A member of my family has received an allopathic diagnosis that is less than hopeful. The problem is probably permanent damage to the spinal cord and nerves that causes extreme pain and electric shock sensations.

It is not a problem with inflammation, and due to other health issues, the standard anti inflammatory foods trigger some rather unpleasant symptoms. We need something that focuses on helping the actual nerves.

Are there any foods that would help heal or at least sooth some of the symptoms from the nerve damage?

I'm not sure if you mean nerve damage caused by trauma or by disease, but I suspect that in either case you could learn a lot from researching Terry Wahls and the Wahl Protocol.

Here's a video of her talking about her work, which she has since extended to include full-blown medical trials.

I know of one or two natural supplements that may help with nerve repair beyond just inflation, but also contain enough anti-inflammatories they may still be a problem. Although I find it hard to believe there isn't any inflammation, everyone has inflammation problems with modern diets.

Having bad side effects from anti inflammatory diet or supplements usually means a bacterial infection, h pylori, in the stomach. Most people have h pylori and it is part of the cause of ulcers, so getting rid of it is just a good idea. Treat that first with a month of daily cayenne capsules, 100,000 heat units or stronger. A bottle of 100 pills is $4.99 on Amazon and will treat three people at the minimal dose. Then see if anti inflammatory diet or supplements help.

Although I find it hard to believe there isn't any inflammation, everyone has inflammation problems with modern diets.

So true.

We participate very little with the modern diet. It's difficult to express how different my diet is without walking you through my kitchen, so I'll wander off topic for a moment to tell you why we don't prescribe to a modern diet.

In my personal experience, I find that food is one of the most powerful medicines. I got very ill, and allopathic medicine did all it could for me. Doctors started talking of my life expectancy in weeks instead of the decades I'm suppose to have left. They had all but given up. It was about this time I found Sally Fallon's book, Nourishing Traditions. With the help of family, I drastically changed my diet. I use to eat fairly healthy by modern standards, hate fast food, ate maybe four chocolate bars a week, no soda, my pre-fab meal would be something like comercial pasta sauce which I added a whole slew of home grown vegi too. All that changed. I took every New World Food out of my diet, focusing on pre-industrial diet from England (where my family is from) and Japan (without the soy, and because it's delicious, nourishing and makes me feel vigorous), low fibre (due to crohn's like issues), and every single scrap of nourishment we make from ingredients that we source with great attention, or grow ourselves (it also involved moving from the city to a farm). A complete drastic overhaul of not just what I eat and how it's prepared, but also how the ingredients were made. I want to eat bacon, I find a farmer that raises the pigs on a diet and method that I can eat, I take the pork home, cut it up, cure it with ingredients I can consume, smoke it at home, slice it and fry it. I want to eat miso, I grow some chickpeas and barley... &c. It is almost a decade later, I've added a few new world foods back to the diet to improve variety. The infection that they suspect caused my problems is thought to be in remission, but there is damage to the body that is permanent. I am still hugely sensitive to contamination in my diet, and if I'm lucky and eat something wrong, I just spend three weeks in intense pain. I haven't yet found a commercially made supplement that won't cause me symptoms, I can't even take a multi vit, but thankfully my diet seems to be varied enough now that my doctor has stopped pestering me to take a multi vit, as she sees my blood work, and she says I must be taking one.

Thankfully, I've always enjoyed cooking, and as I found out later, this style of sourcing ingredients is far more ecologically sound than the 'modern diet'. Very in keeping with the Permie way of life. It lead to farming, and as an added bonus, some of the benefits of this diet have rubbed off on my family. Although less strict and sometimes snacking on processed foods, one family member who was just about to start insulin for their diabetes, was off all diabetic meds after a year, and still tests with very stable blood sugars to this day.

So you see, I'm a very strong believer in the healing power of foods. The closest thing to modern diet I have is un-enriched white flour, which I mix with the locally grown whole grain wheat flour to reduce the fibre content of the sourdough bread I bake. Also, the grains grown locally are low in Se, so getting some flour from the prairies is useful.

