Do You Remember When The Pain Began?

I bet you remember exactly.  Because when pain becomes chronic, it consumes your life. 

If you have chronic pain, I bet your faith in doctors has diminished.   Especially when you hit double digits.  This woman told me that I was the 10th doctor she had asked to help her.  

Read her story to learn how we helped her resolve chronic pain.

If you decide to give True Health a try, our clinic policy is that you don’t pay if we don’t help.  I’m not sure why all doctors aren’t as dedicated to finding the root cause of your pain as you are.  I promise you that I am.

This is the story of a young, healthy woman whose pain began a few months after an appendectomy. 

Her entire back and down her left leg would reach 8 or 9 out of ten on a pain scale, from the strain of a 30 minute car ride or sitting at a desk for too long.   She had not felt a 0 out of 10, no pain, for 3 years.   

She hadn’t given up though, so when a friend told her how Dr. Stone helped him with his pain, she called True Health and doctor number ten.  

As I read her story the evening before her initial exam, I noticed that the lines after “Other doctors seen for this condition:” listed way more than average.  My thyroid patients usually list 1 or 2.  They are able to struggle through and live life, in exhaustion.  

Chronic pain stops life.   

For Rachel, it wasn’t completely disabling.  She was able to work and live life.  With frequent stops.  And the frequency of stops was increasing, so she was willing to try anything.

When she first visited True Health and stood in front of me, I felt her doubt.

I am somewhat empathic.  I don’t know for sure what I am.  Sometimes it feels more like an awkward, irritable, jerk.  My understanding of empathic is that I feel the pain of other people.   

I choose who I feel, and I have to have permission.  Calling True Health for help, grants permission.  

I have to really focus on a person to feel their physical pain, but emotional pain jumps out at me.  When I felt her doubt, I also felt my own anxiety as I began her exam. 

I began with a standard neurological exam for nerve compression in the low back, since that was her loudest or most intense pain.  I was lightly perspiring from the anxiety, until my exam revealed that every nerve root indicator tested weak.  What?  I’ve never seen that before!

Now I was sweating.  I didn’t understand what I was seeing, and I didn’t know what to do about it!  Was I in over my head?  I nervously proceeded with my best effort.

Her neurologist was so certain that it wasn’t disc or nerve compression, that he  didn’t need an MRI to know.

My testing disagreed with a prestigious neurologist, and it didn’t make sense to me.   She didn’t have a history of severe physical trauma, and it would take something severe to bulge every disc in her back.

I wasn’t sure what to do, so I picked one nerve indicator muscle weakness and tested for body positions that improve the weakness.  Normally, bending or twisting a certain way will decrease the nerve pressure of a disc bulge enough to restore strength.

I couldn’t find a body position that would improve her strength.  (Add a 3rd level of sweating.)

I wanted to look like I knew what I was doing to ease her doubt as well as my sweating.  Nerves tend to be predictable.  Tap the knee and leg kicks out.  If it doesn’t, it means something very predictable.

Her body wasn’t responding predictably.  I had not seen this version of chronic pain before.

I kept on with my best effort.  She had doctors tell her before, that “it wasn’t something they were familiar with.”  They tested for one named condition, like Rheumatoid Arthritis, and after telling her she tested negative, sent her home as if they had completed their job.

Relieving pain is a doctors job and I take it seriously.  My best effort took several visits to even begin to make sense of what was in front of me.  But she stuck with my best effort because she felt results.  A healing trend.

I hadn’t been able to help her chronic pain, but she noticed that her runny nose was less runny on her second visit.

By her 3rd visit, she could feel that the pain was changing.  Some changes felt good, and others felt bad, but it was different and that was encouraging.

Her 2nd visit had the help of more clues.  Lab work was back, offering a look inside this woman.  Results showed a pattern that meant high testosterone.  I asked about beards.  “No.”  I asked about PMS, and she said “severe.”  She had such severe cramping during her period that a few times she passed out from the pain.

I don’t think PMS is “normal.”  It’s a symptom of imbalance and body needs.  What did she need to find comfort?

I was taught that the week before a woman’s period is Liver time.  The liver eliminates the hormones that thicken the uterus lining for implantation.  The liver effectively reducing hormone levels offers ease and comfort to having a period.  She needed care for her liver, so the first prescription was N-Acetyl-Cysteine, an amino acid.

Cysteine is used in the hospital for acute poisoning.

