For a bigger list of patient comments, please refer to www.pamspeople.org

TESTIMONY BY BHAKTI PREMA DAS (HARE KRISHNA MONK)

Dear Gerald Fearnley, I want to express my heartiest thanks to you, since your have done a miracle to improve my chronic back problem and sciatica.  My posture has improved dramatically for the first time in my life, so that I can stand up straight instead of being bent forward. By utilizing the PAMM machine as a super-bionic powerful tool in your fully expert hands, you managed to fashion my back according to its perfect posture.

The result is that my back has become much more flexible, the small hump has been expertly removed naturally and my shoulders are level as they should be, instead of one higher than the other.

I tried other therapies previously such as massage, Rolfing, Bowen technique etc. but they did not permanently and significantly improve my posture and low back pain.  But I must say that I am now on a winner with a permanent and miraculous cure in the fully experienced person of Gerald with his wonderful tool, the PAMM machine.

My grateful thanks to you for being so kind to me and as an uncle, and for your caring and very personal spirit, without primary concern for financial gain, resulting in a much stronger and healthier back in my case.

Yours with warm regards and indebtedness. Looking forward to seeing you soon.

   ........................................................................

 

Copyright Gary Clarke - author of Live Forever or your Money Back : How We Age, How We Die, and How Not To! 2007

New Backs for Old!

This is the short story of how two remarkable people helped me step back from the brink of painful deterioration and a premature end. Yes, this sounds dramatic, but it's no overstatement, I assure you.

I've been researching and writing on aging and its effects for the better part of thirty years. Occasionally something pops up that's really worth writing about. One of these is the astonishing treatment offered by The Back Care Clinic run by Irene Phillips and Gerald Fearnley For those of you with even a passing interest in bad backs or getting old might take note, because it seems that the two are closely linked.

Over the years, I experienced a steadily deteriorating condition caused – in large part – by my back. By the age of about 37, dangerous sports, car accidents and general mayhem had left me with two unstable knees, a shattered right ankle and a broken left foot. I have I suffered two deep vein thromboses, and endured five operations on my right leg with little improvement. Then, in 2001, I was hit by a van and was on crutches yet again, this time with a badly bruised right hip that appeared to seize solid. In fact, after relentless deterioration my right leg appeared to be seizing solid. I could walk, but only with severe pain. I became a little less mobile with every year that passed.

This accumulated bad posture and joint damage took their toll. By age 50, I had increasing kyphosis and scoliosis, the characteristic curving and twisting of the spine you see in so many older people. I was aging prematurely and there appeared to be nothing I could do about it.

We all have to go sometime, they say, and I saw it clearly. My life would not end at a nice clean precipice that I would eventually fall off. Instead, I was hobbling relentlessly down a long, painful slope. I wouldn't go out with a bang, but a slow, painful whimper. 

At the age of 54, I read a newspaper report on aging that stated, "deterioration as a result of aging accelerates after the age of fifty-five". You could stave off the worst effects of aging up to that point, and then it was downhill all the way.

I was incensed! It seemed to me that this could only serve to scare every fifty-four-year old half to death. Yet things did start to slide very soon afterwards.

This is where I made the connection, between aging and bad backs: I had the spine and posture of a much older man, and was adopting this older state of being. Please note the term adopting. It's this agreement with the status quo that I identified as the principal cause of aging.

As I soon learned, an old spine has the strong potential to age you. The intervertebral discs, ligaments, tendons and the spinal bone itself deteriorates and becoming misaligned. This irritates the surrounding nerves, bones, discs, ligaments and other soft tissues. This condition is vertebral subluxation complex. By age forty, over 77% of people exhibit moderate disc degeneration and by the time you notice its effects, it's often too late.

I doubt it's any coincidence that most old people have bad posture. You can see this effect in the life-sized subluxation degeneration model displayed in any chiropractor's office. There are four classic stages starting with mild curvature and loss of normal spinal balance.

From Phase 2 onwards, length decreases, joints are stressed, discs and nerves deteriorate, compromising the vital life energy that flows along your spine. The discs narrow and bony deformations occur. The spinal canal may narrow. Common aches and pains, fatigue and increasing feelings of stress may surface. Eventually, postural imbalances become evident. Permanent scar tissue forms and both physical and mental disability may set in. Permanent loss of height and loss of energy are common. The condition may become severe enough to limit motion and eventually bones begin to fuse. Here, we find pain, various degrees of physical or mental disability, and a further decrease in energy and height. By now, chiropractors consider the condition irreversible.

