Reversing Back Pain, Neck Pain, Shoulder Pain, and Preventing Aneurysms

My Patient had Severe Back Pain

It took me about 15 years to learn about and understand this one particular disease.

A patient had major back pain.  He had 9 out of 10 pain for 2 years. I also found that he had developed some femoral artery aneurysms as well.  His health was much better before, but then he went through a divorce, and his health went South.

Here is what happened.  There is some major psychological trauma.  A divorce could precipitate the crisis.  But other psychological trauma can cause the same effect.  Fear, stress, and anxiety set in.  This could lead to a more vulnerability to parasites. Then, there is intestinal malabsorption.  Sulfur is not absorbed as well as other nutrients.  Also, allergies caused by the fear, stress, anxiety appear.  The link between fear, stress, and anxiety and malabsorption is well described by the field of “Functional Medicine”.

He had a parasite in the gut.  According to the Center for Disease Control, 14% of all Americans or 1 out of 7 people in the USA have parasites.  This is astounding.  Of course these gut microbes or rather large worms can cause malabsorption as well.  I will write another page on my experience with parasites.  Parasite testing by stool analysis or any other means is notoriously inaccurate.  The Pathology Laboratories that you send off the stool sample to typically do not want to spend time on stool testing.  The money is in automated testing.  Parasites, in contrast, need to be microscopically examined in the stool.  And the Medical Techs are NOT well trained to look for parasites.  The "Go To" place for parasite testing in the USA is www.ParasiteTesting.com.  They also have a very nice broad spectrum herbal blend to get rid of parasites. Stool testing can miss many parasites.  Stool testing even from parasitetesting.com is NOT a definitive answer. Stool testing is unreliable. In my opinion, you can miss many parasites. If you find the parasite, well and good. But a negative stool test does not mean you do not have a parasite.

Eosinophilia is also an unreliable means of verifying you have a parasite. There are red blood cells and white blood cells. White blood cells come in different types. One of the types of white blood cells are eosinophils.  The normal incidence is 0-7%.  Elevated percentages of eosinophils mean either allergies or parasites.  But, you can have normal eosinophil percentages and still have parasites.

Because of the Sulfur Deficiency, tendons become weak. Ligaments break. However, that is not the worse of it.  The worst part is that the same material that makes up the tendons and ligaments also make up the tendinous part surrounding the arteries. As the ligaments and tendons become weak, artery walls become weak.  Then, aneurysms form.  If an aneurysm is not taken care of and cared for, then the aneurysm may burst to result in sudden death or stroke.

Under Normal Conditions 1 Year to Heal Tendons

Back to my patient.  I explained under normal conditions tendons take about a year to heal.  If you cut into a piece of meat and see a tendon, the tendon is not fed by an artery.  The tendon is fed by diffusion.  Normally without a nutritional deficiency, during the first 6 months after a tendon injury, white blood cells migrate out of the arteries and arterioles and slowly make their way to the damaged tendon or ligament.  They slowly clean up all the ripped areas of the ligaments.  After 6 months, the tendon feels “great”.  However, this is the weakest time of the tendon.  The patient thinking he is healed, now goes out and heavily exercises the tendon.  However, because the tendon is at its weakest, now the patient really rips the tendon.  If the patient does not use the tendon, the body builds up the tendon over the next 6 months.  Finally, after an entire year, the tendon is finally up to full strength.  Now, it is safe to exercise the tendon.  Remember the normal progression of tendon repair under a normal nutritional status.

The root cause of ripping tendons and ligaments under normal stress and strain is malnourishment caused by intestinal malabsorption caused by psychological trauma.  Sulfur is the main nutritional deficiency.   

Sulfur to the Rescue to Heal Tendons and Ligaments

But the good news is that you can heal the tendon in 6 months instead of one year by using nutritional medicine.  You can take bioavailable sulfur in the form of MSM or methyl-sulfonyl-methane, GTF Chromium, and Vitamin C.  It is critical to remember that after the tendon has healed, you must continue to take these supplements for the rest of your life unless you have healed the intestines and gut of malabsorption.  What usually happens is that the patient happily heals the tendons with MSM, Vitamin C, and Chromium, and then stops the MSM, Vitamin C.  Then 3 years later, he injures the tendon again.  This is because the gut and the psychological trauma has not been healed.  If the malabsorption is not healed, then the patient should take MSM, Vitamin C, and Chromium for the rest of his life.

Typically, the mainstream approach to tendon soreness is to inject the tendon and area with lidocaine and cortisone.  Also, an operation may be done in an attempt to repair the tendon.  In my experience, this is a temporary band-aid fix that relieves the pain temporarily and may or may not make the tendon weaker by stifling the healing process.

