Sciatica

My approach is multi-pronged.

 

First, I'll want you to have seen an MD or Chiropractor, so we can be sure your problem is within the realm of my practice. There is no sense in your seeing me, if the cause of your pain is a tumor, for instance. It is always a good idea to rule out serious pathology. True, the kind of work I do cannot cause any harm, but if another kind of treatment is indicated and urgently needed quickly - I would be remiss if I gave  you pain relief, and you continued to see me instead of doing the surgery, or whatever. There can be many causes for sciatica. Please don't ignore this. 

When  you come to me,  you come for Feldenkrais and Ortho-Bionomy, the two protocols in which I have been trained. And, that is what I do. However, over the years, I have picked up a lot of information and ideas, ways of working with sciatica that I may choose to share with you, not as a client, but as a friend, and only if you are interested or ask me. Many of these ideas I share with you below - please don't think that is what I do with all my sciatica clients. No, I do Feldenkrais and Ortho-Bionomy - and I do integrate some acupressure, stretching, isometrics etc that are completely in harmony with Ortho-Bionomy and Feldenkrais. In fact, I do not draw a distinction, I use certain massage ideas, acupressure point release, stretching, etc in the context of improving your awareness and enhancing your movement- and that is certainly Feldenkrais. 

Once you have done medical screening, we can be confident that if within a few weeks your pain is gone, as if it never existed (this is the result I expect, and usually get) - we have gotten to the root of your problem and you'll know what to do from then on to stay out of pain.  On the other hand, if all my strategies do nothing, that is a big red flag, and I'll advise you to seek medical help, and soon. 

I'll want to be sure you are sitting, walking, standing, bending down or reaching and sleeping in ways that do not aggravate the condition. We'll cover each of these. Yes, even while sleeping, there are strategies that will minimize your pain, and speed your healing. If you sit down for a living - many hours - I will ask you to read my posts on chairs and sitting, and I will encourage you to buy and use a hard, flat wooden stool both for work and for home use.  Every session I will cover some aspect of one of these; it is important that you learn not to continually create more trouble with the sciatic nerve. 

Eventually we will discuss how to sit using various props to keep the body from sitting too long in one position - this alone can give good relief. This presentation will take about 20 minutes. I'll ask you to tell me when your pain is worse, and when it improves. We'll theorize as to why this may be. 

We will work to put your pelvis and lumbar spine in good alignment, so that there is no leg length difference, or at least a very minimal difference. Often, this too - all by itself - can give good relief. We'll do this using the protocols I have gathered from Feldenkrais, Ortho-Bionomy, and the book (and related DVD's) titled The Malalignment Syndrome by Dr. Wolf Schamberger, a Canadian sports physiologist and University Professor. For more on the topic of alignment (including where to order instructional DVDs), see my post titled Running and Skeletal Alignment. These protocols are simple, safe, easy to do alone at home without assistance, and you can even clearly check yourself, to know whether you are "in" or "out" so you won't be hurting yourself if you do the exercises when you really don't need them. In conjunction with this, of course, I will be looking to see whether your malalignment is being caused by your movement and postural habits, or perhaps whether it is being caused by, say, an old injury to a shoulder, hip, skull or leg - whatever. 

I'll ask you to use castor oil topically and to read my posts about castor oil. This will take the pain down to half, speed the  healing and help you move through your day without difficulty. 

I will use acupressure, reflexology and Ortho-Bionomy osteopathic techniques to calm the pain, release and align the lumbar spine and pelvis, and often in one session this will entirely remove the sciatica pain, and enable you to walk without pain. Whether it holds or not is another story.

Then, we'll move the leg slowly, gently, using Feldenkrais protocols to encourage the leg and the sciatic nerve to "move into length";  in other words, to move the leg without the nerve grabbing painfully. Yes, nerves can "grab"; they are not like muscles, but they do have a cell wall that can expand or contract. Anticipation or fear of incipient pain will definitely cause the nerve to contract, which in itself can be a source of more pain. It can be a cycle. Slow, comfortable, clever and gentle Feldenkrais movement it the key here. All the other work is just a preparation. 

