New Knees For Old Or, What I Did On My Summer Travels!
By: Dr. William Wong ND, PhD

Recently, (Summer 05), I traveled to India to do a series of lectures teaching docs there about Systemic Enzyme Therapy. In some 7 separate lectures we spoke to GP’s, OBGYN’s, Orthopedists, General and Plastic Surgeons, Diabeticians (yes, there is such a word), ENT’s, Cardiologists Homeopaths and Naturopaths. I was there to teach but I was also there to learn. The Indian people I met were very gracious, very kind, very welcoming and very open to the idea / concepts of what systemic enzymes could add to their practice of medicine!

Somewhere in the skies over south west Asia on the 9 hour “hop” from Amsterdam to Bombay I caught a bug. It’s almost impossible to shield yourself from someone else's germs when you’re riding on board an airliner. If the air cocks on the plane were open I understand that the air on board could be exchanged every few minutes for new and germs could be flooded out of the plane, but in the interests of saving fuel the air cocks are closed and the air is re-circulated for as many hours as you are aloft. One row back and across the isle from me sat a European gentleman who coughed and sneezed the entire way for 9 long hours across Europe and the middle east to India. I laced my drinks with Oxygen drops in the hope I could avoid catching whatever this fellow was releasing, I prayed and drew in energy all the while wishing I had a bank of Ultra Violet Lights strung around my seat to kill the germs this fellow was freely sharing with the rest of us passengers!

By my second day in India in the middle of a series of 3 lectures I gave that day I knew my actions had been in vane. Being a chronic Bronchitis patient most of my life and having had frequent bouts of Pneumonia I know very well the signs and symptoms, the feeling deep in my lungs, of when I get a infection there and bingo there it was settling into my right lung. Shit! The show must go on or as we said in the service “the mission” must be completed at all cost, I carried on lecturing, mingling and question answering. By day 3, I was wreck. On anti biotics now to keep the bronchitis from becoming pneumonia I was sliding lower and lower into the pits of being sick. My hosts there were anxious that I do some sight seeing and touring and not just be chained to the lecture hotel, (though by this time all I wanted to do was to bury myself into a room and just sleep and eat until my next series of lectures the following weekend). We traveled some toured the marvelous plant where many of the enzymes are cultured or extracted and met many very wonderful people but at the end of the plant tour I was done for.

Chronic Fatigue / Fibro Myalgia (which I’ve had since 1990) has a little recognized component of brain swelling, (in recognition of this the British rightfully call Chronic Fatigue by the name Myalgic Encephalitis). Most of the time since we came up with the treatment protocols I wrote about in my book “10 Natural Treatments You haven’t Heard of Until Now” I don’t remember I’ve ever been a CFS/FMS patient, but the long travel, fighting new bugs, change of food and environment had gotten the best of me and now my brain was swollen. I was absolutely a wreck. Hurried back to Bombay I was gingerly placed into a great 5 star hotel, where I slept for days, ate in the room and did not venture out. One morning I got a call requesting that I come to the Advanced Enzyme Technologies business office in Thane a suburb of Bombay. I reluctantly accepted. There waiting for me was Yoga master who was called a Naturopath by the president of the firm. This gentleman looked me over with an expert eye. As his English was not extensive the doc spoke and others translated, the doc told me which side I mostly slept on, the injuries I’d had to my joints where my viscera were not functioning well, and how my Gi tract was bloated (try mixing anti biotics with new spicy food and see how your Gi tract takes it)! He also told of what restrictions I had in my movements.

