This is Marcelo Palma, who had the first symptoms of multiple sclerosis in 2006, and has been following the Coimbra Protocol for 8 years. This picture was taken last week in Nicaragua. In 2006, during a surfing competition in Indonesia, Marcelo experienced a feeling of getting shocks through his legs all the way down to his toes whenever he lowered his chin towards his chest. He didn't worry, he believed he had injured his neck during the competition and that it would soon heal. After a few days the feeling disappeared. For the next two years he didn't have any more symptoms, until one night in 2008 when he woke up with a burning feeling in his left arm, as if his skin was touching hot coals. The heat would come, stay for a few minutes, and disappear. Then it would come again. Marcelo was only 26 years old, but he thought he might be having a heart attack, so he got up and drove himself to the ER. The doctors did an EKG which came back normal. They concluded he had a pinched nerve due to so much surfing, and prescribed oral corticoids. Marcelo took the medication and the symptom disappeared. Then, a few weeks later, he had a relapse. He woke up with his left leg tingling, and he was also getting recurrent shocks in both legs. Half of his face, including his gum, was numb. His throat felt hot. He went to his acupuncturist, who told him he needed to see a neurologist. He had MRIs and a lumbar puncture done, and was diagnosed with MS. He went through several sessions of steroid therapy, and started taking an interferon. slowly the symptoms regressed. A few things persisted. though - lessened sensitivity in certain areas of the body, and lessened clarity of vision in one eye. Marcelo went back to surfing, but his balance and his energy level were not the same. The drug also gave him side effects, headaches, weakness, nausea. One day, his mother called him. She had just watched an interview with a neurologsit about the connection between stress and neurodegenerative diseases. At the end of the interview, the doctor had mentioned a promising treatment with higher doses of vitamin D for autoimmune diseases. As soon as the interview ended, she had found the doctor's contact and scheduled an appointment. Marcelo didn't want to go. He had seen a handful of neurologists since his diagnosis, and according to him, they all said the same thing. His mother insisted, and convinced him to give one more try. This is how Marcelo met Dr. Cicero Coimbra, and started his treatment with high doses of vitamin D. He started the protocol and in 15 days he felt stronger, with more energy. Two months later he decided to abandon the interferon. "At the time, I didn't feel like I was abandoning the certain for the doubtful," Marcelo says. "I was abandoning the doubtful for the doubtful. When you research, you find so many patients doing terribly, even though they insist in the conventional medications. I knew that with time it'd happen to me. I decided to do what I wanted." Marcelo has been on the Coimbra Protocol for 8 years. "I've had no more problems, no more active lesions. In my spinal cord, there's no lesions left to be seen, in my brain, just scars of old lesions. My symptoms disappeared, even the shocks, which doctors said was a permanent damage. Now I start my days taking my vitamin D after breakfast. I just don't accept that so many young people, some of them in their twenties, are facing paralysis in a few years, just because they are lacking a few drops, a few capsules." Marcelo's testimony can also be seen in Daniel Cunha's documentary "Vitamin D - for an alternate Therapy". To watch the documentary please see our page "Book & Videos".