Back to my patient.  He also had a chocolate craving.  A chocolate craving indicates a magnesium deficiency.  Chocolate is one of the foods that has a high magnesium level.  So if you have a magnesium deficiency, you will instinctively crave magnesium.  Unfortunately, chocolate is also a xenoestrogen.  Xenoestrogens cause a magnesium deficiency.  Magnesium deficiencies cause muscles to contract, tense up, and in general spasm.  The magnesium deficiency was also contributing to the back pain by giving his back muscle spasms.  The main route of entry for xenoestrogens is the skin.  I gave him my list “purple sheet” list of safe cosmetics and toiletries and told him to only use the products from that list.  I also gave him some chelated magnesium to temporarily relieve the magnesium deficiency.  Xenoestrogens take about 2-3 months to wash out of the body.  If you are successful in eliminating xenoestrogens out of your environment and not taking magnesium, the chocolate craving should disappear.  If you still have xenoestrogens present in your environment, the chocolate craving will still be present.

One year later, my friend had reduced his persistent severe back pain from a 9 out of 10 to a 1 out of 10.  I told him he should keep on taking MSM at 3 grams per day, Vitamin C at 1 gram per day, and Chromium Polynicotinate 200 mcg/day for the rest of his life unless he could solve the gut malabsorption problem from his psychological trauma. You can get Chromium Polynicotinate from www.vitacost.com.

How to Dose Sulfur to Heal Tendons

Initially, I had my friend take 10 grams of MSM per day.  I told him to ramp up slowly and spread it out through the day.  Start at 1 gram per day.  The next day take 2 grams.  The next day take 3 grams and so on.  If you take it all at once, then MSM may cause diarrhea.  MSM was used on a burn patient that I know who was told he would never walk again.  But he used MSM and can now walk again.  MSM is used to regenerate tendons and ligaments.  Sulfur is needed for tendons and ligaments to regrow. We all are deficient in sulfur.  Sulfur is found in raw veggies, but after cooking, sulfur is gone in 15 seconds.  The sulfur is lost in the steam of the cooking vegetables.

It is important to take the crystalline form of MSM, NOT the caplet form of MSM.  My wife bought a caplet form of MSM from a discount club.  I found the caplet in the toilet.  It had gone right through my gut and not dissolved at all.  I paid about $24.00 for the bottle of useless caplets.  If you do NOT buy the correct MSM, then the MSM will not work.  The best and cheapest MSM I get from www.msm-msm.com.  I do not get a referral fee.  The capsules are more expensive.  If you want something more cost effective, get the powder, use the scoop and put it into some juice and stir.

Use 1 to 10 grams of Vit C. per day.  Ramp up slowly and spread it out through the day.  Using it all at once will cause diarrhea as well.  Make sure when you stop Vitamin C to RAMP DOWN slowly.  Suddenly stopping Vitamin C will cause a relative "scurvy".  The body is so used to using high levels of Vitamin C that a scurvy will appear if you stop the Vitamin C suddenly.  Use close to 5 grams of Vitamin C per day.

Chromium is Important to Heal Tendons and Ligaments

Chromium is used in active transport of sugar across cell membranes. Chromium is also critical for tendon and ligament repair.  90% of the people in North and South America are chromium deficient. There are no chromium deposits in North and South America. Thus, chromium is not in the food chain and food supply of North and South America. There is chromium in Europe, Africa, and South East Asia, but no chromium in North and South America. Thus, the only place that an American will get chromium is from a vitamin bottle.

The most absorbable is Chromium Nicotinate or Chromium Polynicotinate.  Do not use Chromium Picolinate.

Chromium is essential for ligament repair.  

I had a neurologist-psychiatrist friend that had a half torn Anterior Cruciate Ligament.  He checked with his orthopod friend for a arthroscopy repair and was advised his success was only 50%.  He did not like the odds.  He researched and found that chromium was needed for the ligament to repair.  So he took some for about 6 months, and the ligament healed.

Giving Chromium to gestational diabetics will help fight gestational diabetes (pregnant women with diabetes).  I had read the article before. I could not find the study to reference for this article.  One small study of 30 women with gestational diabetes were given Chromium at a dose of 4-8 mcg/kg of body weight. Their blood sugar regulation improved tremendously.[1]  I read about a different study, but I could not find it.

Current mainstream recommendations of Chromium are 200-400 mcg/day. However, an expert from Life Extension Force that has 20 years of experience with chromium believes that this is an error.  He believes that you should have at least 1000 mcg/day.

So take 400 mcg/day of Chromium Nicotinate.

