10 Ways To Stop Chronic Inflammation NOW!

Jeff, thank you SO much for this piece!  You posted it on Wednesday before you, Gwen Pettit and I were meeting for a late lunch meeting, and it's had 250 reads on average per day, for many weeks.

That lets me know this is VALUABLE to those using Lumigrate, and we use that kind of feedback to know where we head next with content development. {NOTE: By July it had another 4,000 reads and has now become in the running to be the #1 topic at Lumigrate. By February of 2013, it passed 10,000 reads! What works at Lumigrate, we create more content about for YOU, the consumers or providers who utilize Lumigrate as part of your health and wellness routine. We're going to celebrate that by Dr Jeff and I doing a 'contest' for people to win a FREE copy of a book he wanted to give as a prize to the lucky winner.... Stay tuned for more about that, here!

It was interesting to gather two local providers together (Jeff and Gwen) who are part of the LumiGRATE Groove of the Grand Valley but who had not yet met, and see the process unfold of professional connections through the Groove even when we do something 'small' and 'easy to pull together'.  

It was funny at lunch that day, we all wore purple -- I think it was subconscious because it was a Lumigrate meeting day, so that was FUN and then both of you were from New Jersey originally.  We realized in sharing our backgrounds with education that we all started out studying psychology -- the two of you formally in college for your bachelors and in my case prior to college, then business initially and transitioning to get my bachelors in occupational therapy, which obviously is basically psychology and physical therapy melded together (kinda, it's about 'function' essentially, hence I call myself a functional therapist now)(or a FUNctional Therapist, since I am no longer a 'practicing OT'! ).  

But what I REALLY got a kick out of was we each did a little 'eating/drinking outside the lines' of how we normally do. We all had an awareness about gluten and carbohydrates and, since at a restaurant that is a very wheat-focused place, with delicious things made from wheat, we splurged a little. It reinforced for me how difficult it is to stay on the path of eating differently when so few restaurants are providing the foods that people who are learning and living differently desire/prefer. 

So that brings me to my questions:

What's your opinion about nutrition and inflammation for people who are 's/p' (status post) brain injury? (There is mountaing awareness about brain injuries, even the smaller ones that occur from athletics and other life-living events where people have the physical impact called 'concussion', which often damages to some extent or another, the brain and nervous system tissues, even when people aren't aware at the time.)

and

What about application of this information to fibromyalgia? About 1/3 of the people currently following Lumigrate, by my estimation, have specific interest related to CFS/FM because they identify themselves as having it; many, many MANY more actually have the conditions leading up to having it or have it and still don't know that is what they have. (Lumigrate's statistics have shifted a great deal, as evidenced by the popularity of this topic, and we're getting more people who have OTHER 'disease' concerns (cancer, diabetes, heart disease, cardiovascular/stroke), or purely wellness/prevention concerns.) 

In my opinion, 'fibromyalgia' today is kind of in a 'no man's land' in some people's opinions as to whether it's 'autoimmune' or not -- it used to be considered to be, but it really wasn't based on the way conventional medicine defines that specialty within medical.  So it was transitioned to be considered neuro-immune and patients were referred to neurologists. It seems to me experts in environmental medicine, such as Lumigrate's MD expert Marc Spurlock, MD are up on the causes and treatments, and there is defeinitely an inflammation component with fibromyalgia, though treating it the way you would an autoimmune disorder is only similar in terms of the underlying reasons that cause or contribute to both.

I like to remind people when it's appropriate that my symptoms started in 1994 and were progressing in a way that appeared MS-like, so I sought out my primary care physician and was referred to a neurologist who was young enough to be pregnant, so it wasn't like she was in medical school in the dark ages. But she was COMPLETELY at a loss when there were lesions in my brain (but not where MS typically is )(there were a handfull, all out in the grey matter) and after she did a lumbar puncture which came back with no myelin, she just had no idea what was causing my symptoms of what I reported, and what she found with the diagnostics she knew to do.

Naturally, I was scared at that point and relieved when she said it was not MS (this process took two full months by the way, due to their busyiness at the time and lack of enough doctors in a growing city like Fort Collins, Colorado).  So I had a long two months at a time I was in college to start a new career to 'brew' about it, or 'steep' is perhaps a better word. 

I had started by going to an acupuncturist who had said she thought I was eating too much wheat and to cut back, so that made me ask the neurologist at my discharge appointment if it could be food allergies, and she said 'that can cause headaches, so maybe' (I was having migraines sometimes for 10 days straight, but about half the days each month I had a migraine at that point in time).  

