Hello,
I am suffering from 2 herniated discs and very bad sciatic pain down my left leg. I have been trying pilates and physical therapy, but wondered if any of you have had experience with foods or activities that can heal a degenerated back.
My doctor is pushing surgery and I want to avoid it at all costs.

Thanks in advance!

Love,
Nicole

Hi nicole. sounds like my post... I've been dealing with back problems for more than ten years. I have 2 herniated discs, one in my neck, one in my lower back. Pinched nerve in the neck travels down left arm. Pinched nerve in lower back travels down left leg. Both very very painful or should I say used to be... I've tried everything for my back problems including, chiropractic, message, rolfing, yoga, stretching, herbs, and more. I was scheduled for neck surgery a year ago (which I cancelled...so glad I did).
I've noticed the greatest improvement with my pain since going on a raw diet, cleansing and some fasting. For me the difference between the way I was feeling 6 months ago and the way I feel now is nothing short of miraculous.

I wonder how long you have been on the raw food diet... if you're just getting started I would recommend sticking with it 100% for 6 months and see how your back is feeling before doing the surgery. Just my opinion.

I've had some very intense periods with back problems so bad that I could hardly walk, couldn't drive, sometimes couldn't get out of bed.
I am not totally without pain now but I am able to function and I no longer take pain control pills.

Thank you so much for sharing your story. It is very encouraging!
Nicole

Hi Nicole! Sorry to hear about your back problem. I've been there and done that. I tried almost everything, exercises, adjustments, doctors, meds, etc.

I finally came across a doctor who feels like a lot of back problems and other medical issues are psychosomatic. You might want to look into his books and see if you find yourself in his descriptions. I lived in New Jersey at the time and was able to go to the city (NYC) to see him and be examined by him and to attend his lectures. That was 20 yrs. ago. He saved me from having surgery and I will be forever grateful to him. I know so many people who are only helped temporarily by surgery and have had multiple surgeries. What he said made soooo much sense to me. He has evolved his theories over the years and other doctors and physical therapists have come onboard with him.

His latest book is The Divided Mind by Dr. John Sarno. He's a professor of Rehabilitation Medicine at the New York University School of Medicine.

He also wrote Mind Over Back Pain and also Healing Back Pain.

When my back flairs up (by the way, I can't even remember the last time I actually spent a day in bed because of my back - many, many years ago) I start looking for emotional reasons. It's not that I picked up a laundry basket, it's that I was tense and anxious over an emotional issue and my muscles were tight. The pain is real - the cause is emotional. And no, it doesn't mean we are crazy or imagining the pain. Anyhow - it has been working for me and I'm stickin to it. I don't like the idea of surgery and had no faith in it to help me. Good Luck to you. I know it's a rough road to travel!

Life Is Good!

alive!

Because I am overweight I get back problems every so often. When i do I usually hit the gym to use only one machine. Its the one where there is a lever that rests on the lower back and you push on it. It works out the muscles on the lower back. I do not know what they are called. Anyways I do not use it much. I use it just enough to tighten the muscles so that they will straighten the spine. Usualy about half the pain goes away the first time I use it and in about 5 days all the pain is gone. I do not go hard on the machine. I want to be gentle on my back so that I do not make the "damage" worse. However I use it every day until the pain is gone to keep my lower back muscles tight so that they will keep the spine straight.
Hope this helps!

Here are two other great resourses:

Somatics by Thomas Hanna. Many of the exercises are in a book ("Somatics" by Thomas Hanna). Hanna studied with Feldenkreis and developed his own system. He believes the problem is not with the muscles and bones but that the central nervous system develops 'sensory-motor amnesia' and forgets how to relax the muscle. His program consists of gentle movements done very slowly with attention to re-educate the mind-body and unlock the body. Extremely effective. It's best if you can find a good practitioner but many many of my friends have got perfect relief from using the book. Friends have called to thank me for recommending the book saying it 'gave them their body/youth back.'

Pete Egoscue (egoscue.com) has a method that is also very effective. He has exercises on his site that often help me.

Don't do surgery. You don't have to. The muscles are pulling the vertebra out of place and causing the disk problems. This can be fixed naturally.

Greenie......I just ordered the book you recommended....Somatics by Thomas Hanna. I've had back and nerve problems for years. Healing the central nervous system may be the 'key' for me. Thanks.....Wheatgrass Yogi

colie 123

i have maximum empathy for you
don't give up

keep searching ALL modalities
physical, spiritual, emotional, mental
don't leave any stone upturned
and persevere

you can do them simultaneously too

i'm rooting for you to heal

kindest regards

veronique

Wheatgrass Yogi,

I get lazy about doing the exercises, even though they just take 10 minutes. And when I finally get my lazy bottom on the floor and do them, I'm always amazed at the difference.