A central issue that is handled by the Feldenkrais work concerns the pelvis. We want to wake up the innate intelligence of the pelvis to help us balance and move, in sitting, standing, walking and at all other times in life. We'll usually start with pelvis rolls.  Waking up the pelvis to organic movement takes time, and may not give instant results for your sciatica. But if your pelvis has been just a "dead weight" while sitting or standing, your poor lumbar spine has had to do double work to compensate. Often the lumbar spine will get kinked and compressed because of that (a prime cause of sciatica) - and while alignment work, osteopathic based work, and acupressure interventions can relive the pain, long term it is the pelvis and tailbone that must eventually come into play, for success to be certain and permanent. That's a job for intensive, regular, and most likely, rather prolonged Feldenkrais work.

I'll remind you, if it seems appropriate, that holding the belly too tight will freeze down the coordination of the belly and low back, and this contributes to compression of the lumbar spine. That alone might be the prime cause of your sciatica. In this vein we might even work with your breathing in a Feldenkrais context, or with ATM moves involving the pelvis and belly, such as the pelvic clock. Practice of abdominal breathing, or other types of breathing may be recommended. We'll probably spend at least one session, eventually, on breathing.

As well, we do whatever comes to mind. I let my natural wandering instincts come into play. Perhaps  you need to learn to sense and release your body weight more easily into your skeleton, while sitting or standing. Or, maybe I'll feel that you need lots of slow, gently mobilization of your arms and legs, to give you a real-time mentoring in what it means to move your body with minimal effort, without compression. Perhaps I see that the carriage of your head is not optimal - so we'll work with that, since, believe it or not- such a thing can definitely be a cause for such things as sciatica. And, very often, I may do intensive and regular Feldenkrais foot and ankle work, since everything begins  there, in a very real sense. Nobody complains about this, because it feels so good! This "wandering instinct" has served me well in the past - great discoveries are made, unsuspected causes of pain are uncovered. This type of work is part of the magic of Feldenkrais - and you can't get it anyplace else, as far as I know. Having a general plan, as I do here, calms my mind and gives some structure to our work, but often the real results come from unexpected angles.  

And definitely, I'll be doing Feldenkrais work to help you learn to globally decompress all your joints, including especially your hip joints and lumbar spine. This perhaps is my central focus, since it is what most reliably gives total relief. 

If your pain continues in spite of all this, I'll ask that you read all my posts, since there might be one piece of information that can make a big difference.  

I'll ask you to take Vitamin B-12 sublingually, and a multi-B complex vitamin once or twice a day. That's because whenever nerves are involved, it is good, and usually helpful to be sure there are enough B vitamins, especially B-12. If nutrition seems to be an issue, I'll recommend you see a nutritionist. 

I'll explain - if the topic comes up and you are interested in my opinions -  my belief/opinion that "we die from the feet up" meaning that problems with  blood circulation, accumulation of heavy metals, etc is likely to show up first in the feet. So the feet and legs can be considered as an "early warning system" of the body. Don't ignore it (you can't ignore sciatica, anyway!) and make changes! The sciatic nerve - very long, heavily used and most subject to being compressed and compromised for other reasons (compared to other nerves in the body) can warn us to make necessary changes, to avoid trouble with the brain, say, many years later. That can mean many things,  but in my experience (I myself have had sciatica), it is primarily about the items in this long list.  All this is mostly about me, even though I do write it down as client recommendations, it is what I do personally. If you do any of these things, it is your choice, and I can take no responsibility for any possible adverse effects

So here are my common sense guidelines to taking care of the feet, legs  and nerves of the lower extremities, in order to prevent further trouble and possibly enhance the healing process for sciatica. It has taken me many years to learn, embody and practice all these thing, so don't think you need to try them all! It can't be done, not unless you take several years to do it:

a) Manage stress

b) Learning to breath more easily, not holding the belly and floor of the pelvis uptight at all since this will crimp blood vessels to the lower extremities as they pass through the diaphragm - which is over-tensed. That means learning to get comfortable letting the belly hang free during the day. This is a large topic, and soon I will have a post that goes into more detail on this subject. 