She was concerned, conscientious, 'likeable' but 'incompetent', in my opinion, related to how to help me, since it had to do with food allergies and sensitivities and neurologists in those days just didn't get any education about that, apparently.

She and the owners of the MRI and the hospital she used for the lumbar puncture (and their lab and ......) ended up benefitting just as much for coming up with a dead-end as they would have had they solved the question/problem! 

Let me be clear, at the time I was going to University to become a medical provider and I earned my living as an OT from 1996 to 2008  so I'm not trying to "indict" anyone here, I am trying to bring the information to the surface for consumers and providers to find and learn from and hopefully keep our heads up about the changes we are in with health care today. Since we ARE all in this together...

For people to look at their own situations and their providers, we have to state the facts, and so I am doing that to the best of my ability with how I understand things at the point I am at while writing or editing this.  We are ALL in a learning process and cannot be expected to 'know it all', but for a provider to not say 'I don't know what to tell you" and NOT go on to say "but let me pick the brains of the people around me' and around them and figure this out" to me, was unacceptable. Fortunately for me, I was proactive and had a resource to pick the brain of, but what about the other patients at that time who were maybe not so 'lucky' as I, in 1995, to find out about foods causing inflammation that was a leading cause of all chronic illness?

I'll give her the benefit of the doubt, she was VERY pregnant, about 6-8 months I'd imagine, so maybe she normally would do better. However, for ME (and my insurance company, though I was paying a $10,000 deductible that year, in order to save money on my premium since for the first time since I was 19 I was not with income, as you could not work and be in the OT program at CSU the way they had it structured with most of our assignments being 'group learning'). And it's no coincidence that I've not had a true 'vacation' since then, because I re-distributed my budget ever since to put my health and wellness related to EVERYDAY knowldge and strategies/services/products over having a good time unplugging for a week or two here or there. And then I try to make my daily life something I don't feel I 'have to escape'. as well.

Truly, today I appreciate that everything happened as it did, it has made me 'take off my boxing gloves' for myself and now I teach my clients this too, if they need to be educated and supported in getting results in this difficult medical terrain we are in today in the United States. (I basically simply consult on the person's history and am like a concierge at a hotel, pointing the way to information or services or products that might be of benefit to the client. Often there are stones unturned or turned over in the past and not finding the right resource I can suggest and they can have a different/better outcome finally.)   

By the way, my chiropractor at the time had, two years before, mysteriously closed his thriving practice to, allegedly, "go lecture in Australia and publish from there about immunizations from his vantage point". It turns out he resumed his practice at some point but died in recent years, so unfortunately I didn't reconnect to get the whole story of what happened, but I was always suspicious he was being hushed up.  

At any rate, I'd lost the #1 person who had been able to identify problems and solve them for me on my YOU/team; he used AK/Applied Kinesiology extensively, which I thought looked like voodoo when I had my initial evaluation from him, and as the years went by, everything he had said in that initial appointment was proven out in conventional testing.  

I share this with readers because it was a matter of many years going from a conventional, "allopathic" oriented medical consumer to where I am today with 'functional medicine' and 'integrative medicine' concepts presented as we do at Lumigrate, along with the collaborative YOU! model which is our 'cornerstone'. Unless we were so lucky to be raised by an alternative thinker/knower, this is the case for most people today -- the shift, as I call it, is really starting to happen now in 2012.  Or at least that is what I'm sensing/seeing/thinking. 

My primary care doctor for many years, who was a really good MD and immediately addressed my chronic fatigue syndrome in 1989 appropriately (referring me to someone knowledgeable and helpful), became a Muslim and left to live in the Middle East. I fortunately never had the 'run around/you're crazy, this is all in your head' problem that so many people who used insurance-based medical providers for CFS/FM report. I was referred to one conventional ENT, in particular, because he had less accent than his partners and was tapped into the National Jewish medical center's information about what CFS was and what to do about it. However, I didn't want to wait for him to be back from a trip to India setting up a clinic there for the poor, and so I took a partner, who missed the boat and actually misdiagnosed me and prescribed a medication that was contraindicated for a person who had CFS.

So I just waited until the OTHER doctor was back from India and made an appointment, and he obviously had read the chart and known I was in and misdiagnosed by his partner, as when he walked in to meet me he said 'I can tell by looking at you, I know what is wrong with you, have your eyes always had that puffiness under them?' (no), and he did one blood lab and found high titers for a virus.  I then followed his advise and took the medication he suggested and prescribed,  and I got better.  

