into the future and looking back, as a medical historian might do, taking an overview of the medicine of today and noting the patterns. Almost certainly what would stand out would be the lack of success in treating chronic illnesses and also the lack of success in treating cancer. A medical historian would be quick to note that this was happening at a time when health costs were spiralling out of control and when medical systems in many countries were at breaking point, both in terms of workloads and costs. The historian would naturally ask why so much money was being spent and why so little progress was being made. S/he or she would wonder why we were losing the battle against those illnesses plaguing the world at this time and would ask if the money had been wisely spent.

As a medical doctor I have become increasingly aware that there has been little real progress in medicine over the last few decades, with a lack of ideas and a feeling of stagnation. Yet I believe it doesnt need to be like this. There are more answers out there than most people are aware of. I am convinced that we already have the knowledge to drastically reduce the burden of chronic illness and cancer. I would like to share this knowledge. Some of it, as mentioned, has come from an unusual source: the increasing number of individuals who have found ways to reverse the serious illnesses that were threatening their existence. I would like to look at not just these spectacular cures but at the latest medical research, at long-forgotten solutions lying unused in medical libraries and at original and successful ideas used by great doctors and great therapists.