The Causes of Chronic Illness - Pathogens

First things first.  What is a pathogen?  A pathogen is a generic term for anything that can cause disease.  Pathogens are often sub categorized as viruses, bacteria, fungi, parasites, and prions.  Each of these subcategories of pathogens have been known to cause disease in humans.  Many pathogens are well documented, have known means of identification, and have known means of treatment.  However, for every well-known pathogen, there are many more unknown pathogens with unknown symptoms and outcomes.

Two case-in-points: Lyme Disease and Hantavirus.

Lyme Disease wasn't identified until the early 1970s when an affluent community in Connecticut experienced a wide-reaching epidemic of unknown and debilitating illness (preliminarily identified as rheumatoid arthritis).  The episode garnered the interest of researchers and universities and resources were devoted to finding the cause.  It wasn't until 1982 (almost a decade) until the bacteria that caused the unknown illness was identified.  The reason it took so long was because the bacteria, a spirochete, was really good at hiding in the body and very difficult to find via conventional diagnostic tools.  Click here for an article on the discovery of Lyme's Disease by the Connecticut Department of Public Health.  Hantavirus, a respiratory illness, was first identified by the modern medical community in the early 1990s after several fatalities from an unknown illness in the four corners region of the southwest spurred interest in the disease.  Click here for an article on the discovery of the disease by the CDC.  Hantavirus and Lyme Disease existed before they were documented by the modern scientific community; however, if you would have visited a doctor with these diseases prior to identification they would have been misdiagnosed and you would not have received effective treatment.

Both Lyme Disease and Hantavirus have devastating outcomes - debilitating chronic disease and/or death, which is one of the reasons why they garnered so much attention from the medical community.  Imagine with me, if you will, a scenario where the outcome of an budding but unknown disease or diseases is mild and generic chronic illness.  Would anyone be interested in or put money towards finding out the source of this illness?  Fortunately, the answer to that question is yes.  There are doctors and institutions looking for a pathogenic source for chronic illness (click here to read a few blogs on the subject).  Okay, now imagine with me that this pathogenic source is extremely good at hiding in the body, similar to Lyme disease.  Will it (or they) ever be found?  Good question - only knowable if someone finds one or more pathogens that can be associated with mild chronic symptoms.  The bottom line is that one (or multiple) currently unknown pathogens could be responsible for one or more chronic diseases.

Allergen-Free Recipe - Yam Candy

I cannot recall where I first ran across a version of this recipe for roasted yams - but I do know that it made a huge impression on my taste buds.  Simple ingredients, huge flavor.  You won't be able to stop eating them.


2 Yams
1/4 c. Olive Oil
Salt






(1) Heat oven to 400 degrees F.

(2) Peel yams and cube into 1/2" cubes.

(3) Mix yam cubes with olive oil and salt in a bowl.  Lay out on a baking sheet in a single layer and bake for 20 - 25 minutes until the yams have one side that is caramelized. 

The Limitations of Western Medicine - Side Effects

In 2013 I went to see my doctor for an annual physical.  This was my first time seeing Dr. Michaels for a physical and he went through the standard procedures before asking Is there anything else that is bothering you?  This is a standard question - one that I have heard at virtually every physical, and I always answer it the same way.  Aside from my chronic health issues, nothing.  Instead of casting my answer aside, Dr. Michaels dug deeper, which was completely atypical from most of the other doctors I had seen.  The result of that deeper investigation led to a number of treatments that I follow to this day - including eliminating dairy from my diet - and one that as well-intentioned as it was caused my health to plummet to new lows.  That treatment was for a prescription for Flexeril, a muscle relaxant sometimes prescribed to Fibromyalgia patients.

If a doctor prescribes a drug for a particular ailment, you can be assured that the drug has undergone numerous years of studies to document, among other things, (1) the effectiveness for a particular ailment and (2) the side effects of the drug.  The prescribing doctor is not assuring that the drug will cure your ailment; rather he is making a judgement call that the potential benefits of a particular drug outweigh the potential complications.  

On the whole, prescription drugs are extraordinarily useful in treating illness.  I have taken many prescription drugs where the benefits dramatically outweighed the complications.  However, in certain instances for certain ailments, the side effects of drugs may prove more harmful than good.  In my case, while Flexeril did help me sleep better and feel more energetic during the day, my days were filled with unending anxiousness, nervousness, nausea, and digestive discomfort that forced me to miss important business meetings, collapse while mountain biking, and to deplane from a flight to a good friend's wedding.  On the whole, the side effects of Flexeril added a new dimension to my chronic issues that was worse than anything else I had experienced.  And it took seven months to identify that the Flexeril was the cause.  I have been Flexeril free and side-effect free since June.  And since then, many of the symptoms that I discussed with Dr. Michaels at my physical have been eliminated or minimized through experimentation with alternative therapies.

