Normally, I wouldn't mention this, but I've had a sudden bout of severe low back pain, likely mechanical in origin. I am usually quite stoic, but this has prevented me from moving.  I am trying to self heal, but would greatly appreciate any positive thoughts sent.

Thanks,

Matthew

Matthew,
Will do my best for the good of all.
Thank -you for asking.
PUL.

Sent some luv vibes for your back early evening yesterday, hope you're doing better.

be too

Thanks to everyone for sending positive thoughts and energy.  Today I felt several "waves" of improvement.  I have a very strong constitution (haven't been out of work one day in the past ten years), and I went in to work in a lot of pain.

I felt the pain lift in several waves during the day.  It is coming and going, but overall, I am improved. 

I credit the waves that i felt with the individuals here and their intention.  I applied my own healing setting intention several times using a Monroe CD I have as well.

I can't adequately express my thanks to board members.  I am 50% better in one day.  I think this is due to the healing that may occur from the good folk here. 

My thought is that we don't use this forum enough, and that not enough of us ask for help of this kind. 

Thanks again Romain, Bets, B2, and Pauli - and others who may have added their intent.  Our potential for healing is multiplied when we come together.  I am grateful.


Love,

Matthew

Hi Albert,

I appreciate your thoughts.  However, as a physician, I can tell you with certainty, that there is undeniable evidence that a disc compressing a nerve root can cause severe pain, burning and numbness.  The afferent nerve endings which send the neurochemical signals of pain from the skin and extremities go up the dorsal ganglion of the spinal cord.  Many unfortunate people have had injuries that have been documented on MRI and other tests, with a pattern of pain resultant afterwards.  This has been documented both with trauma, and accidents, where certain nerve roots were injured, and time and again, the chain of cause and effect has been proven.  This has been confirmed on objective electrodiagnostic (EMG) testing as an interruption in the normal pain pathway of afferent nerves.

When a disc slips or pinches a nerve root, the nerve responds by accumulating swelling and inflammatory fluid around itself (initially).  Many modalities in animals and people have confirmed this model of pain.

Admittedly, there are folks with pain, whose anatomy doesn't immediately support their situation.  I know of Sarno's work.  I am not averse to releasing pain by searching for other causes.

However, in this instance, I know the cause of my pain was purely mechanical (it happened after I lifted a very heavy object in my basement crawl space, and was temporally related to the pain).  In such a situation to search for a psychological or metaphysical cause for the pain, would really be going to chase that wild goose.

I have, however, used hemi-sync meditation that I recommend to patients to help my body heal.  You may be giving too little credence to the power of healing thoughts and the ability of shared belief to heal in the physical plane.  The christian bible is rife with evidence of this power, as Jesus tells the blind, and the lepers "your belief has made you whole."  Or the parable of true faith the size of a mustard seed moving a mountain.  If you note, in these examples, Jesus never had the person lie down on a Freudian couch and come up with a Woody Allen line, such as "ok, my back is hurting me becuase I hate my mother...."

I do believe that some people have energetic issues and blocks, but I find that to concentrate on chakras, sometimes takes the person to be healed away from their main task of applying intent with the "feeling" of conviction.  It is, seeing it as done, and believing it, that manipulates the subconscious mind to alter our circumstances.


Matthew

Hi Albert,

While you and I agree on much, we disagree on a few things here, and it is worth presenting both sides (I guess that's what makes forums lively).

With regard to physiology, your explanation of how the afferent nerves conduct pain, does not hold water.  There have been many animal and human studies that have correlated the severing of a nerve root near the dorsal horn of the spinal cord with burning sciatica type pain (called paresthesias) from further down the path.  Remember, the brain takes the firing of synapses up and down the dorsal root, and does its best to interpret the result in consciousness.  To any neurophysiologist, this is not in question (as you seem to suggest that it is).  I can, if you wish put in a whole bibliography of published reports that correlate damage in the spinal nerve roots, with symptoms below these areas.  There is no real surprise to this for that stimulus from the skin/muscle or tendon, must be transmitted up the nerve roots via synapses along the afferent horn to the brain in order to be perceived.  Damage at any level in the dorsal root ganglion or the dorsal horn of the spinal cord, causes a sensation of pain corresponding to a level below the damaged nerve.  Again, without sounding haughty, this physiology is neuroloscience 101, and so well supported that it is not in question.  There are countless trauma victims who have had their spinal nerve roots cut in car crashes, wars, etc. and their resulting pain syndromes are as reproducible as 1+ 1=2.   

Granted, the human condition does transcend the physical, at times.  There are always cases of people who develop other neurosynaptic pathways, and confound their physicians. And I have seen people improve without surgery for slipped discs with nerve root compression.  But there are many other explanations for these occurrences, too tedious to go into (such as the gradual dissolution of the disc material and shrinkage of swelling around the injured nerve root over weeks to months).