The person with the spinal cord problem can take some commercial supplements but is sensitive to one of the fillers used by some companies. He has severe crohn's which is controlled primarily by a low fibre, healthy diet. I can also make herbal teas and tinctures if it's something that needs to be used as a supplement instead of a dietary change. The issue with anti-inflammatory foods, comes with too much. For example, cooking heavy handed with the turmeric twice a week, is fine, but three times a week, or taking a capsule of turmeric causes a crohn's flare-up. There is no inflammation markers in the blood and the MRI shows almost none (I doubt anyone has zero inflammation, but the levels shown and their location indicate that inflammation is not the problem here). We include a variety of fermented foods with most of our meals, which I also attribute to the reduction of crohn's symptoms.

Please don't think I'm not willing to add or subtract from our diet - I am. We are at a point now where we can see what we are doing is not doing enough, so something needs to change. We are just a little bit limited as to how drastic or sudden that change can be due to the other medical issues. I would like to focus on food more than supplements, if possible, but don't hesitate to include supplements as well - quite often there is something good in there that I can translate to food, like cooking with cayenne. I love cayenne, so time to dig out some yummy recipes that heavily favour that spice.

Back to spinal cord and nerve problem.

The spinal cord is the major problem, the nerves are also painful, but tolerable. The problem is caused by two sources of damage, one from repetitive stress injury causing stenosis of the spinal column - which they cut up his spine to relieve the pressure, and the other injury is from whiplash one week after the laminectomy. The MRI shows the damage is permanent and all that remains is to manage the pain. I have trouble swallowing that diagnosis. It's been less than a year since the whiplash, and I suspect most of the current issue is from that not the pre-surgical damage. The recovery from the laminectomy was better than textbook prior to the whiplash, and there are new symptoms post whiplash that weren't there before (namely the electric shocks). The damage to the nerves (let's pretend that nerves and spinal cord are separate entities to make things easier) is part from the spinal injury and part from the surgery.

Very interesting video about MS. I've been wondering how similar the damage is to our situation. Given how similar nerves are to brain, and how much brain relies on healthy fats, I wonder if there is any way we can apply this to our diet. There is a genetic tendency in our family to malabsorption of B12 in the gut, through supplements and most foods, which is interesting given how important B12 with MS treatment. If the nerve is damaged, surely the myelin sheath suffers, especially with electric shock symptoms? I'm glad you posted the video.

Funny how this sort of timing works - I came across Fallon's work right when I needed it most, and last month I read a book by Carol Deppe called the Resilient Gardener where she talks about how certain people cannot absorb certain essential fats like omega three through a plant based diet. I need to re-read this chapter, now that I'm beginning to understand that choosing the right fats may play an important role in healing the spinal cord.

It sounds like you and your family are facing some of the same kinds of issues I have dealt with and that we are on similar journeys in trying to find things to help our bodies heal.

I am, myself, suffering the after effects of having been t-boned by a drunk driver a few months ago. I immediately sought chiropractic and massage therapy hoping to head off some potential issues at the pass, and it helped a lot considering the severity of the accident (totaled my truck). But in spite of the preventative measures, and a self-imposed period of taking things easy (not lifting anything heavy, etc.), I found myself in excruciating lower-back pain several days ago and had to go in to urgent care. Turned out a bulging disc that hadn't bothered me in years was acting up again and had also pinched a nerve, causing stiffness and pain that made sitting for any length of time miserable.

Needless to say, I've been again seeking out whatever I can that can help with the spine/disc/nerve issues. I, too, have read "Nourishing Traditions" (lots of good info in there), and more recently, "The Abascal Way" (an eating plan book I got off Amazon which counters inflammation. It's something that helped my mom when she was having trouble with arthritis and carpal tunnel type issues a couple of years ago.