Let us know how you do with them.

Thank you all so much for your suggestions. I am going to try them all. My Mom also recommended drinking 1TBSP of raw apple cider vinegar each day - distilled in water. Has anyone ever heard of this curing muscle pain?
Thanks Again!

Blessings,
Nicole

Bromelain helps with inflammation, I was taking this in capsule form and it helped alot. I since learned that it is abundant in pineapples, especially the core. So now I juice pineapples every chance I get and have stopped taking the supplemental form.

I would do yoga instead of pilates but make sure you have a VERY good teacher. Also maybe look into alternative therapy such as QiGong massage or anything that might take you to the root cause of why this has manifested in your life. Good luck! Also look at how you are using your back on a daily basis and how you are sitting. I absolutely hate chairs, and I despise sitting in them for long periods of time because it feels so completely unnatural to me. I love sitting on those exercise balls if I am using the computer or whatever because they engage your muscles instead of allowing you to pile into a heap. Equeastrian chairs are meant to be good too but kind of expensive.

Hi, Nicole

I also send wishes for rapid recovery. Here's what worked
for me when I had back problems a year ago. Yoga, pineapple
(as mentioned before -- but I eat it whole or blended with
banana), and a great 'network' chiropractor. If you're not
familiar with this kind of practice, the doctor works through
channeling and hardly touches you. After one week, I was
walking upright again. Many emotions were brought up in the
process as the spine stores our emotional history.

An excellent book on this topic is "The 12 Stages of Healing --
Network Approach to Wholeness" by Donald M. Epstein.
It's sitting on my shelf. Let me know if you'd like me to
send it to you.

*****************

"network" did not work for me. I tried it three times a week for a month with no signs of improvement. Just my experience. I'm having more success with Somatics (mentioned above).

Innerview, Somatics sounds wonderful. I'll look into that too.
The network method showed results most when I felt in sync with
the doctor, responding to her instructions with all my focus.
For example, if she asked me to breath into a certain area of
the spine, she could tell if I was doing this effectively or
not. The more open and alert I was the better the session.
The connection between us was important.

I tried Network, too, years ago, 3 x per week for months and months with no results whatever. When I complained that the pain wasn't going away the Network chiropractor would say 'Pain is not always a bad thing.' Maybe pain isn't a bad thing when it happens to someone else, and that someone will keep paying you to get rid of it. Duh. I feel really stupid for having gone so long.

Another great thing is 'NUCCA' chiropractic (nucca.org). There are only about 100 chiropractors that use it. It involves extremely gentle adjustments to the top vertabra, and once that is in line, everything else follows. I've done articles and interviewed people about it and heard a lot of amazing stories. Most typical is that people get off the table from the first adjustment and for the first time in their lives both arms and legs are the same length, or their pain of 15 years is gone, twists in the spine or pelvis are gone, blood pressure normalized, etc. I have a good NUCCA practitioner near me. I know when my NUCCA adjustment is out because I have lower back pain. Using Somatics can unlock the muscles but the NUCCA adjustment really gives me my body back.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/16/2006 10:36PM by greenie.

Hi Nicole.

In response to your question, I can share with you that eliminatating all sources of caffiene from my diet was critical in helping to decrease my back pain after an accident that left me with severe spasms and in constant physical pain.

I didn't initially believe my accupuncturist when she suggested it, but after doing as she prescribed, I was so much better. She explained to me that there is only one nervous system in the Chinese theory. When your nerves are inflamed due to accident or illness, it is the same neural system that gets reved up when we eat foods with caffiene. We don't have separate nervous systems, one for food and one for injuries. So what we do to one, effects both.

I would suggest elimninating all cacao and coffee,(no decaf either) products from your diet for at least 2 weeks and see if there is a decrease in your pain and inflamation. I have been off all coffee and chocolate/cacao for 8 years now, and it has made a tremendous difference in my back health.

Another doctor I was seeing also suggested that I eliminate certain foods foods known to dilate blood vessels in the boody. They are called "vaso dilators" ( I hope I'm spelling that correctly) and can really increase inflammation in the body in certain conditions like nerve injuries,skin disorders, etc., etc.
So I got off the foods he suggested; alcohol, spicy peppers like jalapeneno, chili and cayenne, garlic and ginger, and completetly eliminated them from my diet during that early period of spasms and chronic pain. That bit of advice really helped me *a lot* in my early stages of healing. I'm still very mindful of which vaso-dilators i keep in my diet today..


These are just my personal experiences with raw foods and back injury. I'm not offering medical advice, or proving science. Just my personal life story with the raw diet and what worked for me, trying to reach out to support another peeps with their healing if I can...


i breathe in
i breathe out
peace
courage
love
Bikini

i agree with bikini