c) Learning to move into length, not compression, and getting smarter about how you move, and the body positions, chairs, etc and situations that you allow yourself to get into. That means continuing involvement with The Feldenkrais Method. There is a lifetime of pleasant learning,  personal growth and transformation there. It is wonderful to include it in your normal lifestyle, just like a yoga class every week. 

d) Modifying and improving  dietary and supplementation strategies. Eat more greens! Learn about green drinks! Buy the book Green for Life by Victoria Boutenko! Up your percentage of raw food. Eat more organics, buy your produce locally at a farmer's Market. Stop eating fast food, processed food, grains and simple carbos. This is not rocket science. 

  

e) Dr. Jonathan Wright, the well-known alternative medicine pioneer, has written that he routinely cures sciatica by IV or injections of vitamin B12 with Vitamin  B1. That should be a hint for us.  At least supplement with B vitamins and sublingual B12. B12 - the latest research shows we all need to supplement, even beef eaters! B-vitamins are water soluble, so take them twice a day. There are many ways that B12 may become a problem - more than any other vitamin it is subject to stress, pollution, poor diet, low stomach acid -  any of these can cause us to be depleted. Shortage of B12, all by itself, can be the 100% cause of sciatica. It makes sense to deal with this aspect. And, the latest research does show that daily ingestion of one sublingual B12 can do the job. Shots are not really necessary (although I myself give myself  shots) and the past belief, by MDs, that shots etc were not needed, was faulty. The  test they used was not accurate. For more on  this, visit treeoflife.nu, Dr. Gabriel Cousens's website. He is a raw foodist, and has had more clinical experience with vegans, raw foodists, and vegetarians than anybody else  on the planet. He is a voice of common sense and wisdom, backed up by many years experience and a stunningly diverse education (he has many degrees).

 

f) Do detox protocols, especially to remove heavy metals from the lower extremities, where they do seem to accumulate. When clients are doing chemotherapy, I can feel by touching their feet, the hot, itchy, uncomfortable feeling caused by the accumulation of heavy metals and poison-drug residues there. I told one client "I cannot work on your feet while you do chemo, unless you do foot baths three times a week. She did this, and I could then work with her feet without aching hands).

 

g) A foot bath twice a week is a good idea for you, too. The pores at the bottom of the feet are the largest in the body - a hint that large, heavy metals can best be eliminated there through the skin. Maybe that's why  the body allows gravity to send heavy metals down to the feet, instead of just going to the liver (probably both happen, or the liver may be overloaded or the colon congested and elimination is faulty). How to do a foot-bath?  Use a dishwashing plastic tub, big enough for both feet, fill it with hot water (as hot as you can stand) and then add a little soap (to break the surface tension) and some other items to bind to the heavy metals as you sweat them out - such as clay, epsom salts, sea salt, 3T of unscented regular Clorox Bleach, essential oils, Willard Water, etc. You can Google "foot baths" and get much good information. Be sure to leave you feet in the bath until the water turns slightly cool, because some believe that is when the greatest transfer of toxic waste from the feet (now warmer than the water) goes to the water

h) Again, do some kind of detox! Salt baths are a wonderful idea. Clay baths are wonderful. Buy and  read the book Live Longer Better, by Joseph Dispenza for the very best information on taking salt baths, baking soda baths, Clorox bleach baths (1 cup per bathtub of water - it is great, I have actually done this). This book is available at Amazon.com for very little money. Visit a spa where you can do mud baths, clay sun bathing. If you live in Southern California, be sure to visit Glen Ivy Spa, just south of the highway 10 in the 15. Wonderful detox! Even if you do everything else in I recommend, without some kind of detox protocol you may get poor results.

i) See a nutritionist or other experienced professional, who has had many years experience in your locality in detox protocols. It is extremely individual - what is most suitable for you - and it can be actually dangerous if not done sensibly. As well, different  localities have different kinds of pollution, hence it is best to see a local person, experienced in detox methods. This may be an acupuncturist, naturopath, herbalist, MD,  chiropractor, dentist, or a nutritionist.

