Spinal column and related problems
To effectively evolve, rather than walk in circles, one must know one’s physical limitations, be self-critical, and work to correct one’s mistakes. This is true of both the individual and the state. Volodymyr Berseniev, who has worked out a technique producing a metameric effect on the spinal column, giving over 60,000 patients a chance to return to a normal life, believes that the spinal column is the Ukrainians’ most vulnerable area, figuratively and literally speaking. In the literal sense, Berseniev believes that practically every individual is afflicted with osteochondrosis. Figuratively speaking, Ukraine lacks a firm political backbone. Ukrainians, regrettably, haven’t learned to organize themselves. At the roundtable, Berseniev said he had enjoyed communicating with healthy people, considering that he mostly has to deal with patients. Needless to say, The Day enjoyed interviewing such an extraordinary person.
Hanna Sheremet: “Mr. Berseniev, would you please describe some of the problems you’re dealing with professionally?”
Volodymyr Berseniev: “Osteochondrosis actually affects every human being. In a number of cases this affliction is aggravated by neurological syndromes. There are 76 such syndromes and every individual develops one of his/her own. At a closer look, the human spinal column is made up of 23 vertebrae, each with its own problem (handing each roundtable participant a human spinal column plastic model). Most often, such problems occur in the intervertebral discs. There is a bulge in the vicinity of each disc. We refer to this as a spinal ganglion and it receives and conveys all human pains. There are 33 such ganglia on each side. In the human head they merge as a single trigeminal [V cranial] nerve. The neurons of these ganglia keep their respective territories under strict control within the human system — in the bones, muscles, joints, viscera, skin, endocrine gland, and so on. In other words, we have 33 ganglia and 33 [ganglion-controlled] territories.
“Here is a paradox. I received a letter from the US Supreme Court, requesting that I act as an expert. Why? Because most hernia cases involve surgery, with two out of every three suffering [postsurgical] complications. These people find themselves stalemated, considering that 70 percent of such surgeries register negative results all over the world. There are 250,000 such surgeries done in the United States every year. Surgery appears a predominant worldwide practice, which is immoral, considering that actually one out of 300 such patients should be operated on. In most countries health care has turned into another line of business, where mind-boggling sums are earned by taking advantage of human sufferings. As it was, they [i.e., US Supreme Court] turned to me, realizing that mine was the only monograph in the field. That’s the level [on which this problem is being handled].”
H.Sh.: “How could you explain this situation?”
V.B.: “I might have another surprise for you. All osteochondrosis cases start with pains stemming from the sinuvertebral nerve that innervates everything within the spinal column. I looked through the internationally accepted anatomic atlases and found no reference to this nerve. It’s like under Stalin: no man, no problem — and this considering that nine out of ten individuals suffer from such pains, some on a daily basis, others — on and off.”
H.Sh.: “Do you mean this is being done deliberately?”
V.B.: “You know, the medical field has of late been attracting people interested in making money [rather than curing diseases]. I spent some time in Geneva, learning from their medical experience as the world’s healthcare capital city, so I see the current situation for what it’s really all about: healthcare turned into another line of business. Here is my progress report while in Kyiv. I was invited to the capital by the Ukrainian government, back in 1978, tasked with upgrading healthcare. I found myself at the head of a team of specialists in vegetative nervous system disorders, at the Institute of Otolaryngology (later to be reorganized as a laboratory for vegetative nervous malfunctions at the Institute of Orthopedics and Traumatology, later to be reorganized as a Department for Neurology and Pain Problems. One day I was visited by Serdiuk, head of the Science Department, Central Committee, Communist Party of Ukraine. The next day’s visitor was Prodan, number-two of Shcherbytsky, Secretary, CC CPU, and then I found myself being flown to Moscow. At the time there was a very special body known as the Military-Industrial Commission (VPK) under the aegis of the Council/Soviet of Ministers of the USSR; also known as the Kremlin’s A Corps. It united nine Soviet defense ministries. All VPK resolutions were to be carried out, subject to no discussion. I landed there and then learned who was in charge: Lieutenant General Boris Kiyasov (who supervised Sergei Koroliov). My team spent over a decade working to improve Soviet defenses, all the while being financed by the VPK. In the end, the Soviet medical science came up with a new trend that was adopted by the Ministry of Defense and the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, as a top applied fundamental study priority. This research was highly classified and conducted on a very serious level. At the time I could order any kind of equipment at the expense of the central budget. We had at our disposal 800 instruments and 5,000 square meters of premises. This resulted in a number of negative consequences. After they stopped financing the defense programs, the whole department appeared slated for liquidation, something like what had happened back in the 1930s, I mean the dekulakization campaign. They stripped us of all our equipment, assigning units to various institutes, and destroyed a tangible research center. It was then that I set up a private research center formally known as the Institute for Pain Problems. I’ve headed it for the past 15 years. However, any branch of science is meant to add to human knowledge, but there is a difference between what is added to scientific and human knowledge. Scientific knowledge is nothing new; more often than not a discovery is regarded skeptically, if not totally rejected, by the discoverer’s envious colleagues.”