If you are taking any prescription drugs read the label - understand what the potential side effects are.  If you observe any of the side effects or an increase in your current symptoms, make sure to discuss them with your doctor.

Recommendation (Restaurant) - Juice Nation

Juice Nation is a juice and organic foods shop in the City of Solana Beach, right on Highway 101 and just a block from the beach.  While looking for good places to get a green smoothie, I happened upon Juice Nation and couldn't be happier that I did.  Delicious smoothies.  Organic.  For anyone with nut allergies or intolerance, make sure to ask for a substitute for their smoothie base (a nut milk made in-house).

Click here for the link to the Juice Nation website.

If You Are Suffering... From Tailbone Pain

Tailbone pain can be quite debilitating (as I can attest) and can impact focus at work and sleep, which can further impact your ability to function.  Click here to read my experience with tailbone pain.  Effectively dealing with tailbone pain requires knowledge that many physician's do not have and may not suspect.  So first things first... 

FIRST THINGS FIRST, TRY SELF REHAB

Some obvious ailments can cause tailbone pain - such as a fall that bruises the tailbone or a temporary muscle sprain.  The Mayo Clinic suggest several causes and treatments for tailbone pain prior to consulting a doctor.  Click here to read what the Mayo Clinic has to say on dealing with tailbone pain.  However, the Mayo Clinic's self rehab list omits several prominent causes for tailbone pain that should be included in your search for relief.

OTHER CAUSES OF TAILBONE PAIN

Two additional causes that I have come across (both defined by western medicine) are misaligned joints and referred pain.  The specific misaligned joint is the sacrum, which is the section of spine directly adjacent to the tailbone.  Referred pain in the tailbone can come through two different locations that I am aware of.  Location number one is in the spine itself and is caused when bulging discs impinge the nerve that connects to the tailbone.  Location number two is from a trigger point in the gluteus maximus. 

RECOMMENDED ALTERNATIVE THERAPIES

The following alternative therapies can likely help with tailbone pain.

1. Trigger Point Therapy - One trigger point in the gluteus maximus (Trigger Point 3) is known to cause tailbone pain.  Trigger Point Therapy can help eliminate the muscle tension in the gluteus maximus that is causing the referred pain.  Check out Clair Davies book, The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook. 
2. Stretching - Stretching may help loosen joints or muscles that are contributing to misaligned joints or other mechanical issues that lead to tailbone pain. 
3. Strength Training - Imbalanced muscles (when opposing muscle groups are not equally strong) can cause stress on joints or muscle attachments, which can lead to tailbone pain.  Strengthening the weak muscles can correct this imbalance and eliminate the offending stress.
4. Chiropractics - Tailbone pain can be caused by a misaligned sacrum or bulging disks. 
5. Inversion Therapy - Inversion therapy involves the use of an inversion table, which allows one to flip upside down.  This therapy will help relieve pressure on bulging discs in the spine.  If the cause of tailbone pain is related to these discs, inversion should help
6. Acupuncture -  Acupuncture promotes blood flow, which can help reduce inflammation in muscles that may be leading to the tailbone pain. 
7. Vitamins, Minerals, & Other Supplements - If you have muscle tension or increased inflammation due to vitamin, mineral, or other deficiencies, identifying these deficiencies and correcting them through supplements can augment efforts to eliminate tailbone pain.

WHAT WORKED FOR ME

While conventional stretching, strengthening, and chiropractics temporarily relieved my tailbone pain, I found a long-term solution in unconventional stretching and trigger point therapy.  The unconventional stretching that I eventually stumbled on was sustained daily squatting.  I'm assuming the reason this helped was that is provided long term relief was due to the lengthening of the spine and stretching of my hip muscles.  To assist with these efforts, trigger point therapy helped identify several trigger points in my hips that facilitated tight muscles and one specific trigger point (identified above) in my gluteus maximus that required loosening.

Trigger Point Therapy - Fumbling in the Dark (Part II)

In my quest for effective alternative treatments I often feel like a blind man in a forest searching for the right tree - never knowing when or where I'll find the next tree and always having to investigate to find out if the tree is worthy of consideration.