Keep in mind, this was at a time when 50% of people who what is called CFS today didn't ever get better! I was terrified, I couldn't imagine having my life be as minimal as it was at 29 compared to my past and my future plans! It wasn't in that time that I said 'why did this happen to me', it was after I was getting better with what the MD/ENT advised/provided. And what happened next was essentially the beginning of my, today, enjoying a very benefiical 'spiritual' aspect to wellness. I add myself to the list of people who have been ill in the past who say "I'd not trade the experience because it ended up bringing ____________ into my life." Keep in mind, now that I have my _________ (spirituality), I'm wanting to keep moving forward and growing as a person, including managing or recovering from illness. 

So after I had done 'well' with the MD/ENTs treatment, I was still only 70% maybe, of my previous 'wellness' level, and the DC had known about foods and switched my diet around (mostly good, but he was a bit too extreme in my opinion today, and it had some downsides which came back to 'bite me' (pun intended). And hence years later went into another spiral of the same general disorder but this time it was fibromyalgia symptoms and not just the fatigue as in years past. 

So what I did in 1995, just so you and others know how I found at least 'a' solution to the problem after the neurologist said 'I have no idea but you're right, food allergies can cause headaches so maybe check into that more", was to call up the acupuncturist and explain what had gone on since I'd stopped going to her -- her "godawful tasing' herb teas made sense to me, and I enjoyed acupuncture treatments but I just wasn't seeing results, and I had done what she said about diet, to the letter.  But she'd said to eat less wheat and I didn't have to totally stop, and it took totally stopping wheat AND two other things after seeing the IgG food allergy results.  BUT I sensed she was on the right track --- I SENSED -- and I FOLLOWED UP -- so I asked if there was someone she knew of who could do food allergy testing and not the scratch test kind I'd had that a lot and it never turned up anything.  Every time I got a new GP/PCP I'd get referred to that and they'd do TSH for thyroid testing and stop there when it came back normal.  TSH is a whole other story and thyroid that we cover here at Lumigrate, so look for it if you read about it here and are interested about that.  

It just made sense in my head and in my gut (two different things) that it had to do with foods, since she'd given me a data point about that, the nice but unknowlegeable for what was wrong with ME neurologist had at least substantiated my suspicion about foods, and I knew my whole family of origin had been treated for IgE food allergies when I was growing up (I never 'appeared' to have problems so was never tested growing up, though it would have been free as my father was a Gates Rubber Company employee and they were the first HMO in the US, though Kaiser tries to take that credit.)

As I said above, I have been scratch tested over and over, the most recently one was the only time I felt 'overwhelmed' in a medical procedure and had to ask the two nurses who were working simultaneously on the left and right arms with rapid and painful needle sticks to alternate and slow down as I couldn't hand it the way they were doing it -- they did but they were like that I Love Lucy episode where she has the candy coming too fast .. too many patients and their patient CARE suffered that day).  I never get a 6x6 area on anything,  so in conventional, allopathic, IgE circles am deemed 'not allergic' to anything. In that world it is Black/White.  You Are/You Are Not.  There aren't continuums and spectrums, so at least the "Autism Spectrum" we hear so much about is maybe influencing their thinking.  People have various amounts of schizophrenia that now are proven to 'them' to correlate in genetic research with how many allele's are 'off'.  "The shift" IS happening!   

The acupuncturist knew of an MD in Loveland, which is a bedroom community to Fort Collins, so off I went to him.  By the way, he had a chiropractor sharing space in his clinic building -- I don't recall other providers, just the two of them. It was VERY inexpensive compared to the $10,000 deductible I forked over for the MRIs and lumbar puncture (and I don't know how much my insurance had to pay to be honest, I was kinda busy trying to complete the OT program).  I had the price out of pocket of two appointments with him, one $300 test and it was dairy, wheat, and eggs.  

I did what he recommended and got better; I thought 'maybe in a month I'll feel a little better'; HA!  JUST like you say, above Jeff, it was IMMEDIATE!  Within three days I was significantly better -- could walk up stairs normally/without assisting or compensating.  (I had to get both feet on each step and then go up another, I was that weak and uncoordinated.) When you learn about IgG food allergies you'll see it takes a day or so for the food you eat to cause the reaction and then your body has to 'process it', so then that three day thing makes sense! 