Anyway, some of my own findings on my own journey to better health and healing are as follows:

Years ago, I learned that fresh pineapples (1/4 cup servings) were very helpful in healing carpal tunnel issues, some of which is tied to the membranous sheath around the tendons in the wrist. Because my nerve troubles could well involve the myelin sheath, I've begun buying fresh pineapples again, figuring it can't hurt to try...I really can't lose, because they're delicious food any which way. The enzyme, Bromelain, can be found in supplement form, but I've found the fresh pineapple seems to work the best for the tendon sheath issues, but I'm hopeful that it might work simliarly in my spine. It might seem a stretch to some who know more about how the body works than I do, but I'm going to give it a whirl and see. Just now I found a little snippet on Wikipedia that said bromelain (or a derivative substance) is used in a product called NexoBrid for the removal of dead tissue on severe burns. My thought is that those enzymes are pretty healing to tissues, so it's worth a shot.

There are some essential oils and a technique called raindrop therapy that might be useful for the nerve related injuries and issues, especially with a spine condition. There are a lot of testimonials out there that will tell you which ones various folks have tried for just about every conceivable condition. I hesitate to suggest any specific essential oils or blends, because I believe folks who use oils should really extensively research which ones might help them, taking into consideration other health concerns, and then to implement them gradually and with great care. One oil might work very well for a specific condition or ailment in one person, but not for another, because each persons body, chemistry, underlying conditions, etc. are all so diverse. Overall, I have found them to be tremendously helpful in my own household, and with this recent nerve pain, have been using two different blends over the affected area of my spine with good success. I've only taken the pain meds once since I got home from the hospital, and haven't even needed the steroids (I put up with some pain and discomfort, but mostly just so that I listen to my body and don't overdo. Between that and continued chiropractic and massage therapy, it's subsiding much more quickly than the initial injury which caused the bulging disc (and similar pinched nerve/pain issues a few years back, and for that I am grateful.

If this same person in your family is suffering from Chron's and other digestive type issues, you might also find that fresh coconuts are very healing and soothing to the gut, from the throat all the way through to the other end. Several years ago, I suffered terribly for about a year and a half with acid reflux, stabbing pains in my stomach, and what was ultimately diagnosed as a large duodenal ulcer. During that time, spicy or acidic foods and anything deep fried or greasy was out of the question, as was lying down after eating or drinking anything. The episodes I suffered during that period of my life left me with very little that I could eat or drink without paying for it later, and led me on an extensive search then for anything to help. During that time, I found that super papaya enzyme tablets helped greatly, but for someone with sensitivities to supplements, chunks of papaya in it's fresh form would be even better. Trouble was, those tablets only helped with the symptoms for that meal. The stabbing pain or stomach aches would keep coming back. When I happened to read somewhere that coconuts were very good for stomach lining and that something in coconuts had even been known to kill the h pylori bacteria, that they were anti fungal, anti bacterial and even candida fighting properties when eaten fresh, I went right out and bought a few of the fresh young thai coconuts (sold in plastic wrap in most grocery stores near me) and watched a YouTube tutorial on how to open those babies properly. Wherever it was that I'd read about this, it had suggested eating a whole young coconut on an empty stomach every morning for a week. One caution would be to make sure you strain the liquid into a clear glass, and if it's at all pinkish or purplish, it's past expiration and should be tossed. Anyway, I would drink the liquid first, and then scoop the soft coconut layer out with a spoon and eat it, too, as my breakfast for the day. By the end of the week, I pureed both together and just drank it down. The young coconut texture is a bit...slimy. I cannot even tell you how much that helped me! Three days in, my husband brought home some fragrant Thai food, a spicy dish I used to love, and I took a bite, sure I was going to pay for it later...but it didn't affect me at all! And literally, from that point on...I could eat spicy stuff without issue after months and months of avoiding it out of fear for the consequences. I still have no idea where I found that information (I've looked and looked), but it was a huge answer to my prayers! I've since passed that information along to numerous people, some with other gut-related health issues, and they've also had good success with it. Very occasionally, maybe twice in the last four years or so, I will get a little twinge of heartburn again...and I'll immediately go out and get a couple of coconuts and repeat that process again, but I've never had the same stabbing pain or heartburn issues since.