 

j) Personally, I use salt baths, clay baths (up to 2-3 hours per bath),  a high-end zeolite spray twice a day, castor oil topically now and then, dry skin brushing, Dr. Schulze colon and liver cleansing protocols (I often do liver flushes as he recommends), and periodic juice fasting, using Fasting.com protocols. I have paid Dennis, the director,  many times to guide me through 30-40 and even once an 87 day juice/broth liquid fast. It is safe, the appetite goes away after a few days, and one loses maybe 1/3 pound a day - but energy is good, and I can always keep working. Supervision is necessary for any kind of fasting - there are many hidden pitfalls and dangers if you do it alone, without sufficient knowledge. There is a lot to learn and know about fasting, of any kind.  Often my clients don't know I am fasting until day 30 or so, when they may say - "Steve - are you fasting again? You look so skinny.") 

k) Another detox strategy I use, very powerful, is a 100% raw food diet - with lots of greens and green drinks - combined with aerobic exercise and Bikram Yoga (lots of sweating).  I once went 2 years 100% raw, and now I eat 80% to 90% raw, and often go for weeks mostly raw. Nearly always breakfast and lunch is all raw, but supper may be cooked. Any trouble or pain in my body - I do more raw food, it goes away. What could be more simple? But not easy! And, you have to know how to do it. Read books, take classes. You absolutely must not do too many fruits and protein-anemic salads as most people do when they go vegan and "raw". That will only make you sick. You need green drinks, super-foods in abundance, protein smoothies, you need to soak your nuts and seeds, and sea vegetables. There is lots to learn! I do workshops on raw food. I have a website, RawFoodandMore.Com and I have a book on raw food that you may purchase  (not yet available online - but soon). Ask me about the book.  Perhaps I am too preoccupied with raw food and detox, but I live in LA smog, and that does accumulate in the lungs and colon, don't ask me how I know this, you don't want to hear me tell you! so periodic clean up periods are a must, for me. Also while I was in the US Army, processing to got to Vietnam, I was forcefully (we had little choice but to obey direct orders) given over 30 injections, all of them loaded with mercury (we now know that many years after the fact). My arms still ache!! After nearly 40 years. Were 30 injections necessary? For what? Or was it that the drug companies lobbied the US Government to give that many shots, more money for them, you know? (pardon my rant) 

l) Use a shower filter to minimize your exposure to chlorine. Personally, I no longer take showers since they have recently increased (by 3x, I am told) the fluoride in the LA water supply. I don't drink LA water,  either. I buy my water from stores specializing in water using reverse osmosis, and then I use a gravity drop Nikken  filter as my second line of defense. THEN I use the water. Really, I am pretty extreme, so don't try to imitate me. I clean my body using dry skin brushing, sponge baths using filtered water, sweating. I use PCV plastic pipe to conduit the water from my shower filter into the bathtub (so as not to lose heat) when I want to take a bath. I am currently experimenting as to what I need to add to the bath water to clean up the fluoride. Certain kinds of high-end clays seem promising. 