The vital life energy that flows along our spines can reduce from stage 1 onwards. As the spine compresses, the body shortens and connective tissue shortens to compensate. However, the chief characteristic of these changes is that of aging. By the time we reach Stage 4, we find various degrees of mental disability and further loss of energy.

There's an obvious chicken and egg situation here. Does spinal deterioration cause aging, or does aging cause spinal deterioration? I suspect the answer is both. I was at degenerative stage 2.5 by the time I woke up to this alarming condition - halfway towards irreparable damage. This will be a familiar tale to many. I awoke one day and couldn't move. After 25 years of limping, my damaged knees gave out in 2002, and I couldn't climb stairs. I stopped cycling altogether. I felt as though I was in a sealed room with the walls closing in on me, day by day by day.

Besides increased infirmity and reduced mobility, your options diminish with age. You have less time than yesterday, there are fewer things you can do, places you can go, or people you want to meet. There is only deterioration and a premature end to contemplate.

Sound familiar?

Then, having made the connection between aging and spine, a thought triggered; if I could fix this problem, perhaps I could fix my premature aging. I scoured the web, desperately seeking a solution, because it seemed to me that unless I could fix this, I could fix little else. Sure enough, the trail led through endless thickets to a new technique called Power Assisted Micro Manipulation – PAMM - and from there to Irene Phillips and Gerald Fearnley in Worcester Park, just outside London.

For over twenty-five years I had tried every conceivable manipulation: Alexander Technique, Rolfing, physiotherapy, osteopathy, chiropractic, the Bowen Technique, acupuncture, acupressure plus every kind of massage, and countless sessions of stretching, bending and exercise of one kind or another. Each has worked to greater or lesser degree, but PAMM is on another plane completely.

The problem with all 'conventional' back treatments is that they manipulate the spine forwards and backwards, but not along its vertical axis. A practitioner will 'bend' your back forwards and backwards to 'pop' the vertebrae joints, so loosening the general 'stiction' that binds them together. This provides great relief to millions of people, me included. PAMM, however, elevates manipulation to an entirely different level.

As I learned, the spine is a series of vertebrae linked by faceted joints that work in remarkable ways. A model of the spine shows little outriggers or 'pedicles' attached to each vertebrae. PAMM works by applying a brief and gentle pressure to adjacent pedicles, twisting each joint in its lateral plane, rather than its front-to-back plane.

You can simulate this for yourself. Thread a piece of string with some beads. Pull it tight and knot it to form a stiff rope and you have something resembling a spine. You can bend your whole string easily enough, and can twist any two beads once against the other using your fingers. Then imagine that this is a real spine, buried in a mass of cartilage and muscle. Then try to figure a way to twist one bead against the other. You can't! But PAMM can, and this is the genius of the technique.

PAMM uses compressed air to drive a small handset with four tiny 'plungers' that form a square perhaps two inches on each side. These plungers oscillate according to complex patterns calculated by the practitioner. By applying the handset astraddle the spine, Irene and Gerald provide a gentle twist that unsticks the faceted joints, allowing life-giving nutrients, lubricants and sheer life energy to flow once more.

The results, for me, were nothing short of miraculous. I have now been pain free for about 4 years, but more remarkable, is the increased movement, flexibility and sheer life I recovered along the way. And there is more.

The worst aspect of aging is that dread feeling that you have a past, but no future. Your horizon shortens. The four walls of your room close in. You have nowhere left to go. Yet I am delighted to report that my walls are receding. My horizon is extending. I am no longer a product of my past; I have a future!

I feel privileged to have made a remarkable journey of discovery with two remarkable people. I have gained new life. I wrote this article in the hope that you might gain some too!

Gary Clark is author of Live Forever or Your Money Back: How We Age, How We Die, and How Not To!

The Back Care Clinic is at 2 Station Approach, Worcester Park, Surrey KT34 7NB 0208 335 3787

And 12 Harley Street, London W1G 9PG 0870 240 7972 www.backcare.org e-mail backcareclinic@yahoo.com

 

LETTER IN POSITIVE HEALTH November 1998

POWER ASSISTED MICRO-MANIPULATION

I just had to write and thank you for printing the spread on the P.A.M. in your magazine in June 1998. I have suffered from a whiplash injury for the last five years and eight months.  I have had so many different types of treatments, years of physio, acupuncture, manipulation under anaesthetic, TENS machines, pain killers every single day, muscle relaxing tablets every single night so I was able to get some sleep, headaches most of the time and migraines with vomiting at least twice a week.  I tried as I could to get on with my life the best I could,  even thought I have not been able to work since my accident.  Then all that changed. I was really scared of trying this new treatment and thought "Well, magazines always make it look better than it really is don't they?"