Use Chromium Nicotinate. Do not use Chromium Picolinate.  A small study at the University of Texas showed women that used Chromium Picolinate GAINED significant weight. In contrast, women that used Chromium Nicotinate LOST significant weight.  In addition, women that took Chromium Nicotinate had lowered insulin response to a glucose load. [2]

In vivo cell cultures and some in vitro studies in rats have shown that Chromium Picolinate may cause oxidative DNA damage.  Stearns demonstrated that Chromium Picolinate caused chromosomal aberrations in Chinese Hamster ovary cells.[3]  IV injection of rats at 20 times the commercial dose of Chromium picolinate for 60 days resulted in significant increases in urinary 8-hydroxydeoxyguanosine (8-OhdG).  8-OhdG is a product of oxidative DNA damage after 32 days of Chromium Picolinate dosing.[4] Researcher Hepburn Hepburn showed that Chromium Picolinate at levels of 260 mcg/kg of food was enough to lower the success rate of pupation in fruit flies.[5]  

However, the DNA damage and oxidative damage caused by Chromium Picolinate was 6,000 times higher than the serum level produced by oral supplementation according to this Life Extension Article.  Also, the same article points out that Dr. Richard Anderson of the USDA could find no toxicity of in a long-term study of Chromium Picolinate in rats at 10,000 times the recommended dietary intake.  The above studies against Chromium Picolinate used IV Chromium Picolinate, not dietary Chromium Picolinate.  Remember the dose defines the toxicity.  As an example, a mere doubling of serum calcium will cause fatal heart abnormalities.  There is none of this talk of calcium toxicity. Here is a link to the Life Extension article. 

At this point, I recommend that my patients take Chromium Nicotinate because of superior absorption and no oxidative damage as compared to Chromium Picolinate.

Vitamin B deficiency

Typically, the patient with intestinal malabsorption will have Vitamin B deficiency.  This will lead to tingling in the feet or hands or a creepy crawling sensation in the skin.  Taking a broad spectrum Vitamin B can be the antidote for this neuropathy and there will be a reversal of the nerve pain in about 1 or 2 weeks.  If the intestinal malabsorption is severe, the patient may need to double the dose of the Vitamin B for the Vitamin B to work.

Summary for Back Pain, Neck Pain, Shoulder Pain and Aneurysm Prevention

1.  Take 10 grams/day of crystalline MSM for at least a year from www.msm-msm.com. You can also buy MSM capsules from here https://www.bulksupplements.com/products/msm-pills.  Take 3 grams/day or more of Vitamin C.  Take 200-400 mcg/day of Chromium Nicotinate. Chromium Nicotinate seems hard to find.  Use Chromium Polynicotinate instead. Here is one such product from Vitacost.

2.   It may take 3 months to a year for the pain to subside.  Do NOT exercise or stress the tendon at this time.

3.  Once the pain subsides, wait the same amount of time before attempting to exercise the tendon.  For example, if by taking this regime, the pain in your back stops after 6 months, wait another 6 months to fully heal the back before exercising the back.  If you do not rest, and immediately exercise the back once it feels good, you risk rupturing the tendons even more.

4.  After the back is fully healed, you must maintain at least 3 grams/day of MSM, 200 mcg/day of Chromium Nicotinate, and 1 gram/day of Vitamin C for the rest of your life.  The exception to the rule is, if you have solved and reversed the gut malabsorption problem that precipitated all of this.

5. Frequently, the patient may have tingling or paresthesias in the feet or fingers or even ringing of the ears.  Taking a dose or double dose of a broad spectrum Vitamin B can help to reverse this in about 1 or 2 weeks.

1. Comeaux MD, The Definitive Guide to Natural Pregnancy Health Why Your Prenatal Vitamin May Not Be Enough, dog ear publishing, 2007, Indianapolis, IN p 24.

2. Grant KE; Chandler RM; Castle AL; Ivy JL. Chromium and exercise training: effect on obese women. Med Sci Sports Exerc, 1997 Aug, 29:8, 992-8.

3. Stearns D M, Wise J P Sr, Patierno S R, Wetterhahn K E, Chromium(III) picolinate produces chromosome damage in Chinese hamster ovary cells.(1995) FASEB J 9:1643–1648.

4. Hepburn D D D, Burney J M, Woski S A, Vincent J B The nutritional supplement chromium picolinate generates oxidative DNA damage and peroxidized lipids in vivo(2003) Polyhedron 22:455–463.

5. Dion D. D. Hepburn, Jiarong Xiao, Sharell Bindom, John B. Vincent, and Janis O'Donnell, Nutritional supplement chromium picolinate causes sterility and lethal mutations in Drosophilamelanogaster, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, April 1, 2003
vol. 100 no. 7, pp 3766–3771.