Has anyone ever recovered from Parkinson’s who didn’t follow the protocols of the Parkinson’s Recovery Project?

Yes. Historically, many people have recovered from Parkinson’s disease. One of the most recent, well-publicized cases involved a German nun with advanced Parkinson’s disease who directed her prayers to the late pope, John Paul II, after his passing. Her subsequent recovery is being used as one of the miracles necessary to support the canonization process.
If these recovery cases are examined carefully, one will see that they have, usually unwittingly, performed the very specific physical and/or emotional changes that we have found to be necessary to recover from Parkinson’s disease. Very often, they performed these techniques along with a welter of other techniques. When they recovered, they were unable to say with certainty which of their methods was responsible for their recovery.
For example, in the case of the nun, she surrendered her emotional resistance over to John Paul II. We have seen that one of the fastest methods for ending heart-brain dissociation is for a patient to surrender to a higher power: to stop protecting his own heart from potential pain and fear, to allow himself to feel safe because he is being protected by a higher, more utter, form of love and protection. Then again, we have also seen that many people with Parkinson’s consider “surrender” to be the terrifying concept, imagining, incorrectly, that “surrender” is the same as quitting, or dying. Even if a person has an unhealed foot injury or a fear from which he has dissociated, utter surrender of the heart can trigger automatic re-association with those injuries or fears that have not yet healed. Healing, after re-association, is a simple matter: the body actually knows exactly what to do with injuries, pains, and fears, if only it is allowed to do its job.
In our research, we have isolated the specific factors that cause Parkinson’s. Working from that basis, we have selected highly specific techniques that are able to heal the specific causative factors of Parkinson’s.
James Parkinson, for whom this illness is named, when describing this illness for the first time, made the point that the illness should not be considered one for which there is no cure. However, in modern times, Parkinson’s disease is defined as incurable. The idea of incurability of Parkinson’s came about during the 1950s, when brain cells were considered to be incapable of change, and nerves were considered to unable to heal themselves. Based on these ideas, that have since been proved wrong, Parkinson’s was declared to be incurable.
We now know that brain cells are in an almost constant state of change and growth. These changes come about in response to usage, thought, and chemistry. We also have learned that nerves can heal.
And yet, the idea that Parkinson’s is incurable has become entrenched. This is not because no one has ever recovered from Parkinson’s; it is because doctors do not know how to medically initiate the cure. Therefore, since the 1950s, when a person recovers from Parkinson’s, the most common response from the medical community since the 1950s is: “That person must have been misdiagnosed or else crazy.”
The research of the Parkinson’s Recovery Project began when Dr. Janice Walton-Hadlock, DAOM (Doctor of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine) stumbled across a particular energetic aberration in several Parkinson’s patients. Correcting that aberration caused the symptoms of Parkinson’s to cease, completely and permanently. This suggests that the symptoms of Parkinson’s, including the dopamine changes, are due to the energy flow aberration. In addition, Asian medicine’s rarely studied, very ancient, channel theory predicts an exact correspondence between the symptoms that should be set in motion via if such an aberration becomes long-term, and the symptoms of Parkinson’s.
Now, more than ten years later, she, and others working on the research, have since found that same aberrant pattern in the hundreds of people with Parkinson’s with whom they have worked. They have not seen these channel patterns in people who have illnesses that are considered to be similar to Parkinson’s, such as stroke, multiple system atrophy, or parasupranuclear palsy.
The work of the Parkinson’s Recovery Project has been to determine the simplest and quickest techniques that will allow for recovery from Parkinson’s disease: the lowest common denominator. We have developed techniques that anyone, even people with no experience in medicine, can easily master. People have recovered from Parkinson’s disease through studying and applying the instructions in the free literature that is available on this website. They do not need to contact the Parkinson’s Recovery Project in order to recover.
Yes, people have recovered from Parkinson’s disease who have not followed our protocols. But if their cases are studied carefully, they have either come to terms with and healed from a long-standing foot injury, or they have changed the way they use their heart to interface with the world. In these ways, they have inadvertently or intentionally dealt either with injury-induced Parkinson’s disease or psychogenic parkinsonism – or both.

Is this treatment guaranteed to work?