So, off I went. The first treatment wasn't as bad as I thought it might be.  I had taken painkillers before I went, otherwise I could not have driven there. The thing I was most afraid of that it would make me worse. I could not stand the P.A.M. high on my neck, so Irene Phillips took things really slowly.  Anway, to cut a long story short, I was certainly no worse; I had more movement in my head and neck than I've had for years.

The next week I felt a little better each day, and I noticed that I hadn't had any migraines. Wow, that was good in itself. During the second treatment I was able to stand it a lot higher up on my neck, so Irene went to work on me and, by the time she had finished I felt great.

I must admit, over the next few days I kept waiting for it to go wrong. Every who saw me kept telling me that I looked musch less strained, no frowning all the time.

So, now I have had four treatments and, as they say "I FEEL GOOD!" I have not taken any pain killers or muscle relaxants in a few weeks now. Can you belive it? I can't. It's really brilliant, I have my life back and it's wonderful.

Please, if you suffer with your back, please believe me - don't just sit there, go and get some treatment. The P.A.M. and Irene Phillips has changed my life.

Thank you so much. Mrs Maggie Spencer

Letter from Maggie Spencer published in the BackCare Association's  TalkBack Magazine Spring 2004

PAM TREATMENT WORKED FOR ME

Dear Editor,

I felt I just had to write after reading your comments on the PAM (TalkBack January 2004 page 7) asking for any evidence that the treatment works.

I feel that I am that evidence; it worked for me.

At the time of treatment I was 37 and had had a car accident 5.5 years before. I had been in chronic pain every day after that, suffering from what the doctors called a "whiplash".

I had a number of different treatments - acupuncture, loads and loads of physio, manipulation under anaesthetic and I used a TENS machine.

But I could barely move.  I was not living.  I was having muscle spasms, being sick, having migraines. I took so many drugs but I couldn't even sleep because of the pain.  It was hell! None of it worked.

Then I went for a "PAM" treatment and after just two visits I walked out with no pain. It was incredible! It was wonderful to be able to turn my headm take no drugs, live again.

Now I am living life to the full and even horseback riding.

I went for a treatment last week for the first time in a few years now and it was lovely; my back and neck are now in good health.  So I hope you can see why I think I have the evidence you are looking for

Maggie Spencer

From HT to a friend of hers,

This is from CM from Southampton:

Where to start, When I was about 13 years of age I was diagnosed with scoliosis.  I was issued with a brace for the problem but did not wear it very often as I felt like Herman Munster when wearing it.  Since my youth, I have suffered with constipation and have been issued with laxatives with all my life, together with skin problems up until about 2 years ago.

Many years ago now, at least 20, I was travelling home with my husband when I started to feel strange.  It began with pins and needles in my fingers and I could feel this sensation travelling up my arms to my shoulders, then I blacked out.

Obviously I went to the doctor with this problem and as a result of seeing various specialist I was diagnosed with epilepsy.  As a result I had surgery for this problem and in fact the surgeon decided that the scar tissues on my brain was a result of chicken pox or measles in my youth.  Before the operation I did show him the X-rays of my spine, as I thought he would be interested, but he just said "I am interested in your brain, not your spine".

I have been to many doctors, skin specialists with my problems and they would give me hydrocortison for the problem.

Whilst being diagnosed with epilepsy, I was working for the Constabulary.  They were not very sympathetic and in fact I resigned as a result of their treatment in 1996.

Two years ago Now if read an article in the Express about PAM and decided to give it a try.  The results have been fantastic. I now feel like a new person, my constipation is nil and my skin problems and have vanished now my scoliosis is reduced.

When I first attended the clinic I awa Irene.  She was very caring and as a result of her measuring my height I have grown 2".  After a year I felt so much better and to helo me pay for my treatmentm I decided to work for the Royal Mail. I use my own bike whilst doing this job. At the present time the Royal Mail do not want me but I do feel that it has done me a lot of good.

After a few months of treatment, she decided that her partner should have a look at me and since seeing Gerald I feel the treatment has been wonderful and I am very interested in the work they do.  People come up to me now and tell me I look wonderful. I just wonder what they thought of me before!

Since seeing Gerald, many people have been interested in my treatment and I have told everyone about it.

The only problem I have is that Worcester Park is quite a distance from my home near Southampton, but the journey/travelling time has been worth every penny.

I only wish I new about this treatment years and years ago, as I did not realise the difference it would have on my life.

I now have bags more energy and as I said before only wish I had received the treatment years ago.

I would just like to add that the new Posture Trainers are wonderful and I am building up to wearing them as much as I can.