H.Sh.: “Is this attitude germane to our part of the world or the whole medical realm?”
V.B.: “This is part of our Slavic mentality. I’ve spent years working in Switzerland, so I can tell you that they applaud their colleagues’ achievements. Here one’s success makes one’s colleagues loss . Recently I read The Encyclopedia of Human Defects. It lists 105 such defects, with envy topping the list. Why do you think physicians exist at all? They are meant to help fellow humans. What is happening in the medical field is a nightmare! I have treated patients from 57 countries, there is an increasing number of appointments. There are many shortcomings, considering that the Ukrainian medical science is manifestly conservative. The way our patients are treated is intolerable. One of my patients (he’d suffered from tic douloureux) brought his 23-year-old daughter. No surgery indications there, yet she was scheduled for an emergency operation. Absolutely inadequate courses of treatment are prescribed. Each physician has enormous powers, but wielding them takes cultured individuals.
“Let me tell you another story. This happened during the latest presidential campaign. An American lady visited us, accompanied by two gentlemen, a senator and a banker. The lady represented UNICEF, and the Clinton and Gale foundations. Apparently they’d decided to establish an autism treatment center in Ukraine. We discussed the matter as scholars and she told me she had talked with the then minister of health of Ukraine who told her, ‘There’s no autism in this country.’ That’s the kind of environment we have to deal with. A few words about cerebral palsy. What’s the reason behind children’s disability? To use the oil workers’ parlance, there are four pipes: two carotid arteries feeding the hemispheres of the brain (i.e., intellect) and two vertebral arteries linked directly to the cervical vertebrae. These are the most treacherous arteries in the human system. They feed the brain axis, control the heartbeat, breathing, movement, speech, chewing and swallowing food, eyesight — this calls for full-scale blood supply. Anyone aged 50 sustains cervical osteochondrosis that has its effect on blood flow in these vessels. This affliction causes blood flow to make up for lack of supply by pumping blood from the carotid to the vertebral arteries. As our former prime minister [Yulia Tymoshenko] put it, there is a sequestering of the budget, by taking funds away from there and moving them elsewhere. In our case, the most important vegetative organs are placed on a starving diet.”
H.Sh.: “Does this spell lower IQ?”
V.B.: “It’s not a question of intellect but depression, emotional behavior, especially among children (they have to be treated rather than taught!), panic attacks, lower concentration and working memory levels (when one can’t learn anything), let alone one’s dependence on the weather. So many people display these symptoms!”
Maria Tomak: “You’ve been speaking about medical aspects. What about the Ukrainians’ political backbone?”
V.B.: “Medically speaking, the spinal column keeps growing until you reach 21 years of age, so you must stay away from overloading yourself during this period. Otherwise you will develop osteochondrosis. Likewise, you should avoid sports involving jumping. When you are 21 years old, you can use your backbone to handle all kinds of workloads. With women under 21 delivering their babies, the center of gravity remains in the second sacral vertebra. Therefore, if and when shifted, this vertebra will cause the strain on the disks being formed to increase by a dozen times, with the mother suffering from lumbar osteochondrosis for the rest of her life.
