Recommendation (Website) - Dr. Ben King

My latest method for searching the internet for plausible alternative therapies is to type in a symptom combined with another keyword.  For example I'll type muscle pain and oxygen, which brings up a number of interesting leads.  Most of the websites that I come across are aggregator sites such as livestrong.com or the huffingtonpost.com or superficial websites designed to give no or misleading information in an attempt to get you to buy whatever products they are selling.  However occasionally, I come across a website with information that appears, to me, to provide actual content.

One website that I recently found was that of Dr. Ben King, an acupuncturist and chiropractor in Toronto.  I have read some very insightful articles on health, symptoms, and treatments on Dr. King's website and thought I'd share.  Click here to be taken to Dr. King's 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)

If You Are Suffering From... Chronic Headaches

Chronic headaches...what a nightmare.  Headaches can range from low grade (buzzing in one's head) to severe (migraines) - each with different but ultimately negative impacts to daily life.

FIRST THINGS FIRST, GO SEE YOUR DOCTOR

Some very serious conditions can cause chronic headaches.  Click here to read what the Mayo Clinic has to say on chronic headaches (including some alternative medicine recommendations).  If your doctor rules out the known serious conditions that can cause chronic headaches, alternative medicine can likely help.

"UNKNOWN" CAUSES OF CHRONIC HEADACHES

The theory that I find most plausible for the causes of "unknown" chronic headaches is chronic inflammation (that either leads to or accentuates a physical imbalance - e.g. muscle tension- or chemical imbalance) due to one or more of the following: (1) dietary sources of inflammation, (2) nutrient deficiency, (3) chemical exposure.  Diet and nutrient deficiency are fairly easy to test.  Chemical exposure, however, is a much more tricky subject.  Chemical exposure can come from a variety of sources, including hygiene products, food (primarily preservatives, herbicides, and pesticides), water (municipal water is fairly well regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency- unless a company spills chemicals into your water supply as happened recently in Charleston, WV - so I would be more suspicious of well water, especially if you live near any form of industry and possibly agriculture), the environment (including materials used in your home such as lead based solder or drywall with formaldehyde), and the air (such as carbon monoxide infiltrating your home from a garage or faulty furnace, radon in your basement, and air pollution from industry). 

RECOMMENDED ALTERNATIVE THERAPIES

The following alternative therapies can likely help with chronic headaches.  My belief is that health is not sustainable without dietary change.

1. Trigger Point Therapy - Several known trigger points cause or accentuate headaches.  Trigger Point Therapy can help eliminate any muscle tension that is causing or accentuating the headaches. 
2. Elimination Diet - Performing an elimination diet, as prescribed herein, performs two functions including eliminating all common food allergens/irritants from your diet and increasing your nutrient intake (if done properly).  These two functions help address both dietary sources of inflammation and nutrient deficiency.  Click here to find guidance on performing an elimination diet. 
3. Herbs - Herbs, specifically butterbur has been scientifically proven to be beneficial in migraines.  Click here to find additional information and guidance on the use of butterbur.
4. 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 chronic headaches.
5. Acupuncture -  Acupuncture promotes blood flow, which can help reduce inflammation and may help with chronic headaches.
6. Product Elimination Trial - Modern hygiene products are full of chemicals that may promote inflammation in your body.  By identifying sources of inflammation from these products, you can reduce their contribution to any headaches.

Needles, Fishbowls, and Herbs

Let's pretend that you are the sick one for a moment. You've been sick for years with a lot of difficult symptoms. You have been to multiple western doctors and had umpteen loads (a very precise number) of tests. All of your normal doctors tell you you are a normal and healthy human being. You know you are not. And I know that you are not. Fortunately for you, I have a friend who thinks they can help. This person practices acupuncture. Because I think you deserve to know what you're getting into, I decide to tell you how your journey will begin.

