“I just couldn’t function. It was awful. I went to see two different specialists and both of them told me I needed back surgery.” Jason Wachob’s back pain was so bad he could barely walk. At the time the entrepreneur was running a new company, constantly flying around the country and cramming his 6-foot body into tight plane seats. He was traveling so much that he would often wake up not knowing what time zone he was in.  The stress and the constant compression of his body in unnatural positions resulted in crippling back pain. Jason had two extruded disks... Read full article »

"There's absolutely a potential within the human body to recover from a major illness. It only has to be done once to show it's possible." Ian Gawler was only 26 years old when he was told his cancer was incurable and he had weeks to live. He’d been first diagnosed with bone cancer in his right leg in 1974 and doctors decided amputation from the hip down was the best treatment for the young athlete. But despite the major surgery, the cancer spread to his chest and his pelvis. As a young veterinarian, Ian had seen animals healing against the... Read full article »

“It’s not the hand you’re dealt, but how you play the cards.” Professor George Jelinek was the head of an Emergency Department in a major Australian hospital when one day, while doing his rounds he felt a strange sensation in his feet. In a matter of days he was numb from the waist down. When a scan revealed lesions on his brain he learned he had Multiple Sclerosis (MS), the same disease that made his mother take her own life in 1981.  At the time of his diagnosis George was at the height of his career, working countless hours as... Read full article »

"If I let my stress and my emotions get out of control there’s no doubt it could happen again." Craig Duncan didn’t believe his doctor when he was told he’d had a heart attack and was lucky to be alive. The 43-year-old is a leading sports scientist, who works with elite Australian athletes. He was in peak physical fitness.  He ran regularly. He was vegetarian and did not have high blood pressure or high cholesterol. But Craig had suffered a Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection. "When I looked up the literature – there had only been a hundred and fifty cases... Read full article »

“All my testing was normal. All the signals were happening at the right time and still, nothing happened.” Ann Salerno was 33 years old, had been newly married and was ready to start a family, but after trying for six months to conceive she started to despair. She went to a fertility specialist who told her everything was normal and there was no reason she couldn’t conceive a baby. As a specialist doctor who cares for children with kidney disease she was working with children every day, and with every month that passed and she wasn’t pregnant, her pain grew.... Read full article »

This is a picture I don’t like to look at. This is what it feels like to have an autoimmune disease.  My muscles are aching. My joints are inflamed. I’m exhausted and worried. I don’t know when this will end. It’s not the life I’d planned for myself, and no one seems to have any answers.   I remember the day I was first diagnosed clearly.  I’d flown into Sydney to see a specialist rheumatologist. I was hoping he could tell me why I felt constantly exhausted and had painful joints and muscles. It had come on quickly and I... Read full article »