Physician suffering from ARMD

The Austrian Medical Journal: Medical Tribune

By Rudolf Stern, MD

Acupuncture helped me.

I am 80 years old and have worked as a doctor for 40 years. I retired, when I was 70 years old.

The last 25 years, which is to say the last 15 years of my being a doctor, calcification of the eye (Macular Degeneration ARMD) has slowly developed in my eyes. I suffered from small disorders in the eyes, which did not hinder me from doing my job, except for more difficult procedures as for example the removing of foreign objects from the cornea. Later, when I retired, my condition worsened, and the last 3 years I was no longer able to read.

Of course, I went to consult eye-specialists already when the first signs appeared, and as it grew progressively worse, I have consulted other experts and capacities within the science of opthalmology.

I was given a remedy to improve my circulation, vitamine a and e, injection-treatments and so on, which was supposed to keep the disease from getting any worse. There is no medical treatment, which can improve calcification of the eye (Macular Degeneration ARMD).

I was told by these experts, that Macular Degeneration was a degeneration, and what was dead could not be brought back to life.

By coincidence, in the beginning of 1998, I was told that in Denmark was an acupuncturist, John Boel, who was specifically engaged in the treatment of eye-diseases, among other things Macular Degeneration, and with his method, you could obtain an improvement in about 60% of all cases.

At this point it is important to mention, that I was a old-school medico (had an acceptance of authority as to what concerns medical treatments) – I had never believed in acupuncture and other alternative treatments. The news that there was an approximately 60% chance of improvement was a bombshell in our doctor-family. I said, that I thought it was humbug, but my wife – it just goes to show how wise and superior women are to us men – said straight out: “Let us just go to Denmark, and if it does not work, we can enjoy a nice holiday there”.

I decided to try, if nothing else, then just to please my wife.

Acupuncture treatments twice a day for five days in february 1998, after which acupuncturist John Boel said to me: “You can just go home now. If you think, that there is an improvement within five weeks time, you should continue the treatment with a doctor in Austria, who has learned it from me”. After three weeks, I could feel a subjective improvement. There was also an objective improvement. I could ascertain this from a visual testing board. So I continued the treatment with an Austrian doctor trained in acupuncture 2000. May 1998, I went to Denmark again for two weeks of treatments at the Boel clinic. Since then, I receive treatments once a month to keep it up. I can ascertain that I have obtained a considerable improvement of my sight.

This is very good, as all experience says that degeneration gradually worsens with age. Now, I can read with a magnifying glass, and that was not possible before the treatments done by Boel.

Acupuncture and regular medicine has something in common. The chances of both a cure and an improvement are better the sooner you get started on a treatment.

I find it very sad, that all the eye-specialists, I have encountered, did not know anything about this kind of treatment, or that they – because of their arrogance – did not want to know anything about it.

That way, I have been walking from Saul to Paul.

Dr. Rudolf Stern, MD

Kitzeck. Austria