DAY 47 – Got Knee Pain? - Part I

Are you taking fish oil supplements? Have you had your low back adjusted by your chiropractor? Are you doing yoga?

If it is important to you to save your knees, and maintain your ability to walk, read on and learn what most people don’t know about getting rid of knee pain. (Knee replacements will be covered later.)

Knee pain, as with most conditions, is divided into two classifications, acute and chronic, which are based on how long ago the pain began, how it began, and its intensity.  Chronic conditions are those that continue or recur over an extended period, often come on gradually, or may be the result of an incompletely healed injury. Acute conditions are those that begin or worsen suddenly, and are often caused by injury, infection, allergy, or abrupt change in a chronic degenerative process like arthritis. This article is primarily about chronic and acute non-injury induced knee pain.

First, let’s deal with the arthritis confusion, recognizing that knee pain invariably includes, or is, an arthritic condition. During my practice career (began 1983), I have interviewed and treated many patients suffering with chronic knee pain. I routinely ask patients what they believe to be the cause of their pain. Overwhelmingly, their response has been “arthritis.” At that point, I ask if the patient knows what arthritis is. Most know nothing. They erroneously believe that “it just happens”, that it is inevitable following injury to a joint, or that it is a result of aging. Even young people with chronic knee pain will answer that getting old causes arthritis. For some of these patients, my questions create a beginning for consideration of their condition relative to its causes and to the approaches that can be used to restore the health of their knees.

-to be continued tomorrow-

DAY 26 – New Day…Old Story about Drugs Without Conversation

First, let me give you a little background.  I practice a combination of Chiropractic and Functional Medicine. Chiropractic has historically been a practice of “natural” healing, with a strong interest in treating the causes of disease, rather than the symptoms. Functional medicine is personalized medicine that deals with primary prevention and underlying causes, instead of symptoms, in the treatment of serious chronic disease.
(photo - Doctors Mac by owensoft)

The dominant mode of handling patients today in the US is to name their conditions (diagnosis) and then treat the conditions with drugs to stop the symptoms. It is uncommon for causes to be discussed with patients; and patients usually don’t ask.

It doesn’t take a genius to know that covering symptoms with drugs, and not addressing the lifestyle causes of ill health, are a recipe for disaster.

So, let me share with you a simple story from the office that carries, as the kids say, a “ginormous” lesson.

A 58 year-old returning patient reports that thanks to my encouragement, she had gotten her vitamin D level tested by her MD and learned that the level was still low. The MD had also run a single test for thyroid disease, which also showed a problem, and for which he had written a prescription. When I inquired, the patient shared that her neck pain from some months back had improved and that she was taking 1,200 mg per day of oxaprozin that her MD had prescribed to be used for 3 months.

And here is the rest of the story, and the short list of the dangers for the patient;
1)    while the patient’s test results showed low vitamin D, she received no counseling on her associated risk for cancers (including breast and colon), heart attack, stroke, diabetes, autoimmune disease, etc…, and she received no direction regarding how much vitamin D to take and when to retest,
2)    while the thyroid test has undoubtedly found a problem, no further testing was ordered to determine the type and cause of the hypothyroid condition,
3)    thyroid hormone replacement was prescribed with no discussion of the cause of the condition,
4)    given that 90% of hypothyroid conditions are caused by autoimmunity (the body attacking itself) it would have been wise to discuss why the body is attacking itself,
5)    additionally, the patient was not informed that of patients with autoimmune thyroid disease, 50-80% of them also have an autoimmune reaction destroying one or more other tissues of their bodies, such as joints-arthritis, pancreas-diabetes, etc….,
6)    the fact that low vitamin D is associated with autoimmune diseases was not mentioned,
7)    the patient was put on a drug for neck pain without discussion of the cause of her chronic degenerative arthritis; and no long-term functional care program was discussed,
8)    the patient was not advised that the drug, oxaprozin, an NSAID, is known to cause damage to the lining of the digestive tract in some individuals, thereby breaking down the barrier between the gut and the immune system, leading to increased inflammation, and potentially additional damage to the joints in this patient’s neck, remembering that pain in the neck is what the drug was being taken for to begin with,
9)    there was no conversation about the interesting probability that both the arthritis in the neck and the thyroid disease are  both autoimmune based, and that low vitamin D may be a factor in their progression.

All of us, doctors and patients, would be wise to think more and talk more about what causes our illness. We would not just be wiser to do so; we would be safer, and we would be setting a more functional example for our children.

Dr. Young

DAY 16 – Can Farting Cause Hearing Loss?

So, I’ll cut to the chase, while there is no scientific evidence that farting (flatulence) can directly cause hearing loss, there ARE known factors that can cause both farting and hearing loss; and I’m going to tell you about them. While farting is not usually a serious medical condition, and hearing loss won’t kill you, an underlying condition that can cause both, is a serious risk for all forms of chronic degenerative disease.

But first, it is important to know that our culture and most physicians believe that hearing loss is caused primarily by either exposure to loud noise or “getting old”. Loud noise can be a cause. “Getting old” is not. Everything wears out as we age, but have you ever noticed that some folks have hearing aids at age 40 and others die at 85 never needing them? Age is not a cause.

The serious underlying condition that I want you to know about is chronic inflammation of the digestive tract caused by eating foods one is either allergic to or intolerant of. Through a variety of mechanisms, these food irritants create an inflammatory state that can affect the digestive tract or the entire body.

When the digestive tract is inflamed, excessive intestinal gas is common. When the entire body is inflamed, it is possible for sensitive nerve endings in the ears to be damaged, resulting in hearing loss.

I would encourage you to go to YouTube and watch "Treatment of Hearing Loss" featuring Dr. Katz (EarNoseandThroatMD) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qior3h5xvWA . In this video Dr. Katz states that after determining that loud noise has not caused the hearing loss in a patient, the doctor must move on using a medical history and examinations to determine the cause. The first causal possibility that he suggests is inflammation, and he then suggests that steroids (anti-inflammatory) would be an effective treatment. Note also that he states that individuals with diabetes, and those with cardiovascular disease are at greater risk to develop hearing loss. Inflammation is an integral factor in the causation and progression of both these diseases. It therefore makes sense that the systemic (body-wide) inflammation associated with each of these serious diseases, could also damage nerves in the ears.

I want to be sure to leave you with two important points: 1) that it is possible for food allergies or intolerances to cause systemic inflammation that could cause hearing loss, and 2) farting may be caused by food allergies or intolerances, and may be linked to serious health conditions through the mechanism of inflammation.

Not so funny, eh?