We would like to share a powerful and moving story by Perrin Practitioner Dr Ruby Tam and her patient “JS”.
For background, Dr Tam opened her ME/CFS Minnesota Clinic at the beginning of the year and offers free Telehealth visits and in-person Perrin Technique appointments to uninsured and under-insured people with ME/CFS and Long COVID.
Her free clinic has since received a Gold rating for meeting the quality standards of The National Association of Free and Charitable Clinics and Dr Tam has been vocal about how she wants to devote the rest of her life and career to patients with ME/CFS.
Please note, this story include sensitive content regarding a patients mental health:
Sixteen days after I almost missed the Perrin Technique workshop due to a snow storm in Minnesota where my flight had to be towed back from the runway and got the last stand-by seat of a next day flight to Phoenix through divine intervention, I received an email through my charity clinic website. Mr JS was depressed and hopeless. He was going to kill himself that night until he heard Dr Perrin speak about The Perrin Technique on the internet.
Just like many ME/CFS patients, JS has seen many doctors, e.g. rheumatologists, neurologists, etc for his fatigue and pain. No one has found anything wrong with him. All the tests came back normal. This has been going on for almost ten years.
A high achiever and extremely motivated, JS was a store manager, married with children. He had been working long hours and endured a lot of stress. One day, he suddenly felt a burning sensation down his arm. He sat down, rested, and turned on his computer to read his emails. But the words did not make any sense to him! They were written in English, his primary language, but he could not comprehend them.
After that, he was diagnosed with burnout and had to quit his job. But JS was getting worse. His burning back pain kept him up at night. His brain was in a fog all the time, and he could not learn any new things. Whenever new stress occurred, JS’s body would burn and tremor. He was getting more depressed and anxious. He no longer tolerated the food he used to eat. All the antidepressants his doctors prescribed him caused side effects. He got dizzy when he stood up. The problems went on and on. He saw so many doctors that his medical bills were piling up. Even with spending so much money, he was given no answer to his illness.
On April 17, 2023, JS thought about suicide as an option. He had made the decision and started putting together the plan of how it would be carried out. The decision had been made. For whatever reason, he turned on his computer and searched the internet about chronic fatigue treatment. Dr. Raymond Perrin came on. He was talking in the first video about how the lymph of chronic fatigue patients was not working properly to drain the toxins! “This guy knows what he is talking about!” JS said to himself. He went on to watch the next video, then another video. He decided that he needed to give this a try. “But I don’t think I can find anyone in Minnesota. Not Minnesota.” JS thought. Minnesota is in the middle of the United States, and is one of the most northern states with famously cold winters. Usually, any national experts do not live here. They are found in the east and west coasts of the country, or at least in more metropolitan areas like Chicago or Houston. JS decided to get on Dr. Perrin’s website to find the closest practitioner to him. This was how he found me.
JS lives 1.5 hours away from Minneapolis. We started talking on April 17, 2023 for an hour, then again the next day, then the next week. He has started trying different medications I suggested. He even bought the Perrin Technique patient guide and started doing the Perrin self treatment on his own. He was feeling about 10% better. At the same time, he wondered if my diagnoses of fibromyalgia, dysautonomia, polyneuropathies, mast cell activation, etc were true. With a lot of doubt in his mind, on May 26, 2023, JS finally met me in person for his first in-person Perrin Technique treatment. JS was beaming and hopeful.
JS has done a number of in-person treatment sessions with me now. He diligently does his daily self treatment and continue his weekly treatments with me: “I am feeling better each week. I continue to do the daily routine twice a day. Some days I forget. I am just starting to get some nasal clearing and be able to smell for brief periods during the day. This is a sign to me the fluid in the brain is flowing better and not so much inflammation is present in the brain”, said JS who finally feels his health is going in the right direction!
For a long time, JS had been so congested that he completely lost his sense of smell however he can now smell intermittently! Last week, he was able to smell the coconut oil used during his treatment. He was simply ecstatic!
I cannot thank Dr Perrin enough for his tireless effort in traveling around the world to teach practitioners about The Perrin Technique. Without him, many people would have lost hope in life. Dr Perrin is a treasure for the ME/CFS community. We forever owe him a debt of gratitude.