First, my friend is going to make you undress and get into a paper nightgown. Then she will take your pulses. This is not western medicine, where you and I are familiar with one pulse. This is acupuncture where you have multiple pulses, all taken at about the same location on your arm. Then, my friend is going to evaluate your tongue. It may look swollen or a slightly wrong shade of red, but don't worry that is treatable. But here's where your journey gets really interesting. After the evaluation my friend is going to stick needles in you. Not just one or two, but maybe two dozen. The needles don't hurt, but you are very aware that they are in your shins and hands and feet and arms. My friend leaves you; you begin to feel a little drugged and eventually nod off to sleep until my friend comes back over an hour later. You turn over onto your stomach. In go more needles. They are up and down either parts of your spine, in your neck, in the backs of your legs. After another hour you are done. My friend tells you that you may be ill after the first treatment. And you are. That evening you can barely lift your head. You are nauseated. You ache. Your muscles feel heavy and tired. Your digestive system is upset. You feel feverish. It will last an entire week, but don't worry, you have another acupuncture appointment the following week, after which you will be ill again. Again, don't worry. Soon my friend will also give you herbs (all legal, of course) and then heat very tiny fishbowls and put them on your back to such out all of the toxins.

If you grew up with traditional western medicine, then by now you probably think I'm crazy. But here's the thing - acupuncture has been around for thousands of years; and it is a central method of health care for hundreds of millions of people. It also happens to be covered by your health insurance. So why not give it a try?

Acupuncture Begins

On 5/28 I went to my first acupuncture appointment. The diagnosis was foreign. I had too much heat. I was damp. My triple heater pulse was weak. The solution - boost my immune system.

Needles went in my legs, feet, arms, and hands. I felt anxious, then like I was drugged. Close to two hours passed. The needles came out. I rolled over onto my stomach. Needles went in my neck, down my back, and in my feet. Again, I felt drugged. Another hour passed. The needles came out.

I was warned that I might be sick. I was. I was tired, nauseated, groggy, light-headed, thirsty. My digestive system crashed. It lasted for the entire week.

Yoga Bliss

Shortly after a doctor confirmed that I had a neck injury, my wife and I debated paying for yoga classes. We looked at yoga studios and gyms. They were expensive, and I doubted that I would have the energy and motivation to go. In-house yoga, that I could do whenever I wanted with minimal energy, was preferred. We tried videos. We stopped trying videos. We tried the Nintendo Wii Fit Plus yoga program. Jackpot.

My goal was to do all 18 yoga exercises (for a total of 36 minutes) every day for two months.

The first week was amazing. My back loosened up and my energy level skyrocketed. I felt better, looser, and freer, even though I didn't have enough flexibility to do some of the poses properly. My hamstrings, back, and IT band - extraordinarily tight. Poses like the Triangle, Downward Dog, Sun Salutation - difficult. But they felt good. The tree pose stretched my spine in a way I had never felt. My outlook - very optimistic.

Weeks two through four continued with much of the same optimism. My neck felt much stronger than it did before I started. The pain in the right side of my pelvis lessened. My flexibility noticeably increased. I could focus at work. In the first three weeks, I gained four inches of flexibility in my back and legs(when trying to touch my toes). In week four, I actually touched my toes, something I had not been able to do in over a decade. My optimism skyrocketed until the beginning of week five...

My Alternative Road

The four aspects to my alternative road:

(1) Exercise
(2) Diet
(3) Fasting
(4) Acupuncture

More to come on these...

New Year's Eve

My head injury occurred on October 25. Typically, concussions take between 4-6 weeks to clear up. A small percentage linger on for longer, sometimes indefinitely. At Christmas, my concussion was not better. I was tired of feeling ill.

My parents treated my wife and I to a big band concert at the Majestic Theater in downtown Gettysburg. The music was decent. I felt like dancing. My wife and I braved the dance floor at the beginning of the second set. Within seconds, my mouth fell dry. We continued to dance. At the end of the song, I could barely breath. We sat down. I could barely contain the cough of a dry throat that water could not quench. My head hurt. My heart beat thumped at the top of my neck, where spine meets skull. I barely heard another note of music for the rest of the evening. That evening I had a revelation. My concussion was also a neck injury. When in New Zealand, I would wake up, my neck on fire. Back in the states, I couldn't move my neck without pain while driving. A neck injury was the only thing that made sense.

I went back to my doctor. He said that I most likely had a neck injury. I should move and strengthen my neck to fix a neck injury. I started to do yoga at home. I also went to see a new doctor, an Osteopath. After ten minutes, my new doctor confirmed that I had two strained vertebrae. Our conversation wandered. We talked about my long-term issues - food intolerance, abdominal pains, fatigue, and everything else that I had been going through. He suggested acupuncture. I wasn't sold. But I did begin to think about alternative means to health.