As many of you know from my writings and lectures I’ve coined a term OJS for Old Jock Syndrome. Twelve years of gymnastics (by far the worst thing I ever did to myself), 38 years of martial arts, as many years of heavy lifting, years of wind sprints, jogging, and more than a few very hard parachute landing falls have left their toll on my body. This fellow found every "owie" and some I did not remember I had. Moreover the doc was actually an old fashioned bone setter! For those of you familiar only with Chiropractic, bone setting is a health art practiced for thousands of years in places and cultures as diverse as Bohemia to Japan. In India it has been a part of true Yoga (not the stuff you see here in the West) for 5000 years. The docs who practice the art apprentice themselves to a Guru and study for decades, learning the ability to do visual and structural diagnosis and more over learning how to correct what they see is wrong not only by manipulating the bones and joints but the internal organs as well. What we would consider Chiropractic here would be just an aspect of what the old bone setters know about the body. The doc went to work, not on the germs that were trying to kill my lungs and brain but on the “system” of my body in the attempt to improve its functioning and there by restore my health. I have to say it was painful, sometimes in the extreme. Such adjustment techniques could not be practiced in the US, patients would sue. The doc slowly adjusted my GI tract first, then he went to work on my spine, and lastly he went to work on my extremities - the hips, knees ankles and feet then the shoulders elbows, wrists and fingers! Some of the techniques were reminiscent of the scar tissue tearing technique done on knee surgery and early replacement patients only again for reasons of lawsuits the knee patients are knocked out before hand. I remember in the 70’s when adhesions were torn at the knee without anesthesia, the screams would flood the orthopedists offices or hospital wards and scare the heck out of the other patients!

My shoulders show the ravages of gymnastics and Gung Fu. Twin torn rotator cuffs tears with adhesions, etc. I used to be able to shake my hands behind my back; arm and shoulder locks were useless on me. Like other gymnastics my shoulders would dislocate putting groceries into the trunk of the car or when my wife would hang her arm on mine! When I got to India I could still do chin ups with 70 pounds hanging from my waist but could not put my palm on the back of my neck! In a few painful minutes of working the edges of his feet full weight on both my shoulder girdles the range of motion problem was solved! I now get to touch my upper thoracic vertebra with ease.

My poor knees showed the ravages of "Turkeying-in" (doing a turn too close to the ground) on a PLF (parachute landing fall) during a target accuracy jump in the mid 70’s and dealing with torsion of uneven ground during wind sprints in Arizona's 118 degree afternoons in the 90’s. Again bi lateral torn ligaments, macerated cartridges and the adhesions thereof prevented my from easily (or painlessly) ascending or descending stairs. I could still do half squats with over 400 pounds but you could hear my knees crack from across the room. The systemic enzymes gave me freedom from the perpetual inflammation, and Bakers cysts they were subject to before I started using enzymes, but the knees definitely shown signs of not liking me at all. These were the most painful manipulations done by the Indian Naturopath. Using leverage and fulcrums (a small towel tightly wrapped in the hollow of my knee) he administered his manipulations and I both heard and felt tissue tear! On top of everything else I was going through that was enough pain to bring tears to my eyes. My knees felt powerless for a few seconds as joints do after trauma. He then asked me to stand and as I arose from my prone position on the floor I noticed the knee movement was freer, stronger, with out crepitus (creaking and noise) was completely pain free! Holy cow (in India that term actually means something)! I was aghast! Being in the field I’ve been in and knowing the folks I know, I’ve been worked on by some of the best Chiropractors and body workers in the world and no one had been able to do for me what this unknown humble Yogi had been able to do! A couple of days later as I was rushing to get to one of my lectures I found myself naturally taking the marble stairs up to the hall two at a time! I had not done that in over a decade! At home I was considering building a ranch style house in the future to keep from having to climb the stairs. Now the staircase to the bedroom is no trick at all!!!

Everything began to settle down after the Yogi / Bone Setter / Naturopath worked on me. The brain swelling went away entirely, I got better enough to finish the series of lectures the following weekend and head for home. Then came the ordeal of the 30 hours of flying to get home and the continuing health consequences of that are for another story. But to get to the whole point of this long winded tale, there are health practices out there that can restore function to old and worn joints, and greatly improve body function overall. There is knowledge out there that can be applied to those who’ve been told not to hold hope for their joints. If so much of my OJS can be reversed as dramatically as it was in just a few minutes of work we need to bring this knowledge to the West teach it widely to gifted students and then not sue the folks who through pain, restore our abilities and functions.

To read research on systemic enzyme therapy go to: www.systemicenzymetherapy.com.