New beginning for Parkinson’s sufferer

Phil Tornabene

FOURTEEN months ago Phil Tornabene fell over three or four times a day, was covered in bruises, and was barely understandable when he opened his mouth to speak.

He had two walking sticks, a walker and a mobility scooter to help him get around.

The 70-year-old, Calamvale resident was dealing with the devastating effects of Parkinson’s disease and was looking towards a future of “sitting in a corner in a wheelchair”.

But now Mr Tornabene can speak freely and his walking aids are sitting in his garage gathering dust – all because he took a $25,000 chance on a procedure not available in Australia – and now he wants fellow Parkinson’s sufferers to know the secret.

Mr Tornabene was first diagnosed with Parkinson’s when he was 55, and needless to say, the prolific businessman was “very upset” by the news.

He steadily deteriorated and was disappointed to discover the doctors kept on prescribing him drugs that made no real difference to his condition.

Mr Tornabene and his wife Noeline began searching for alternative treatments and a search on the internet led them to a clinic in Germany which offered adult stem cell replacement.

Mr Tornabene was told the relatively simple procedure under local anaesthetic would have a 30 per cent chance of working wonders, a 30 per cent chance of achieving good results and a 30 per cent chance of doing nothing.

Luckily Mr Tornabene was part of the one third of people who get awesome results.

But a month down the track, he could feel the effects wearing off, so another search led him to some stem-cell enhancing all natural products from New Zealand that stimulate the growth of your own stem cells.

He now calls himself “80 per cent cured” and as he approaches his 71st birthday, he feels like he has been given back his life.

“If you’d seen him 14 months ago, it was unreal,” his wife, Noeline, said.

“To see him be able to get up and walk...it’s just so wonderful.”

Mr Tornabene has now returned to his love of communicating with people, but this time around his main passion is seeing other people get the same great health results he did.

• For more information about Mr Tornabene’s treatment, call him on 3273 7355.