Question
Hello.  I'm a naturopath and have a friend/patient who has a bulging disk.  Medical doctors only recommend surgery of course, and we are looking for alternative solutions.  Have tried a variety of herbs and supplements with limited results.  He gets some pain relief but no healing.  He sees a chiropractor three times a week, but I'm not seeing any real improvement in the situation.  I'm searching everywhere to find information and opinions of other professionals and would greatly appreciate any help you can give me in this area.  I have another friend with a similar problem, and would love to be able to have some answers for them both.  Thanks in advance!  Elise Wright, ND, DEM, RMT


Answer
Dear Dr. Wright,

There are some conditions that respond to nutritional approaches that affect body chemistry and there are others that do not.

Bulding disks are one of those that do not.  The reason?  The problem is not a chemical problem, but a neuromuscular one whose origin lies in brain conditioning.  Tight back muscles pull vertebrae close together and compress the intervening disks.  Time and pressure lead to disk breakdown.

Brain conditioning is acquired via learning experiences -- conscious or unconscious.  The muscular tensions underlying disk problems reflect brain conditioning that maintains those tensions, the brain being the master control organ of the muscular system.  (This is also the reason why chiropractic often fails, as chiropractic does nothing to brain conditioning.)

That said, the approach of choice for bulging disks is one that retrains the brain's control of the involved muscles -- my area of practice.  The discipline is called "somatic education," where the word, somatic, refers to the sense of the body experienced and controlled from within.

There is a direct course of action available within this discipline for neuromuscular retraining of the sort we are discussing.

I recommend the articles found at somatics.com/page4.htm.  There are practitioners of this discipline and self-help resources (see navigation bar at top of Articles page).  Results begin immediately and resolution often occurs in fewer than five sessions.