I commend to your attention the work of Dr. Denise L Faustman. See eg faustmanlab.org and pubmed.org faustman dl. Although I do not have Sjogren's syndrome, I have a blood relative who does and family members who suffer from autoimmune diseases. I have chosen to shoot BCG and see what good, if any, it does. You should study Faustman's work, determine your own questions to ask, and its relevance to your condition.

'Venus and Serena': From Tennis Court to Hospital Bed

A documentary about Venus and Serena Williams turned out to be something the filmmakers hadn't figured on at all

By RACHEL DODES

A new documentary about sibling tennis phenomenons Venus and Serena Williams reveals personal – and not always flattering – insight into their family. How are the sisters responding? John Edwards joins Lunch Break with details. Photo: Magnolia Pictures.

Maiken Baird and Michelle Major spent almost four years talking to Venus and Serena Williams's agents in an effort to convince the tennis stars to participate in the first-ever feature-length documentary about their lives.
They were asking for extraordinary access.
In 2010, at the time of the negotiations, the sisters were ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in the world. It was the first time they had occupied the top two spots in seven years. Although both had struggled with injuries that season, Serena won two Grand Slam titles, and as a doubles team the sisters swept the Australian Open and the French Open.
When the filmmakers finally got the green light to follow them during the 2011 season, the story line took a turn. They'd expected to be conducting interviews from the tennis court, not a hospital bed. In January 2011, just after Ms. Baird and Ms. Major started filming, Venus dropped out of the Australian Open in the third round because of a hip injury, marking the first time she had ever withdrawn from a Grand Slam competition. A couple of months later, Serena, who had been healing from a foot injury, found herself hospitalized because of a pulmonary embolism. By September, Venus announced that she had been diagnosed with Sjögren's syndrome, an autoimmune disease that can cause muscle pain, arthritis and fatigue.

Watch a clip from the film "Venus and Serena," a documentary on tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams. (Photo/Video: Magnolia Pictures)

"We were devastated," says Ms. Major. They had envisioned the documentary as a meditation on competition, "the story of the two of them playing each other in a great match and triumphing."
Venus and Serena, now 32 and 31, didn't play against each other that season. The resulting film turned out to be a rare, dramatic and personal look at girls from gang-ridden Compton, Calif., schooled by their father since they were three and four years old. The film includes little-seen footage from those early days shot by intrepid sports reporters who were intrigued by the story of the girls and their swashbuckling father, Richard Williams.
Mr. Williams, who makes frequent appearances in the documentary, had written a 78-page manifesto planning his daughters' careers before they were even born. (As Venus says in the film, "My parents told me I'd be No. 1 in the world. I was brainwashed.")

Williams Sisters Documentary

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Magnolia Pictures

Serena with codirector Michelle Major

Ms. Baird says that although the sisters were uncomfortable about the portrayal of their various health issues, they had agreed to be filmed no matter what. "They are very serious about their commitments," she says. As a result, a crew filmed them every week—when the sisters let them in— from January 2011 through the end of the season in September 2011. The fact that they were out of the game for most of that time, "ended up being a real advantage for us as filmmakers because we got to spend a lot of time with them outside of the courts, getting to know them in a way I am not sure we would have if they had been on tour the whole time," says Ms. Baird.
She and Ms. Major, who have known each other since the late 1990s—they both worked for Peter Jennings at ABC News—shot some 450 hours of footage of Venus and Serena, including relaxed at-home moments when they are singing a soulful karaoke version of "Hole Hearted" by Extreme, and joking with each other while cooking dinner in the West Palm Beach home they share. Ms. Baird says "there were lots of fights [about what to exclude], even with our wonderful editor," Sam Pollard, a frequent collaborator of director Spike Lee.
One of the most heavily debated issues: whether to include potentially controversial information about the Williams family, such as the fact that Mr. Williams has five (possibly six) other children, with whom Venus and Serena have had little to no contact. There's a scene in which Richard shows up to Serena's practice with a young man who was calling him "dad." When asked about the man in a filmed interview, Serena said, "I have no idea who that guy is." Their mother, Oracene Price, remarks in one scene that if she had one piece of advice for Richard's new wife it would be: "Run. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200." At another point, Richard yells at the camera operator to get out of his face. ("I was driving him crazy," admits Ms. Major.)
The filmmakers ultimately decided to keep the footage, "not because we wanted to be salacious, but more because it speaks to where [Venus and Serena] come from, and makes them relatable," says Ms. Major. "Otherwise you have this superhuman family with these superhuman girls." Ms. Baird adds: "We were trying to make a film that's real, not a commercial." (Nobody in the Williams family had final-edit powers.)
The sisters, however, were not happy when they saw the final cut. The filmmakers say they had "a long talk" with Venus, who as the eldest is particularly protective, before the film premiered last September at the Toronto Film Festival. But they haven't talked to either sister since. The sisters had been expected to attend the Toronto premiere, which came at a triumphant moment because Serena had just won the U.S. Open. But, to the chagrin of audiences, they were no-shows, although the filmmakers hasten to say they never made a guarantee they'd be there.
"We got a maybe, and somewhere down the line everyone thought they were going to be there," says Ms. Major. "Afterward we were like, 'That didn't work.' "
The sisters' attitudes seem to have softened in the past eight months, as "Venus and Serena" approaches its theatrical release May 10 (it's also available on demand). For a screening to be held in New York Thursday night hosted by Billie Jean King and John McEnroe, Serena, who is getting ready for the French Open, made a video introduction. In it, she says that 2011 was "one of the most difficult years of my whole entire life," adding that the documentary is "a really great film" and inviting people to tweet their thoughts about it to her at her personal account, @SerenaWilliams.
Write to Rachel Dodes at rachel.dodes@wsj.com

Stem cells in the spleen: therapeutic potential for Sjogren's syndrome, type I diabetes, and other disorders.

Faustman DL, Davis M.

Int J Biochem Cell Biol. 2010 Oct;42(10):1576-9. doi: 10.1016/j.biocel.2010.06.012. Epub 2010 Jun 18. Review.