“Talking of Ukraine lacking an emotional backbone. This country amazes me. You won’t find a more beautiful one. Its climate is unique. I spoke with the first Swiss ambassador to Ukraine and she said, ‘After arriving in Ukraine I haven’t been able to figure out the situation. You have the world’s best soils, best climate, lots of sun and water. You ought to have the world’s highest living standard… I keep wondering what makes you live so poorly. I arrived at the conclusion that your last sage ruler was Yaroslav the Wise.’ Our MPs should be aristocrats, people who will never hurt anyone else’s feeling, who will never steal. Then there is our level of education. We don’t have many intellectuals and they do not run for parliament. Instead, nonintellectuals were quick on the uptake. The first Verkhovna Rada’s membership showed that ‘we have what we have.’ There are, however, people with a strong backbone. For me Shcherbytsky is an example of a true patriot, as is MP Yermak. They are few. Patriots are brought up on the principle of honor being more important than even life. Unfortunately, money spoils people.”
Oksana Mykoliuk: “You have been offered jobs abroad. Why didn’t you accept any, so you could work without all those problems you face in Ukraine?”
V.B.: “I could leave and work there any time, but I don’t like being abroad. I don’t like their mentality and lifestyle. They’re very boring people. We have a totally different upbringing. I’ve met with the planet’s richest people (a physician is admitted where no one else is and I’m respected for knowing to keep information to myself) and heard their endless confessions. I know the way they live. One doesn’t need too much money, just a certain amount. Their living standard can be higher, but in principle all people live the same way and have the same needs. Under capitalism everything is in terms of money. I’ve met people who haven’t seen anything but money.”
H.Sh.: “Do your staff have enough time for all patients?”
V.B.: “We have developed a system of guaranteed and effective medical help. We have a small team, just thirty people, including six physicians, but we can treat a large number of patients. This is an essentially new ideology and our patients understand it. I explain people with spinal afflictions that they need a complex and consistent course of treatment. In fact, all such problems can be solved, but each takes a different period of time. Our courses of treatment range between 1.5 and 2 years and all recover, I mean those who are resolved to get over their diseases. During this period we also conduct two or three separate courses of treatment. In between these courses the patients follow our recommendations.
“For example, we had a nine-month-old paralyzed girl several years ago; even her lips were paralyzed and she couldn’t be breast-fed. Her recovery took five years. Now she is in Grade 2, in a normal school. An adult nervous system takes 10-16 years to recover. Few are willing to accept this fact. It turns out that doing things in a new way is dangerous in this country. All my former colleagues have left Ukraine and are doing well abroad.
“Also, few want to work professionally and many are just too lazy. And people don’t seem to care about their health; they care more for their cars than their wives. We lack culture.”
The Day’s FACT FILE
Volodymyr Berseniev is the author of metameric treatment techniques; he holds the prestigious title “Merited Physician of Ukraine,” Neuropathist 1st Class, and member of the National Writers’ Union of Ukraine. Graduate of Arkhangelsk Medical Institute (1968); he defended his Ph.D. thesis in 1970. In 1978, the promising young specialist was offered a job in Kyiv where he headed a team studying pathologies of the autonomic nervous system at the Institute of Otolaryngology. The team’s findings did not pass unnoticed and it was reorganized as a laboratory for pathologies of the autonomic nervous system at the Institute of Orthopedics, and later as a Department of Neurovegetology and Problems of Pain. Toward the end of the perestroika campaign, Berseniev’s department became a branch of Kharkiv’s Institute of Neurology and Psychiatry. After the USSR’s collapse, Berseniev spent about 10 years working in the leading clinics of West Berlin and Geneva, but never severing his contact with Kyiv. In 1995, he founded and headed Ukraine’s first private health care center, the Institute of Problems of Pain. Assisted by MP Yermak, the Dr. Berseniev International Charitable Foundation was officially registered in Ukraine. Berseniev is the author of a hundred popular scientific books.
Most importantly, Dr. Berseniev has carried out a fundamental study of regularities of the neurometameric innervation of the human body that served as a basis for technologies of guaranteed effective treatment of chronic pain syndromes and cerebral palsy.