There are no guarantees. The rate of recovery is highly variable. In part, this may be because many people with Parkinson’s who have a high degree of dissociation, which provides physical and emotional insulation from pain, have been extremely reluctant to practice the exercises that will cause themselves to feel, finally, some of the physical and emotional pains that they have put on hold for, in some cases, a lifetime – including the pain or fear associated with the foot injury. However, those Parkinson’s patients who have taken the plunge into re-association, in many cases, via very gentle healing treatments rendered to the unhealed foot injury, have been able to recover from Parkinson’s disease. Also, some people with Parkinson’s have only a very small level of dissociation. Those people recover quite easily, once the foot injury heals. The rate of recovery, and whether or not a person can recover, has much more to do with his emotional insulation from pain than it has to do with the severity of his foot injury.
In those patients who are able to easily attain and stay in parasympathetic mode (one of several automatic, neurological modes that regulate heart rate, breathing, and organ function), mere healing of the foot injury seems to allow the symptoms of Parkinson’s to cease.
But in those patients who cannot easily attain or stay in parasympathetic mode and whose symptoms are highly variable from one hour to the next or one day to the next, being particularly worse when they feel anxiety or fear, we have seen a straight-line relationship between the willingness, on the part of the patients, to practice the exercises that restore heart wave and brain-wave coherence (also known as the parasympathetic state, or “calm” state – as opposed to the sympathetic mode’s fight,flight, or freeze state) and the ease of recovery from Parkinson’s disease.
While it may seem strange to a person who does not have Parkinson’s that a person might choose Parkinson’s rather than change his anxiety-based thought patterns or overcome his dissociation from certain physical and emotional pains, this judgment is not fair. Only a person with Parkinson’s can decide whether or not his difficulties associated with Parkinson’s are more painful than the traumas that might be felt keenly if he chooses to re-associate with his emotions and/or injured body parts.

How long will it take to recover from Parkinson’s?

Some people have recovered from Parkinson’s in two months, and others in five years. Rate of recovery depends on a large range of factors. Even those people who recover very slowly usually experience, within a few months, small tangible improvements such as improved facial expression, a return of sense of taste and/or smell, and better circulation in the extremities. For more information on this question, please read Chapter 47 in the book Trouble Afoot.
Click here to go to Chapter 47.

I am taking (or used to take) antiparkinson’s medications. Am I a good candidate for your program?

PRP treatment is not recommended for anyone who has ever taken dopamine-enhancing antiparkinson’s medication for more than three weeks. (issued October 27 2005). For more information about our research with dopamine-enhancing antiparkinson’s medications, and the problems that have developed when people recover who have previously used these medications, please click here.
A book about dopamine-enhancing drugs and supplements is available for free on this website. This book, The Medications of Parkinson’s or Once Upon A Pill, explains how and at what rates the medications work, the lasting brain damage that they can cause, including irreversible drug-induced parkinsonism, and the safest techniques for reducing dosages of medications that have become ineffective due to addiction or that are causing adverse effects due to excessive dosage. This book is based on a four year-research project.

Updated information avialable on Parkinson's Medications-
Update: Determining whether or not a new antiparkinson's medication is "dopamine-enhancing"

What are you selling?

We are not selling anything. The written materials are available for free. We accept tax-deductible donations. The Parkinson’s Recovery Project is a non-profit organization founded in 1998. We provide free information about our findings. The researchers in the Project are volunteers. We are not sponsored by any government or school programs. We are grateful to those who have contributed. They enable us to maintain this website and to keep this work moving forward.

To make a tax deductible donation using a credit card or PayPal, please click on the donate button below.

What evidence do we have to support our claims?

Parkinson’s disease is currently defined as incurable. Anyone who recovers from Parkinson’s is considered by the medical establishment to have been misdiagnosed. Therefore, we do not have any cases of recovery from Parkinson’s that have been verified by MDs, even though we have doctor statements that recovered patients must have been misdiagnosed or must have pretended (!) to have had Parkinson’s.
Ignoring this issue, our best evidence is that we have worked with Parkinson’s patients whose symptoms are now completely gone. More importantly, patients who we have never met have recovered from Parkinson’s by using the material provided in our literature. We have other patients who are partially recovered. For more information about what we mean by “partial recovery” and what constitutes full recovery, please read Trouble Afoot, available for free on this website.
Although many people, understandably, wish to meet with patients who have recovered, we do not give out names of patients. Besides, there is nothing remarkable to see in a person who recovers from Parkinson’s disease. A recovered Parkinson’s patient appears perfectly healthy, as if he never had Parkinson’s disease. A common response from people who meet recovered patients is something like, “That person’s case must have been very mild: he looks perfectly normal,” or “That person could not have had Parkinson’s disease.”
Lacking the funding and the time to make before-and-after videos, and lacking the personnel to treat the thousands of patients that must be treated in order for us to generate meaningful statistics for an illness in which no two patients develop the same symptoms in the same order with the same severity, we must, in these early stages, consider another form of proof: the responses that people with Parkinson’s have when they read our material. I will paraphrase the most frequent sentiment: “When I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, I read up on it. What I read didn’t seem to match up with how I felt. But when I discovered and read the Recovery Project’s material, I felt as if you were describing me. It was uncanny. I never thought anyone could understand how I think and feel. But not only does your hypothesis as to the cause of Parkinson’s make perfect sense; it describes exactly how I feel. And your techniques for treating Parkinson’s make sense: they reverse the underlying cause.”
At this early stage in our research, barely one decade into the Parkinson’s Recovery Project, we are still trying to figure out how to best support our claims. Until such time as we can present indisputable evidence involving at least a thousand people, we encourage people to read through our findings and see for themselves whether or not they make sense. If our findings resonate with a person with Parkinson’s, he can then experiment with the recovery techniques and see for himself whether or not they work.