So it was that I was surfing the web when I came across the website of Dr. Ben King, an acupuncturist and chiropractor in the Toronto area.  One of his posts recommended a book called The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook by Clair Davies for treating myofascial pain.  I usually don't buy books the first time I see them but for some reason I opted to pull the trigger.  Just under 12 bucks and a week or so later, the book arrived to my doorstep.

It sat on a table, unopened for a few weeks while I remained busy with work. One Friday I finally picked it up, began reading, and began fumbling, literally, through the folds of unseen and sometimes hidden muscle.  The book contained diagrams that helped identify muscle groups, the trigger points in each muscle group, and the areas of the body impacted by those trigger points.  While looking at the diagrams, I probed the area searching for the specified muscle.  In some cases, like the bicep, I had no issues identifying the muscle.  However, other muscles, like the scalenes and the psoas, were much more difficult to locate.  When I found a muscle, the next step was to identify any trigger points.  This step was considerably easier than I anticipated.  When pushed, the trigger points caused pain to shoot into the area diagrammed by the book.  In some cases the pain emanated over a foot away from the area I probed.  Pushing on my scalenes (on the side of the neck, attaching to vertebrae and ribs) shot pain to my upper back and down my arm.  Pushing on my pecs shot pain into my shoulder.  Each time I pushed on a trigger point, pain showed up exactly where the book diagrammed.

It took two days to catalog all of my muscles with trigger points - a total that came to over forty.  The next question was what to do about my investigations. 

To read more about my experiments with trigger point therapy, click the following links:

Dr. Travell, the White House Physician of JFK (Part I)
Fumbling in the Dark (Part II)
Oh the Pain (Part III)
Relief (Part IV)

Recommendation (Book) - The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook

On a whim, I picked up The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook, by Clair Davies to give trigger point therapy a try for my chronically tight muscles.  After reading through the first few introductory chapters it was clear that Clair's observations, experience, and training, correlated well with my own observations.

As soon as I dug into the technical chapters, which help a novice identify muscle groups, trigger points, and their referred areas, I was converted into a believer.  I am relatively early in my exploration of trigger point therapy but am amazed by the short-term results and very optimistic that with continued effort they will become long-term results.  Without hesitation, if you have muscle aches, headaches, or other chronic muscle and myofascial issues, The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook is worth your attention.

On Herbs - Ginger

Ginger or Ginger Root is a rhizome best known in America in its use in soft drinks and Christmas cookies and cakes.  Fresh ginger is used in many Asian cuisines, offering a spicy and intricate flavoring to many dishes - the most prominent of which is curry.  I grew up eating a variety of ginger-themed products, mostly the cookies, cakes, and sodas and was routinely advised to drink ginger ale if my stomach was upset.  Ginger is advocated by many alternative traditions, including Chinese medicine and Ayurveda, and has gained authentication as a valid therapy in western medicine. Ginger is a Group A herb for certain uses including an upset stomach and and a Group B herb for a wide variety of other uses.  For more on group classifications see the On Herbs post by clicking here. 

The Science

The science is in - Ginger has been documented as helpful with nausea according to the NCCAM and has also been approved for treatment for motion sickness by Germany's Commission E (Germany's equivalent to the US Food & Drug Administration).  This gives credence to the long-held tradition to drink ginger ales for an upset stomach.  However, I will note that virtually all commercially available ginger ales now contain no ginger (or ginger in such small quantities) that they are unlikely to be more than placebo. 

Additional Potential Uses

Ginger is also believed to aid in digestion, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, and joint and muscle pain.

My Personal Experience

I've been using ginger for a long time to ease nausea and reduce inflammation.  Ginger teas have helped immensely with nausea in the past. 

Preparations

Ginger Tea
Orange Ginger Smoothie

Click here for the alternative road recipe page, which will include recipes for all preparations listed.

Additional Resources

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has a Natural Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) that talks about the science on Ginger.  Click here to read what the NIH NCCAM has to say on the subject.

The University of Maryland discusses the science and current studies on Ginger.  Click here to read what the University of Maryland has to say on the subject.

Allergen-Free Recipe - Ginger Tea

True ginger tea has a nice peppery bite, which is full on in this basic version of ginger tea.

1 Nub of Ginger, Approx. 1/2" Long
1 c. Water

(1) Mince Ginger.

(2) Boil Water.

(3) Combine and allow to steep for 5 - 10 minutes.