 

m) Last, but not least - see good dentist (I prefer holistically oriented dentists experienced in removing mercury fillings), get a Panorex X-ray to be sure you don't have "cavitations" (bone infections  of the jaw) or teeth or root canals that have "gone bad". If an infected tooth or root canal is along the same energy/acupuncture meridian as your sciatic nerve, all your pain may be coming from your tooth!  I don't believe in root canals, and had all of mine pulled out. The ancient, proven method? Pull the tooth. I felt SO much better. A root canal is a dead bone rotting  in your jaw - the blunt truth. I don't believe ancient cultures ever did such a thing as root canals - and that's not because they did not have the technology or ability to do it. They were smarter than us - I contend - if for no other reason than that they did  not attempt to destroy the planet, as we seem to be doing. I have lots of other reasons to believe that, as well, too much to discuss here. Ask me sometime. All this is no joke, and it is something to definitely rule out, or deal with, if nothing else works. I myself have experienced this - and I can't tell you how relieved I was, instantly, when the dentist finally extracted the root canal that was giving  me all that trouble! Of course, I now have a little trouble chewing, but sometimes we have to choose which kind of misery we want to endure. And of course, get all your mercury fillings removed - mercury is a very potent nerve toxin - it literally eats away nerve endings. It has been estimated to be 100 times or more, more poisonous than lead, for example. 

As well, I'll ask  you to stop eating gluten for at least two weeks - to see what happens. Please read my post titled Gluten - The Two Week Challenge for a comprehensive explanation of why this may help you - a lot!

Since sciatica can be such a strong motivator - for people to change their ways and launch into an adventuresome exploration of new things - I may recommend a book (if I am impressed by their enthusiasm), or loan a book, on Feldenkrais, that has ATM movements you can do at home. I might recommend you acquire ATM tapes or listen to online sources such as The Open ATM Project. 

This is pretty much what you'll get - but not all of it! Only some of it! Usually only a small percentage of it! -  if you come to see me for sciatica. There are a lot of things to consider, and never do we do all of these things. Usually, a client gets relief with just a selected few  of these items. I let my common sense and experience guide me as to what is most important in each particular case.  

Only if results are poor or too slow, will I start to talk about doing more, with more intensity. I do get good results, and have many success stories, more than I can remember. I want results, I want them quick, and I want them to be permanent, just like you do. In the past, when I worked only with Feldenkrais ideas, my results were good, but too slow. So now I still use Feldenkrais, which is something you can't get anywhere else, but I combine it with these other simple, safe, harmless recommendations and easy protocols and I get much quicker results. However, as you might expect, to cover all these bases, so that you can fully integrate them, may take more than just 5 or 6 sessions. At times, up to 3 or 4 months of work is needed to fully resolve sciatica.  

Gluten - The Two Week Challenge

Routinely, I ask new clients to stop eating gluten for 2 weeks, to see what happens. I do this because I know there will be improvements in the client's condition, whatever that may be. 

It's a long story, but fascinating. It has taken me 15 years to put it together in this way. I wanted the truth about wheat, so I began to explore, to pay attention, ask questions and do research. I'm share my conclusions here. I'm not so interested in the current science, biological or physiological technicalities or popular alternative medicine opinions about gluten, grains and diet. I want to know enough to satisfy my curiosity - what happened? I want enough information - no more please - to make an intelligent decision. There is so much information out there masquerading as science. So, I like to piece together my truth, in my own way - from my own experience, and from very selected sources I know I can trust - what ancient cultures did, for one. Why did they consider bread "the staff of life" when today, obviously, it is not? 

My way of presenting is a little rambling, but blunt. This is how I will talk to a client, if I think gluten, or wheat is causing them trouble. If you still want to eat wheat after reading this post, you have a strong will, is all I can say. So, here goes. 

One of my clients had a mother who was 108 years old. This was 10 years ago. Her mother had good cognition, and good memory, even of Haley's Comet at the turn of the last century, and the sinking of the Lusitania etc. So I asked her if she remembered whether wheat kernels were smaller and harder back then, compared to today. She confirmed my suspicion. Yes, they were smaller and harder. And I believe, because the soil was healthier, and the wheat was not "flash grown - quick and big" with artificial fertilizer - that such wheat had more wheat germ oil, more enzymes, more minerals and fiber - it was not just a wad of sticky gluten as wheat kernels are, today. Bread back then was more like the staff of life; today it is like the staff of death. 