How do I start?

The best way to start is to read the book, Trouble Afoot. If the hypotheses in the book resonate, try the techniques that we use in treating people with Parkinson’s disease. These techniques are fully described in the free book.

Who in my area is familiar with your work?

We do not give out names of health practitioners. Not many health practitioners are, as yet, familiar with our work.
Because our work is based on principles of Asian medicine, many people assume that acupuncture must be involved in the treatment plan. However, although familiarity with Asian medical theory allowed us to unravel the mystery of Parkinson’s, there is no need for a person with Parkinson’s to work with a person who practices Asian medicine in order to benefit from our findings. For more information on this subject, please read Chapter 47, Frequently Asked Questions, in the bookTrouble Afoot.
Click here to go to Chapter 47.

Can I talk to a patient in your program?

We cannot give out phone numbers. If you wish to communicate with someone who is in the program or who has completed it, please consider joining one of the email lists/chatgroups that have sprung up. We do not sponsor these groups. We understand that they are made up of participants in the program who enjoy sharing with each other the experiences that they are having in the program.
We are a medical research program, and honor all the laws regarding patient confidentiality.

Must my health practitioner be an acupuncturist?

No. Some of our patients with Parkinson’s have recovered with only simple, Yin-type Tui Na, a hands-on, supportive form or mere holding, at the site of the injury. This work can be done by almost anyone who is able to sit still for at least ten minutes at a time. While Yin Tui Na can be mastered by most anyone, very few people have ever studied it. It is not taught in most acupuncture schools. The Tui Na that is taught in acupuncture schools is most often Yang-type (vigorous physical manipulation). The dissociated injuries in people with Parkinson’s are not responsive to this type of work.
The very Yin Tui Na technique of FSR (Forceless, Spontaneous Release) is not difficult to learn, and requires no special training or certificate. Complete instruction in this technique is provided for free on this website. However most people with PD understandably want to work with someone who is experienced. Because almost no one learns these techniques in body-work or acupuncture school – because they are too simple – a person with Parkinson’s will have a very difficult time finding anyone who is already trained in these skills. Most PDers will have to accept a Yin Tui Na therapist who is a friend, family member, or health practitioner who is learning via on-the-job training

Then again, patients with excessive scar tissue, scar tissue that blocks Qi flow in channels may benefit from having the scar tissue broken up with acupuncture, but this is not always necessary. Most acupuncturists have not been trained in treating scar tissue. Treating scar tissue with acupuncture is not difficult; a book is being written that explains the basic principles for enabling the lasting flow of electricity through otherwise non-conductive scar tissue. This book will be posted on this website when it is finished.
In large cities, it may be simple to find an acupuncturist to needle through any scar tissue that is blocking Qi flow. In most cases, scar tissue only needs to be needled once - once the Qi flows through the scar tissue via the needle it will usually continue to flow after the needle is removed at the end of the session. If an acupuncturist insists that scar tissue should never be needled (a “recent” addition to the acupuncture lore, which was added many centuries ago, in the dark ages, and to which some traditionalists still adhere), or that many sessions of distal treatment are more effective than one or two sessions in which the scar tissue is directly needled, seek out a different acupuncturist.
Many patients assume that, because Asian medical theory enabled us to discover the underlying cause of Parkinson’s, acupuncturists must necessarily be the best practitioners to work with this information. This is not the case. Most acupuncturists have been trained in acupuncture. They have not necessarily learned anything about the ancient theories of what the channels are, what forces drive the channels, or even how their paths undergo subtle ebbs and flows, and even pathway modifications and divergences, throughout the day in response to the body’s energy needs. Most acupuncture schools do not teach students how to feel the flow of Qi, although it is easy for most anyone to learn. Although it is easy to detect by hand the dynamic shifts in channel Qi flow that occur with shifts in the autonomic nervous system, which can manifest if a person even imagines shifting between relaxation, danger, or mortal injury, most acupuncturists are surprised to learn that the channels flow in any pattern other than the idealized, parasympathetic state pattern that is taught in the schools to beginning students. Acupuncture students are not taught to make diagnoses based on aberrant Qi flow. To a large degree, this reflects that modern insistence on the part of the People’s Republic of China that channels do not exist. This subject is too large for this introductory text, but is addressed in greater measure in the book, Trouble Afoot. Acupuncture schools tend to teach acupuncture, and the most elementary, basic forms of Asian medical theory and diagnosis. While many acupuncturists have continued their education after becoming licensed, they have not necessarily continued in a direction that would have led them to mastery of channel theory, channel diagnostics or Yin Tui Na.

What is the difference between the Parkinson's Recovery Project and the PD Team?

The PD Team is a working research group, the team members provide various treatments for people with Parkinson's disease and assesses the results of the treatments.

The Parkinson's Recovery Project is an IRS approved non-profit. our mission is primarily educational. We maintain a web program for disseminating, for free, the latest research findings on Parkinson's from the perspective of Asian medicine, with support from western medicine findings.