I'm the lady whose doctor (MD) told to go to a shrink because of various problems like trouble swallowing and, once that cleared up, tingling and numbness in my left foot, along with off and on soreness in my left upper chest and arm.
The cardiolite stress test ruled out heart in his mind and the upper GI showed GERD. He said my symptoms were a conversion reaction. Well, I'm on Xanax and Wellbutrin now and my foot is still weird. No worse, tho.
I last told Dr. Dave that neuro tests showed no problems with my foot, so they did an X-ray of my lumbar spine and said to come back in 3 months. I went to an old friend of ours, a chiropractor, and explained things to him. He believes in "natural hygiene" and is a vegan vegetarian. He looked at my x-rays and said there was some degeneration at L-4 & L-5 and said adjustments might help. Dr. Dave said to give the adjustments at least a month to see if they helped.
Well, I saw my friend yesterday and he now seems more inclined to believe that if I would begin a regimen of detoxifying my system, that would benefit me more. He seems less inclined toward the adjustments. He's a friend of Harvey Diamond who wrote Fit for Life and subscribes to that philosophy. I had been encouraged at the thought of adjustments helping my foot. Now I'm discouraged. I know I really need to change my diet and my family's, no matter what happens with my foot. My blood test showed some Candida, but not much, but quite a bit of protein and fat floating around (I'm 45lbs overweight).
To complicate things, 2 and 1/2 months ago (before going to the chirco doc)I decided to find another MD. A woman MD was highly recommended to me by patients and other profes-sional people (my shrink for one), but I had to wait all this time to get in because I was a new patient. The appt is Thursday. Now I feel weird because I understand that MD's may not be as interested in creating health and treating the cause of things as they are treating symptoms. But I still would like to be established with a GP and run all this mess by her. Am I totally wrong? I guess I just can't give up that dependency on the old style medicine.
The other question is, do you really think a drastic change in my eating habits could really help my foot? Sorry to be
so wordy!! Thanks for being there, Pam
Follow Ups:
Re: "Re-hash" for Dr Dave and/or Dr. Stoll
Posted by David Ferguson, D.C. on January 05, 1999 at 19:34:10:
In Reply to: "Re-hash" for Dr Dave and/or Dr. Stoll posted by Pam on January 05, 1999 at 13:58:48:
I don't really know what to tell you from my end of things. Whenever I hear about chiropractors who are spending a lot of time talking about nutrition for musculoskeletal/neurological symptoms I get a little cautious. Openmindedness and complimentary health care seem to attract kooky ideas just as easily as skeptic groups attract militant bigots. Therefore, I really don't know what to tell you. Your friend may be 100% on target but the kind of chiropractor I was wanting you to see is not really that type.
All the problems you describe can consistently be traced directly to nerve interference that occurs at the spine and is a direct result of spinal segmental dysfunction, which is a result past trauma, stress, or both. Regardless, the treatment protocol you are likely to find here regarding this type of problem will revolve around skilled relaxation, chiropractic, rolfing, etc. and not so much with diet.
Regardless of how good your new MD is there is little chance that she will be 1% as knowledgeble about non traditional treatments. There is too much symptom training and not enough "get to the root of the problem" training.
I realize that finding another chiropractor could put a strain on your friendship but you need someone who is going to try and correct the dysfunction that exists in your cervical, lower thoracic, and lower lumbar spine. Jump on the skilled relaxation bandwagon with both feet and expect to have long term success.
I'm sorry if this creates more confusion for you but I sincerely think that this is the next logical step and would be the most likely to give you results that revolve around the cause and not just the symptoms. As I'm sure you've ascertained, I have no reason to steer you wrong, nothing to gain monetarily, and no public status to gain by helping you. Therefore you can be more inclined to feel that I only want to see you get better. And I really think you can.
Best Wishes!
Follow Ups:
Re: "Re-hash" for Dr Dave and/or Dr. Stoll
Posted by Pam on January 05, 1999 at 22:11:07:
In Reply to: Re: "Re-hash" for Dr Dave and/or Dr. Stoll posted by David Ferguson, D.C. on January 05, 1999 at 19:34:10:
Thanks for your input-I had some reservations concerning
using a friend's services, but went ahead anyway. I believe you once said you could perhaps give me the name of a chiropractor. I live in the St. Petersburg (Central West Coast) area of Florida-Largo & Clearwater are nearby also, but St Pete is a larger city. Is there anyone you could suggest? Thanks again for your advice
Follow Ups:
Re: "Re-hash" for Dr Dave and/or Dr. Stoll
Posted by Pam on January 06, 1999 at 07:52:32:
In Reply to: Re: "Re-hash" for Dr Dave and/or Dr. Stoll posted by David Ferguson, D.C. on January 05, 1999 at 19:34:10:
One more thing-and I'm not arguing, just trying to understand. I work for a governmental agency making disability determinations and we have a copy of the Vertebral Subluxation and Nerve Chart showing the spine, nerves, areas and parts of body affected and possible symptoms.
