If You’re Not Getting Better With Good Care, Maybe There’s Something Else Going On.
I see a lot of disc herniations in the spine, causing pain anywhere from the neck on down — from knee and shoulder pain to severe sciatica and more. Most of these will heal with proper treatment. I have developed a full protocol that works nearly all the time. But there are some patients where it doesn’t work. When these conditions do not heal as expected I look for the underlying cause. In a significant number of cases there is an autoimmune attack by the patient’s own immune system on the disc itself.
Some years ago a patient came to me with quite severe pain and weakness in her left arm. Based on my testing, she clearly had a disc herniation in the lower neck. The disc was bulging and pressing on the nerve and this was causing her pain and weakness.
Applying the protocol I have developed – correcting posture, using home traction and chiropractic adjusting – she recovered but it took longer than expected. When she had recovered she developed a similar disc herniation in her low back. A full spine MRI showed multiple levels of disc herniations.
Using my in office testing I concluded she had an autoimmune condition affecting the discs in her spine. I ran a lab and found she had antibodies to the gluten in wheat which are known to initiate many autoimmune conditions. Autoimmunity means that a part of her immune system was attacking her own cells as if they were a foreign invader. So in this case, the solution was both the disc protocol and addressing the autoimmunity issue.
Scientific studies suggest that at least 15% of patients with disc herniations have an autoimmune component. A search on this topic pulled up a paper written by the chief of orthopedics at Duke where my patient worked. He found autoimmune cells and autoimmune chemical messengers (cytokines) in samples of degenerative discs. My patient actually went to see him. He was interested but had no treatment recommendations.
This is because autoimmune disc herniations are not on the radar of most practitioners and most treatments for autoimmunity come with significant, often dangerous side effects.
Fortunately, there are non-drug, natural and successful ways of treating autoimmunity.
This is an example of how I consider myself a “why” doctor. I did not stop with treatment failure but dug deeper to find the cause.
If you need help with a health problem that has not responded to regular treatment, let’s talk. I offer a free, no obligation “get to know me” phone call or zoom consultation. Let’s see if this is a fit. To schedule your free call, just click the link below. It will take you to a page where you can arrange a convenient date and time to talk.
Alberto Di Martino, Luciano Merlini & Cesare Faldini (2013) Autoimmunity in intervertebral disc herniation: from bench to bedside, Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Targets, 17:12, 1461-1470
Doita, Minoru, et al. “Immunohistologic study of the ruptured intervertebral disc of the lumbar spine.” Spine 21.2 (1996): 235-241.