Phantom pain makes absolute sense in that the brain tries to put together the input that comes to it.  If I sever a leg below the knee, there is a feedback of afferent nerves to muscles/motor neurons that is disrupted.  The brain and consciousness try to make sense of the lack of stimuli and damaged nerve endings that are left, and then there is a general sensation of pain.  It is a type of confabulation or the conscious mind "filling in the blanks."  Neural stimuli do travel in both directions, by the way, just by a different pathway.  The efferent nerves will travel from motor neurons to muscles, and there is a natural feedback loop between the two. 

The other area of disagreement I have is the need for psychological analysis in order to make spiritual progress.  It may be helpful for some people - I grant you that - to address their pain, and question if there is something in their lives they haven't face.

To me, this is in fact an indulgence for some (not yourself) in ego based thinking, and makes the spiritual process much more complicated than the principal of love and faith really are.

Jesus' healing of a cripple should be no different than any healing you or I could accomplish.  Jesus says as much when he says "your faith has healed you."  Who is to say that most of our problems are psychological in the physical world?  Jesus never needed to address this interaction, for he knew that belief/faith/conviction coupled to the thought of healing, always led to a healing.  I know you are well versed in the New Testament, and I think you will find that none of the healings there required the ill person to confront a psychological problem first.

As often happens in conversations on this board, it all comes from our belief systems - yours and mine differs here.  I believe, that for me, spiritual progress requires a transcending of the psychological issues to get straight to the source of love.  But that is what works for me.  If someone wants to go over their childhood memories, longings, etc. as a way to release fear, so be it.  I see it as a form of going of on a tangent only to get back to the heart of spirituality.  But that's what works for me.

Matthew

Albert,

I don't want to belabor the point, but your idea that there is one dendrite in the peripheral tissues, is simply incorrect.  A dendrite connects to its axon, this travels a certain distance, protected in a myelin sheath (sort of like an electrical wire protected by a plastic cord).  At regular intervals, there is a synapse where one axon ends at a terminus and transmits its electrochemical signal to the next node just as the dendrite started.   The picture you show, the nerve root is a group of fibers coming from one part of the body transmitting this electrochemical signal first to the dorsal ganglion in the spinal cord, and then to the brain.  If I squeeze this nerve root and perturb the electrochemical signal in the lower back, the information going to the brain is that something from that point all the way down to the dendrite is injured.  It is up to the brain to put it together, but almost everyone reacts the same way and has pain.  Again, it makes perfect sense, since there is a chain of nodes transmitting the nerve impulse, and the disc crushes the nerve root, altering the electrochemical impulse by mechanical factors (swelling, compression which change neurochemical transmission).  Unfortunately, there have been millions of cases of repeated trauma like this in wars, car accidents, etc. which corroborate this model throughout recorded medical history.

As to the importance of the psychological issues, again, I agree that for some people it will be important.  It depends on your cosmological view of things.  For me, the love principle we speak of on the board makes the individual dissection of various fears less important.  I respect your feelings that for you and others a more in depth insight is needed.  I believe that fear tends to be dispelled more and more when our beliefs transcend the ego; this is not a loss of individuality, but merely a movement toward love of others and God.  The buddhists call this "right thought," or "right action."  When it does become second nature, a person needs to delve less into past life traumas and the psychology behind perceived past fears and injustices.  I can't say I've reached that point yet, but I am striving toward it.

Also, I am a big believer in the human soul interpenetrating the physical body, and the body being a manifestation of the mind.  As such, the whole notion of pain to me is a feeling or state of mind perceived by the brain as it interacts with its surroundings in the physical world.  This mixture of metaphysics ("mind") and biology ("brain" and neurons), is reproducible, up unto a point.  So yes, since literally millions of spinal cords have been severed and almost every time certain lesions are reproduced there is a paralysis or sensation made, we can say it is a "fact" in the physical plane that a compressed nerve root causes a symptom.  Yet the mind that interprets the physical sensations is not of the physical world.   I think you and I agree on this part - and Western science will likely never explain consciousness.

Matthew

Glad to hear that you are feeling much better Matthew.  Btw, i do agree with what you wrote above, but i also would point out from my own experience that often health issues as challenges are some of the best catalysts for inner change and spiritual growth and were chosen on some level for that very reason.

  But i would agree that sometimes physical imbalances are related to purely physical causes and there isn't always a karmic, energetic-psychological, or spiritual reason of why or cause behind it.

    I find when being involved in healing, it is always best to get in touch with the Higher/greater/total self of that person and check if one should try to act as a healing channel for that person in a physical sense or not. 

  Sometimes its not what is spiritually best to try to physically heal someone. 

  I believe this is what Yeshua would do before partaking in healing, and while  he (not so much him, but the Universal Creative force that he acted as a pure channel of) healed a lot of people during his public ministry, there were many that he didn't heal or didn't even try to, because he knew that alleviation of their physical issues wasn't what was best for them spiritually.