She later reported that one weekend she put out ant poison, and the next day her back hurt like a mother.  She took extra Cysteine and felt her pain ease.  Meeting needs.

Her labs revealed immune stress and inflammation.  The immune stress appeared to be an intestinal parasite.  We don’t know for sure because my best effort to resolve immune stress and inflammation was a plant called Morinda, and after a week of Morinda along with Cysteine, she drove 12 hours and her pain was  30% better than her last trip.

Her pain was getting better for the first time in 3 years, so we waited and watched. 

If she had a chronic infection in her gut, which her labs suggested, it would explain the multiple disc bulges without severe trauma.  I remembered a professor describing this possibility, but I hadn’t seen it in a patient before.  The infected organs cause spasm of a muscle  called the Psoas.  It crosses your hip and it’s attached to the spine above.  When it spasms, it pulls on the spine, causing multiple discs to bulge.

My anxiety decreased with the recollection of this mechanism of back pain.  I understood that it was going to take multiple steps to resolve her pain, but at least now I knew the steps.

Her neurologist was right, it wasn’t a disc herniation, it was muscle spasm pulling the disc outward and compressing the nerves.  The cause of the spasm was a chronic infection creating inflammation in her liver and gut.

I bet that you can relate to this medical concept.  Last time I had the flu, I swear that my hair hurt.  Inflammation amplifies pain, and inflammation is caused by invasion or trauma.  With no history of trauma other than appendectomy, invasion made sense and relieved another level of sweating.

Her worst pain was after sitting still for awhile.  Stillness is how you treat trauma. When stillness aggravates pain, it indicates inflammation.  A psoas muscle spasm would definitely be aggravated by sitting still, because sitting tightens the psoas muscle.

When the spasm is caused by inflammation, the healing need is Lymphatic cleansing.

Your lymphatic system is like your cardiovascular system.  A system of veins and vessels, but the lymphatic system removes inflammation and doesn’t have a pump, like the heart.  It “pumps” inflammation out of your body from the stimulation of movement.  So when you sit still and it hurts more, the lymphatic system needs care. 

Vitamin C is a basic need of the Lymphatic System, and Morinda offers Vitamin C along with other lymph cleansing attributes, along with the power to kill a parasite. 

It only took a week to feel the 30% improvement on her long drive.  I’d call that a healing trend.  The intensity, frequency, and duration of your pain, is decreasing.  We’re winning.

By the time we retested her labs on her 3rd month of True Health, her pain intensity, frequency, and duration were improved by 40%.   Still not a single moment of no pain, but the healing trend was clear.

Her lab retest showed a pattern that indicated a chronic virus.  I had prescribed a plant called Holy Basil on visit 5, which is a research proven anti-viral medicine.  Great, already covered!

At this point, Rachel is able to respond to almost every pain flare up on her own, using the plants and acupressure.  She was gathering control of life stopping pain.

Three more months of trending, and another look inside, lab time.  We have reached a pretty cool milestone on her journey.  No pain for half of a day.  The first time she had felt no pain in 3 years!

This lab showed that inflammation was now subclinical, meaning the lab didn’t even mark it as a problem.  Next we saw adrenal exhaustion and hypoglycemia as her primary need.  I prescribed Ginseng, which has over 8,000 published research articles, mostly on increasing vitality.

Hypoglycemia brought more headaches so I prescribed Cramp Bark and Motherwort.  Plants that  are proven to offer relief of tension, cramping and spasm.

It took 10 months before she reported no headaches between her visits, but we kept them trending.  Slowly but surely.  It took 2 years to reach 1 full day of no pain.  Plants and acupressure, and Dr. Stone every 3 weeks.

It took another three months to string together multiple days of no pain.

And another three months to feel strong and secure enough to stop taking birth control pills for her severe cramping.  Birth control took her pain away, and she had been scared to stop them and possibly face that pain again.

She did face some pain, but with her plant medicines and acupressure, she was able to control it and get it trending toward ease and comfort.  Every cycle was getting easier, until finally, she felt the strength of motherhood.  After nearly 3 years of True Health and putting up with Dr. Stone, she is moving on to the next chapter in her life.

I am glad that I offered my best effort, despite my confusion and uncertainty.  In the last 2 years, there has not been a pain that could survive True Health and my best effort.  If you’d like to challenge my healing abilities, grab a Membership!.

“I share my story to share hope.  You never know where the right answer will be, but with determination and a willingness to try anything, I found relief.” 

-Rachel S.