You seemed to indicate in one of your earlier responses that the trouble swallowing I had could have probably been treated by manipulation of my cervical spine. I had an endoscopy and he stretched my esophagus even tho his report said he saw very little narrowing. He also changed my medication from Zantac to Prevacid, and the problem went away after suffering for 2 and 1/2 months. If the problem was with my spine and nerves, why did the procedure and change in meds apparently clear it up? Thanks again, Pam
Follow Ups:
Re: "Re-hash" for Dr Dave and/or Dr. Stoll
Posted by VickiR on January 06, 1999 at 09:11:09:
In Reply to: Re: "Re-hash" for Dr Dave and/or Dr. Stoll posted by Pam on January 06, 1999 at 07:52:32:
Pam,
A personal observation regarding the improvement in your problem with swallowing: sometimes things just get better on their own. A few years ago, I myself had a problem swallowing. It continued for months; sometimes I had difficulty even swallowing my own saliva. Then it just spontaneously cleared up. I never consulted a doctor or undertook any kind of treatment for it. My point is that the fact that you did receive treatment doesn't necessarily mean that the treatment is responsible for your improvement. This is one of the things that makes it so hard to know what is and what is not truly effective treatment.
Follow Ups:
Heracy!
Posted by RocketHealer Jim++ on January 06, 1999 at 09:26:11:
In Reply to: Re: "Re-hash" for Dr Dave and/or Dr. Stoll posted by VickiR on January 06, 1999 at 09:11:09:
Pam said:
My point is that the fact that you did receive treatment doesn't necessarily mean that the treatment is responsible for your improvement.
Please don't let this "truth" out to the AMA! :-)
That's the trouble with treatments. We don't know if they worked or not in many cases, or if perhaps something else we did (or we did not do) was in fact what really mattered. As a scientist, I'd say something like, "There are just too many human environmental, dietary, and psychological variables to monitor and to correlate to make sense of it all with a high statistical significance....."
Follow Ups:
Re: "Re-hash" for Dr Dave and/or Dr. Stoll
Posted by David Ferguson, D.C on January 06, 1999 at 13:10:41:
In Reply to: Re: "Re-hash" for Dr Dave and/or Dr. Stoll posted by Pam on January 05, 1999 at 22:11:07:
Dr. Kyle Remmel 525-1141
Dr.s Dianne + Raymond Fernandez, Dr. Peter Mosher all of them at 528-1133
That's my best guess based on information I could get.
Re: "Re-hash" for Dr Dave and/or Dr. Stoll
Posted by David Ferguson, D.C. on January 06, 1999 at 13:26:00:
In Reply to: Re: "Re-hash" for Dr Dave and/or Dr. Stoll posted by Pam on January 06, 1999 at 07:52:32:
Cervical nerves help control the constirctor pharyngis supeorior, medius and inferior. That is my rationale there an have seen a couple people who had the problem and were subsequently relieved.
You are 100% correct when you suggest that the GERD problem can cause the throat symptoms. The reflex is well documented. You would notice where I mention the lower thoracic problem and that this is related to GERD. I had it, my roomate in school had it, and I see quite a few people with it. I get at least 50%+ complete resolution if not in the late stages. The sphincter that keeps the acid from going into the esophagus is controlled by the sympathetic innervation from the thoracic spine and the parasympathetic innervation from the Vagus nerve(a cranial nerve that doesn't go through the spine). Problems in the balance between the input between these two counteracting sources would cause either too much constricture or not enough constricture of the sphincter between the stomach and esophagus.
Prevacid is an acid pump inhibitor that decreases gastric secretions. So whatever makes it through the relaxed sphincter isn't so hard on the esophagus. Problem #1, is there anything wrong with your stomach acid? Problem #2, what are the long term effects of not having enough stomach acid? Problem #3, how long can one safely take prevacid.(8 weeks is the most that is recommended). Problem #4, what to do after the 8 weeks is up if the problem hasn't subsided.
As for a possible mechanism of throat relief even if GERD isn't the cause is that Prevacid has a side effect of being a nervous system depressant.(unlikely scenario but possible)
As for what you do with your prevacid situation I will pass that off 100% to your medical doctor. I don't 'scribe medications or advise on whether or not you should be taking it. I am just trying to get you somewhere that will give you long term answers for the problem.
Add Dr. David Schroeder to your list of chiropractor choices. 327-1717
If you have any other questions or need clearification please don't hesitate to ask.
Re: Heresy!
Posted by Walt Stoll on January 07, 1999 at 14:25:46:
In Reply to: Heracy! posted by RocketHealer Jim++ on January 06, 1999 at 09:26:11:
Thanks, RocketHealer Jim!
Just as history is written by the victors, so is medical dogma established by those in power.
The AMA position seems to be that ALL alternative approaches work ONLY because of the placebo effect and none of the conventional treatments have ANY placebo effect.
Since I have had 10 years of purely conventional medical practice, 3 years of medical school teaching and 17+ years of adding alternatives to my conventional medical practice, it always struck me as to how much more positive placebo effect the alternatives had than the conventional treatments my profession insisted I use. There were never any negative placebo effects from the alternatives whereas there were plenty from the conventional treatments and the positive effects were SO much better than my conventional approachs ever produced.
Placebo effect is SO powerful that one IS hard put to decide about the effectiveness in ANY individual case. If I had not seen these effects in thousands of patients and had I not had the comparative experience of all three ways of looking at things, I would be skeptical as well.
Walt