Why is it that in every known case of eating disorders, grains are involved - the gluten containing grains? That means wheat, rye, oats and barley. A couple years ago, there was an article about the Inca's in Central America. Up to then, scientists had thought they had a grain - corn based - culture. New evidence indicated this was not the case - instead, they had a diet heavy in seeds, fruits, roots, vegetables, some meat and herbs. Not grains! 

In the 1950's  and 1960's I can remember newspaper headlines that read "University Professor Awarded Nobel Prize for Developing High Protein Strains of Wheat". I remember feeling glad, proud and happy that my country, the USA, was so magnanimous as to want to feed the world, and develop better strains - high protein, what could be better? - of wheat. And the U.S. Government, Universities and Agribusiness were all cooperating to do this - how wonderful!

What I should have thought was this: Hmmm. I wonder if money and profit have anything to do with this? More protein means less minerals, enzymes, fiber and oil. High gluten wheat is quicker and easier to grow with artificial fertilizer, on bad soil. What a coincidence! More profit for the farmer! For the corporations! And the Universities and the US Government share in that money. What grows fast and is puffy and larger than normal - which is how wheat is today - can it be good for us?  Things grown like that rot quickly in the refrigerator. Why would I want to eat grains grown like that? Especially if it is like sticky glue, and without the enzymes and fiber that should be there!  Gosh, I guess they did not really have our health, or feeding the world, in mind. It was all about money. What grows slowly, also has deeper roots, more minerals, better staying power, more fiber, good oil and enzymes.

Today wheat, rye, oats and barley - the four gluten containing grains - are too high in gluten. It is like eating glue - even when you have a bowl of oatmeal. I remember in the 1950's that oatmeal flakes would fall off the spoon one by one. Oatmeal was not engineered back then to be "high gluten" and hence, be like sticky glue when you eat it. That is how oatmeal is, today. 

Well, what is so bad about gluten in the diet? Now, that question gets to the heart. Some three years ago, there was a Time Magazine article concerning wheat allergies, wheat sensitivity. The main point of the article, as I remember it, was that far more people are affected by wheat allergies than Doctors ever suspected. Many people have a sub-clinical allergy or sensitivity to wheat; they won't be diagnosed, yet they suffer. Wheat or gluten intolerance can mean a whole host of unpleasant symptoms, including irritable bowel, poor assimilation of nutrients, nerve damage, neuropathy, inflammation and much more. 

Dr. William Philpott wrote a book some years ago titled Brain Allergies. He is a board certified psychiatrist and internist. In that book he describes what happens if we don't have the digestive power to completely digest gluten - which is a long, sticky and hard to digest molecule. What happens is that the molecule of gluten breaks in half - at a "breaking point". And, can you believe this? Each half of the gluten molecule, according to Dr. Philpott, is one of the most powerful addictive narcotics known to psychiatric science. It turns out that nearly everyone over age 40  or 50 has diminished digestive power. A young child may do fine eating wheat - but you or I? I am over 60, and I certainly cannot eat wheat, without suffering consequences. 

When I learned this, it really got my attention. Wheat - as addictive as any street drug, as addictive as alcohol, as addictive as cigarettes! Why doesn't the world know this? Why? Why, I asked myself, am I still eating wheat? Do I think just because everybody else is eating it, there will be no consequences for me? I am slow to change my ways, you have to knock me over the head. Well, I got knocked on the head by this information.  

Bernard Jensen, DC, the well-known chiropractor, has said that eating products made with white flour will break off the villi of the small intestines, which absorb fine nutrients. So we will then suffer from a form of malnutrition. When we eat glue, and it is not well digested, there has to be consequences. Just another reason not to eat wheat. 

In recent years I have turned to raw food more; I even went two years 100% raw. In the raw food movement, grains are highly discouraged. Raw food people are sensitive souls, that is why they do raw food, and they can feel right away the negative effects from grains.   I ate very little grains for those two years, and felt better than I had ever felt in my life. I've come to trust that I can be happy, healthy and strong without eating grains. It took me time to come to that understanding, since there is so much cultural propaganda to the contrary.  

