Has anyone achieved remission or recovery from treatment by any doctor?
Yes, thousands of people have. The doctor is Dr. Jay Goldstein, who treated over 20,000 patients in his career. Unfortunately, he retired in 2003. This, of course, was long before the founding of PR, and the recovered patients simply went back to their lives, which is why they haven't been heard from. I have been quite ill for 16 years, yet I only found out about PR last year.
Dr. Goldstein stated repeated in his books that he was able to help all but two or three percent of his patients become asymptomatic or nearly so, especially in the last years of his practice. His books are full of case histories that contain many instantaneous remissions. (Dr. Goldstein never uses the word "cure".) A standard test of his would be to take a severe ME/CFS treatment, bring them into an instant remission with one of his medications, and then have them run around the block. If they could do that (which they usually could), he knew the treatment was working.
Although you don't see these stories on PR for the reason I mentioned, you can see some of them in the reviews of his books, Betrayal by the Brain and Tuning the Brain on Amazon.com.
So why aren't other doctors following his protocol? As people who have been around a while know, every doctor has his or her own ideas about ME/CFS, and that is what they specialize in. Also, Dr. Goldstein's work was so far ahead of his time that most doctors couldn't understand it. He had even more trouble getting funding requests than most CFS doctors, because the people reviewing his requests had no understanding of what he was doing. Dr. Goldstein details many more reasons why no one followed him in his books, as he was asked that question frequently.
Fortunately, his books contain all the knowledge necessary to implement his treatment protocol. But they need either an intelligent doctor who is willing to spend the time and energy to learn and use them, or an intelligent patient who is willing to do this on his or her own. It can be done; since I've started this protocol in August, I've gone from a 2 to a 5 on the PR activity scale. An Internet search reveals other people who have achieved complete remissions from following his books alone. I've been slowed down by the fact that I could tolerate almost no drugs when I started, but the Goldstein protocol has been allowing me to gradually overcome that limitation, and in doing so, gradually bootstrap myself up into more powerful treatments.
For more information on PR about Dr. Goldstein and his treatments, along with some very interesting case histories, I would recommend the thread Dr Jay Goldstein's Instant Remission ME/CFS Treatments. I would also recommend searching all the forums for "Goldstein" with author "zzz" to find my other posts, which are in various different places.
Like others, I have seen no evidence that a permanent cure is possible. But as mentioned by Hip, I know from my own experience that long term, complete remissions are possible, and I feel that I am well on my way to my next one.
All of this may sound to many like it verges on the unbelievable, or is simply straight-out unbelievable. My answer is that you need to read the books, and read them carefully. Dr. Goldstein's previous book, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome; the Limbic Hypothesis, is also very valuable, and highlights the connections between the central nervous system and the immune system of which many people are unaware. Recent research has been uncovering even more of these links. Dr. Goldstein used a complete neuroendocrine immune approach, thereby addressing all aspects of ME/CFS, but it takes a close reading of his books to understand how he does this. For those who are up to this task, the rewards can be incredible. For example, for those who know his work, it is clear that his approach and his methods are completely consistent with the findings of the recently-released Hornig/Lipkin cytokine study
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