First up, happy birthday to me, I turned forty-nine on Monday, but for the last 16 years, I have not been able to milk it as Iris selfishly claimed the spotlight by being born four days after me.
Hard not to be outshone by your fabulous children, isn’t it?
Happy 16th birthday to someone far smarter, better looking and more mature than me.
As your children hit landmarks, you often reflect, could I have done better, been there more, done something different?
And the answer is always yes, of course, you do the best you can as a parent at the time.
Along the way you have to choose your sacrifices, and choose your pain that you are willing to sustain.
I have recently watched the NETFLIX documentaries on Rafa Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Gordon Ramsey, all excellent in different ways.
But one thing I saw for sure, is they make choice and sacrifices, and sustainably deal with pain (literally for Nadal and his damaged foot).
Djokovic leaving his family four weeks at a time to play, Ramsey off to USA for six weeks at a time, both leaving behind very small children.
NOTE: From multiple studies what children really want more than anything (assuming basic needs for food and safety are being met) is time with their parents.
The three examples above are extremes, I would not want to have left my two children when young for six weeks at a time.
Equally, I do not have a global empire worth many millions and worldwide fame.
It reminds me of this brilliant article which is really worth a read.
What pain do you want in your life? What are you willing to struggle for?
Click it 👇️
And speaking of suffering, last week’s case study F was suffering to the point she cannot weight bear and thus has to walk with a pair of crutches.
She is now diagnosed with coeliac after six weeks of eating gluten (made her very poorly), her B12 was “borderline”, but the NHS were not going to take the bait.
But given her exposure to nitrous oxide (it destroys B12), and her weird neurological symptoms plus fatigue, we are all over it.
And she has HMS/EDS.
My working diagnosis/clinical assessment is:
Genuine and significant neural tension, when she sits with legs straight out in front, her symptoms come on very quickly (remember SLR is 35-40 and it’s 100% not hamstrings).
With neuro-inflammation from the gluten and the PNS/CNS had it’s threshold for symptoms lowered by low B12 on a cellular level.
This is the NEURO-mechanical metabolic interface to perfection.
And we have 3 pillars to create sustainable change in clinic.
You cannot have a sustained inflammatory response running riot. If the NHS say they are not inflamed, they mean CRP is not over 7.5 mg/L, but anything over 2 is a sustained LOW GRADE inflammatory response.
And a great way to trigger that is eating gluten when your immune system is INTOLERANT to it.
Inflammation lowers your nerve firing threshold, aka you get pain and other neurological symptoms.
But low cellular B12 does this too.
So the plan is to plug her nutritional gaps with supplements and food (more protein and good fats, fruit and vegetables for minerals and some fibre for microbiome).
PLUS targeted adjusting to resolve dys-afferentation that is creating inhibition of key stabilsing muscles, in her case bilaterally adductors, quads (note associated with small intestines in muscle testing) and glut medius.
If you are not screening for hypermobilty/EDS you are missing key clinical information and a diagnosis.
You will not adjust these patients out of symptoms and into wellness by seeing them three times a week for 2-3 months, adjusting the same bit again and again.
You are a CLINICIAN not a therapist, it is that simple.
I talked about it here with a case study of a EDS patient who saw another clinic locally with 0/10 benefit after 24 visits, having the same segments adjusted again and again. Because their exam is really a token effort to appease the GCC, they missed her OVERT EDS.
Click it 👇️
For F, I adjusted C6 bilaterally in a lateral flexion (this is known as a cervical disc adjustment in Afferentology), which cleared the adductor weakness (I would say that is a mechanical intervention for a neurological outcome).
Plus x2 thoracic segments supine, which for me is a mechanical intervention for a mechanical outcome.
Nutrition we asked mum and dad to feed her more protein (especally red meat) and good fats, plus more fruit and vegetables – hardly a revelation but doses matter.
Supplements:
Pregnancy multi x2 daily – this works brilliantly as a multi for teens as it has lower B vitamins than the standard One a day Multi, which is too high for them. But high enough for a kick of energy, plus some low-dose iron, magnesium and calcium. It is designed to help things grow remember.
Plus, of course, Liposomal B12 hydroxocobalamin 0.5 ml (500 mcg) daily.
And I topped her magnesium up with x1 daily Magnesium DUO in the evening (magnesium calms the nervous system by blocking GLUTAMATE and reduces inflammation)
I also had on my list potentially to add in META-BOOST which is very calming for nerves and also trial DAO for histamine.
Remember histamine intolerance is incredibly common in HMS/EDS
If you are not looking for histamine overload and using DAO, you are missing out big time. Common and easy to improve.
Read it 👇️
Visit 2 and her energy is up and the walking is better !!
Note time time I adjusted C4 COUPLED, not C6 lateral flexion, AND L4 bilaterally and the SLR then came up a bit.
3rd visit and now her energy is so good, her Mum reported she was “annoying”. Walking with NO CRUTCH, albeit with a limp and FEAR (trips to A&E when you cannot walk or control your bladder tend to linger in the memory)
And we adjusted more different segments to get the nervous system online. Note SLR was 45 degree now. And we added META-BOOST to help calm the PNS/CNS.
4th visit continued to improve, but she was walking with no crutch I think, to prove a point, but with a limp, and that was training her nervous system in a way we did not want.
And she could not do normal gait without symptoms (hence limp), so we backed off and used one crutch to get a better gait while she was healing. Note the SLR on the left is now 55-60 and right 45-50.
By 6th visit we are walking normally, and I am now fine-tuning compensation patterns rather than going for spinal segments for neurological inhibition. In fact, she is strong, really strong.
Her father is also a patient and is usually robust and incredibly strong, so the genetics from him are 100% present.
It is the hypermobility of Mum that is more of a challenge.
I have been out of clinic for August, so the case is on-going.
She will need rehabilitation, and I am very lucky to have Mike Marinus working with me to refer to in these cases.
Check him out 👇️
So what did we learn?
In this case, FND was a dumping ground for the NHS, same as fibromyalgia or IBS. She has a clear clinical picture but the causes overlap like a venn diagram and it was down to me to see it and sort it.
The NHS are simply not going to be able to sort this kind of stuff.
We have to do a deep case history and that includes the family history.
Turns out genes create a tendency to certain illness/symptoms and run in families. Who knew?!?
I have it all on my intake form:
Common things are common — Use patterns to look for the 20% of stuff that is found in 80% of sub-groups.
If she had not already removed gluten, once I knew she had HMS/EDS, that would have been top of my list to remove.
B12 – if it’s weird and neurological think B12 (and gluten).
Use the B12 protocol
Click it 👇️