If  you are young with healthy strong digestion - as is usually the case - your body can break down the gluten into small easily assimilated amino acids. Still, probably, some poorly digested gluten may slip through.  That's probably not so addictive, if at all. That is what is supposed to happen for us, too. But as we age our digestive fire dwindles. So we end up with only those two pieces for each gluten molecule - the narcotics. If you don't believe gluten is addictive, just walk past a bakery, and smell the bread. Can you resist that? It is no accident that bakeries have the vent directed to the sidewalk just outside their shop. 

How to tell if you are addicted to wheat?  Go two weeks with no gluten and see what happens. Also eliminate rye, oats and barley, not just wheat. If you are addicted, you will go through withdrawal pangs just like any other drug addict.  That means headaches, dizziness, uncontrollable cravings, maybe physical weakness, fever alternating with being too cold, cold sweats, and more. I  went through that, and that is why it took me ten years to go off gluten - I had  to do it gradually. You'll have a persistent driving craving for wheat. You'll feel like life is not worth living if you can't have at least a little bite of... cracker.. graham cracker.. toast.. pizza..... french toast... pasta.... oatmeal... rye crackers... barley in soup... soup thickened with wheat ... cake .. cookies ... chips ... pastry .. pie .. sandwiches... pudding... and the list goes on. 

When I worked as a vegetarian cook for 8 years, many years ago, I ended up with aching feet, hands, insomnia and other nerve symptoms due to wheat and soy allergy. Life became unbearable, and I got very concerned. I was still young - how could I live the rest of my life like that? How? Medical diagnosis came up empty, so how did I know it was because of wheat and soy? After I quit that job, I did not eat bread, wheat or soy for about 6 months, and all my symptoms ended. I did not know why, I just knew I was not hungry for those things anymore. Then, when I had my first wheat and soy, the symptoms returned. I can still remember the red, aching, hot throbbing feeling in the bottom of my feet, the next morning as I woke up. I wondered "what did I DO?" and then remembered eating a tofu salad with french bread at a vegan restaurant in Santa Monica. It was the same torturous feeling I had for all those years. It was real torture. I was not about to continue eating wheat or soy. I know from my own experience, that soy also is problematic. I don't need to read any scientific studies to tell me that. 

When I work with new clients, and they have any kind of nerve involvement, which is often the case, I feel the bottom of their feet. I can sense, in half a second, whether their feet have that same kind of hot, red, achy feeling that I once had (I say "red" because that is the color that flashes in my mind). When I feel that, I give them a talk similar to what you are reading, and without fail, they begin to make remarkable improvements - if they do the two week trial. 

One such lady - Jewish - was eating one bagel for breakfast, and one for lunch, with cream cheese, of course. I told her she had to stop, and NOW. At least for two weeks, no bagels - no wheat, no oats, barley or rye! Well, she did it, and she later told me I was a genius - because all her MDs and neurologists had been working for years to try to help her severe neuropathy (and I do mean very severe, her feet were really hot), to no avail. And here I was, with no medical training,  giving her an instant solution, that actually worked. She was not pleased that her doctors had not told her about wheat allergy, to put it mildly!

About 8 years ago I gave a presentation to an Multiple Sclerosis (MS) group in a hospital classroom. On the blackboard, still remaining from last week's class, was written "No gluten - no wheat, oats, rye or barley".  I asked a class member why that was written there. She told me: "The doctor last week who gave us the lecture told us that gluten eats away nerve endings, and and anyone who has MS should not eat any gluten."

Now, I am not a nutritionist, I am not a doctor, not do I pretend to know anything about what they do. But I do like  simple, safe, maybe not easy, protocols that can only be helpful with no downside. Going two weeks with no gluten is one of those things. You can't lose. Even if you are not allergic/addicted to gluten, it is good to know that, and no harm is done. You might even learn to like rice crackers, millet for breakfast instead of oatmeal, and gluten free bread from the local health food store (but I doubt it). There is nothing wrong in all of that. 