And that MD/doctor/provider in Loveland said something that day too, which I really appreciated, and really valued in the future, as things unwound for me BADLY about four years later; "Mardy, you're clearly involved in trying to solve this and so don't ever let a provider tell you that this is psychological, people who have what you have get that a lot from doctors."  

Now, I wish to add a layer to that and say that I came around after collaborating with patients with FM with local neuro-savvy psychologist Dr. Chris Young, who rolled up his sleeves to study up and present at the Colorado Osteopathic Association's annual meeting in the summer of 2010 (I believe), that there IS a proven connection between the amount of adversity/trauma in childhood and incidence of having chronic illness in adulthood, so there IS a psychological aspect to it, generally.  But it's CUMULATIVE -- body, mind, spirit -- with foods/inflammation and toxins from foods, air, water, immunizations.  

(I believe, personally, my case clearly proves that as my health tipped to illness immediately after a Rubella vaccine in 1981 required to get married in Colorado at the time. In 1990, it was the biggest class action lawsuit up to that point in the United States, only to be topped to this day, I believe, by the tobacco industry class action lawsuit, and my personal opinion is that much of what the 'resistance' to the overall knowledge of the country's providers and organizations moving along with the public's opinion is 'covering up' or 'protecting' other products whose companies now know injured people and they just don't want to be held financially accountable.  I personally think if we'd create some protection for them from being utterly devastated and bankrupted by the costs they'd be held accountable for, we'd see them drop their 'B.S.' and take responsibility and help people with some reasonable programs and we could ALL move forward).

That is why I am such a proponent for 'integrative medicine', it truly is body (which includes the brain in my paradigm) (inflammation for instance), mind, and spirit. I've come, over the years, to deeply believe that you cannot have wellness without something awry to one extent or another in all three and you cannot have a recovery from illness without addressing all aspects as well.  That is what 'holistic' means, seeing the whole person's life!  

This piece you wrote, Jeff, draws in so many aspects, including the proactive patient, and we have recently welcomed Martine Ehrenclou to provide some topics/articles at Lumigrate; she is the author of Critical Conditions, for which she won multiple awards, and NEW in May 2012,  The Take-Charge Patient . You also bring in the hormone/endocrine system and we have providers who specialize in that in other areas of Lumigrate as well.  And as I said, above, this has been VERY well read and lets us know where our 'guests' (I prefer that to customers, followers, users) are 'at', and as I said, we then work to row the boat in that direction more and pick up more providers and information as a result. 

THANK YOU again for providing this topic for us, Jeff! We all benefit so much.  Knowledge is power, and there is no one to blame, there is just take action (as Dr Marc Spurlock (MD) says) ~~ Mardy

There is another topic in this same forum with a little bit different 'take' on things which is my coverage/summary of a local MDs excellent presentation about foods and inflammation and which Dr Spurlock has commented on; I don't want people to miss that discussion as there's quite a lot there as well as on this 'thread'.

If you follow the link below, you will see we went into a discussion about fish oil and omega-3 fatty acids, fish, exercise for restoring wellness and when to use it in a person's recovery from chronic illness such as chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia, etc. I have provided an ovierview based on my experiences as an OT and functional advisor to clients/patients/consumers who have neurological or other reasons such as "adrenal fatigue" and 'the energy crisis' of the body that results, and which requires an extremely 'graded' approach with exercise/activity, 'progressing' things in a certain way which is VERY different than the way most providers do it. I've had good results so wanted to share with the class, so to speak.

Hopefully people will find it a GRATE overview piece with much specific about nutrition and it will 'go far', combined with this outstanding and highly-read piece by Dr Jeff. 

www.lumigrate.com/forum/nutrition-and-chronic-disease-presentation-jimmy-thompson-md

Thank you Mardy and Gwen for our lunch and discussion. It was fun. 

As we discussed, as my energy gets stronger than it has been in years past, I'm able to get away with eating things I didn't eat for years when I really needed to rebuild my health. Even though I have had problems with gluten/gliadin in the past, I can get away with it more and more these days and not fatigue or experience other symptoms, or test "weak" on AK gliadin testing (as linked below to Dr. Lebowitz's site). 

As far as patients who are either s/p brain injury or fibromyalgia, I absolutely believe in the benefits of a low inflammation diet. In my opinion, reducing inflammation for these patients (or patients dealing with just about ANY condition) takes a great deal of stress off the digestive system, the immune system, the endocrine system, and allows the body to detoxify and heal... the benefits go on and on.