My opinion? The USA and much of the world is addicted to wheat. I myself was addicted to wheat for many years, but did not know it.  Wheat addiction is the trigger for so many other compulsive behaviors around eating and even mental/emotional problems - that has been my experience, and also, so I am told by a member of Overeater's Anonymous who does mentoring for new members of that group - that is their experience as well. She tells me a new member in her group must agree not to eat wheat for two weeks, before being admitted to the group. 

It took me ten years to break my wheat addiction. I could not imagine life without it. I was raised with wheat every day, and I lived for my daily fix - either bread, waffles, pancakes, toast, oatmeal, donuts, pizza, sandwiches, pasta, crackers, cake, pie or at least graham crackers. One of those things was my first thought when I woke up, and it was the motivation for me to live life. Without my gluten fix, what was the purpose of even living? Life was exciting with wheat, without wheat, life was boring and not worth living. I was really addicted, but I did not have a clue. 

I could not quit cold turkey. First, I made a switch to gluten-free bread. That was traumatic. The stuff tasted OK, but it was not anything like REAL bread. It tasted flat and empty. Of course it did, it was not feeding my addiction.  It took a lot of will power. But I stuck with it. Then I made a resolve not to bring gluten, especially bread, into my apartment. Never. Instead, when I was out and about, I could eat wheat - like a sandwich or piece of pizza. I went on like that for years. Still I had trouble with my nerves. So, I was driven to take more steps. I began to eat millet for cereal instead of oatmeal. I stopped eating bread, even outside the home, except for once or twice a month. After ten years of that, more or less, I made the jump to no wheat. I got tremendous relief in my digestion, in my nerve pains, in my general well-being.

Wheat is so pervasive today, anybody who has any trouble with their body, of any kind whatsoever, should try going without wheat and gluten for 2 weeks - just to see if there is any improvement, and to see whether one is addicted. In the sanskrit language, derived from ancient Vedic India, there is one word that means both allergy and addiction. Apparently they believed that allergies and addictions always went together. What we eat too much of, that we become allergic to.  

Today, I have no more such nerve symptoms, my digestion has improved so much that I can again eat wheat. But, I only do so occasionally. I am very cautious. I never seek it out. Yes, I get careless, and I'll have a sandwich now and then - but I will certainly suffer for it!  I'll go to the health food store, and want some chocolate crackers. I'll find the gluten-free brand, and eat them, and enjoy them. I have come to not miss the wheat. It is truly gone as a controlling force in my life. 

Because of my experience, and my distrust of anything I read in the popular press (which trivializes many serious issues, and confuses with "scientific" jargon and studies the clear message that we should understand about many things, wheat included - stop eating it!!) especially from magazines or news outlets that take advertising dollars from agribusiness or others who may profit from people getting addicted to wheat - I am very blunt, like I am here, when I talk to my clients about going two weeks without wheat  or gluten: "see what happens". 

A strange thing. When I was in Italy some years ago, I could eat their white bread with no trouble. And, I did that every day for two weeks. It was wonderful for breakfast, with buffalo mozzarella cheese and olive oil - perhaps with a little garlic rubbed on. When I came back to America, I searched high and low in LA for bread like that, but could not find it. American bread, by comparison, was heavy, oily, over-salted and too tough to chew. 

To this day, I do not know why bread in Italy comes "penalty free" while bread in America comes heavily laden with consequences. One Italian-American told me this is the reason: "In Italy the wheat goes from the farmer to the baker. In America, it goes from the farmer to the wholesaler. Here, you store grains for many months, before it goes to the baker. So, they have to spray anti-fungals, to prevent mold; plus the bread here has preservatives - in Italy bread is purchased from the local bakery every morning. It is a tradition. No preservatives are needed."  I suspect that American bread - laced with unwholesome chemicals - is less digestible, and therefore the gluten becomes a problem for the body. 

Two weeks without bread or gluten - if you try it, you may learn something about yourself.