#1Taking the common allergens out of the diet, along with 

#2 Fighting hidden infections with things like the right herbal remedy

These two things take so much pressure off the immune system (and thereby the endocrine system, and thereby allow the body to digest, detoxify, heal, etc.) that autoimmune symptoms reduce, allergies (like seasonal allergies) reduce, and energy is freed up to reorganize the nervous system and finally heal all sorts of problems, many of which considered completely "unrelated" to the digestive system, allergens, infections. 

I just had a a patient whose psoriasis (autoimmune) has cleared up 90% in two visits over two months. We initially advised her to take one detox supplement (a form of charcoal made from bamboo) and a month later added an herbal anti-microbial. I also had her rub her lymph nodes over her spleen/left axilla as this was tender and weak with AK testing. This was indicating lymphatic stagnation, toxicity, and, in her case, suspected infection due to the strengthening of her weak muscle reactions with the anti-microbial herbal remedy with AK testing. 

I advise everyone interested in learning more to read this article on common food toxicity: 

http://www.michaellebowitzdc.com/html/FoodToxins.html

Although this website http://www.michaellebowitzdc.com/ is geared more toward health professionals, there is great information here for anyone who wants to go through it. Dr. Lebowitz's testing methods and research has helped me and many other doctors to get a handle on biochemical issues fast with great results like described with the patient above. 

Chemistry is just one part of the picture, along with structure, emotion, and general lifestyle corrections (nutrition, hydration, exercise, etc.). Some patients only seem to need one piece of the puzzle to get over the hump, while others need almost all of them. But when you are in a hole (brain injury, fibromyalgia, or whatever) why not use every tool you can to get out faster?

This discussion on inflammation is great education on how to make better choices for food.

Being healthy is a choice; doing nothing about your health is a choice. Everyone is making a choice every moment.

How can you make it easy to make healthy choices on a daily basis?  The only secret is to turn your ideas into action steps. Think ahead, plan for healthy choices and track your actions on a daily basis.

The first step is to know and understand what healthy food looks like and how to select those foods that have a positive outcome on your system. You will be amazed at how "just" placing your awareness on what you eat and how you feel will give you good information on what gives you energy and what depletes your energy on a daily basis.

Start by paying attention to everything you eat. Take action based on education and self awareness.

There's a specific topic similar to this and many other topics I have contributed in the same forum, if you follow this link: www.lumigrate.com/forum/take-action-make-choice-today 

Inflammation is a HUGE topic and has so many dimensions! I strongly believe that our diet over the years may be the root of the majority of our problems, with inflammation being a huge component of those problems.

In addition to what has been already said, I would like to throw in a few more issues that were briefly touched on by Dr. McCloskey. Intestinal infestations with candida, anaerobic bacteria and other infections agents really add to the inflammatory state of our intestinal tract.

This may be largely due to antibiotics in the meats that we eat, which kills our natural probiotics. The probiotics have many roles in our intestinal tract:

• They provide a barrier to invading infectious agents in the GI tract
• They help process our food into both nutrients and acceptable food molecules for our blood stream  
• They stimulate and keep healthy our immune system in the GI tract (the largest part of our immune system) and
• They prevent damage to the lining of our GI tract, thus preventing "Leaky Gut Syndrome".

All of these issues lead to GI health, and the lack of probiotics therefore leads to increased inflammation! Not good at all!

Hormone depletions can also lead to a multitude of problems including not only inflammation, but lack of absorption or utilization of the nutrients we so badly need. As the patient gets progressively worse, the less and less of the absorption and utilization occur.

A very negative spiraling cycle that needs desperately to be avoided. Our anti-inflammatory hormone, cortisol, comes from the adrenal glands. Over time, with chronic disease, eventually the adrenal glands "burn out" and quit producing the adrenal hormones, of which, cortisol is a major player. Lack of cortisol can lead to much increased inflammation, which further worsens this tragic spiral from wellness to that of disease and ill health. 

I also do a lot of food testing with my patients to eliminate the major offenders in one's diet. Each of us may have our own individual set of food allergies/reactivities/sensitivities.

So what to do? Find talented, bright, open-minded, experienced "detective doctors" who will work with you to find a personalized program individualized to each patient .. AND others to support you implement and carry through on the program outlined by the provider you find to work with.

The answers and recovery will not necessarily be quick, nor easy. But the rewards will be well worth it.