Another thing that I have also found to be helpful when we've eaten something that disagreed with us is activated charcoal powder. We rarely ever need to use it, but for the rare case of food poisoning or even just a nervous tummy (before one of my kids school plays), but I read recently that it can even help people have have inadvertently been 'glutened' (and are suffering a miserable episode of gluten intolerance). Taking activated charcoal powder can help to nip that in the bud. There is a lot you can read about it for helping with 'episodes' people with food sensitivities and even allergies might have. The only caution I know of is that it's used to take toxins out of the body (both by Vets and ER doctors), so you're not supposed to take it within an hour of any prescription meds.

Those are the things I can think of off the top of my head that have helped me in some way. Hope you and your family members are able to find something to help, especially with the nerve pain. I'll say a little prayer that you find exactly what you need to bring some relief.

I came to the food as medicine forum to search for anti-inflammatory and nerve healing foods for Paul's cervical radiculopathy. This is a helpful thread; and R Ranson, I would love to hear how things are going for the person on whose behalf you posted.

I think fats might be a major player. One thing I have heard that the only vegan source of fatty acids needed to protect/support the myelin sheath is coconut oil, and those vegans not eating enough of it tend to get irritable. Plus, there is the ketogenic diet which is high fat, low-to-no carb and reduces seizures, so there must be something aligned there with the nerve pathways.

And of course when babies' brains are growing the most, their mothers' breast milk is one of the fattiest foods (fattier even than other mammal milks) available to support that growth.

There was something about fish oils that was mentioned in the Perfect Health Diet (affiliate link) which led the authors to recommend eating fish once per week (like a good Catholic ), and that the omega 3 / omega 6 fatty acid ratio in grassfed beef and lamb was a better daily source of omega fatty acids than fish. I still don't have that completely worked out though have wondered if putting Paul on extra fish oil supplements was helping or not.

In the Perfect Health Diet, there was also a lot of comparison of how our guts have evolved, i.e., shortened, and are less able to tolerate foods that require longer digestion times, or even fermenting digestion processes (cows), to be utilized properly. The Western Lowland Gorilla was mentioned repeatedly as having a much longer (how long, I can't recall) digestive system enabling it to eat more fibrous plants, even grains and such as the main part of its diet. Might make sense to someone with Crohn's, I suppose.

The Terry Wahl video summed up so many diet recommendations very well - thanks for that Burra! For Paul's situation, we're good with getting plenty of fat, and healthy meats, and staying mostly low carb, but my sense that we needed more vegetables was heartily confirmed by Terry's recommendations. 9 cups of veg a day - three dinner plates full! That is a lot. Plus the seaweed and organ meats and B vitamins. I think Paul's intrinsic factor is basically non-existent, and he's stopped his B12 injections while being in distress. Can't say that I blame him. So...I have some lovely seaweed in the pantry (and we both take a kelp supplement), and will bringing that out at lunch. And will continue to crank up the veggies. Plus getting more B12 for Paul one way or another. The organ meats are a struggle for Paul, so some creativity will be needed there (he noticed the meatloaf tasted "off" when we tried putting minced liver in it once).

Terry Wahl's mention of bioflavinoids and polyphenols rang true to me as well, again supporting the 9 cups of veg per day. The way it was once explained to me is that the bioflavinoids are basically part of the structural integrity of fruits and vegetables and that they support our (cellular?) structural integrity as well. Then I listened to Eating on the Wild Side (another affiliate link here) which listed study after study in support of how the darker colored fruits and veg, and the older or wilder, less sugary varietals (in general, broad strokes, mind you) have denser nutrients. The kind of nutrients that fight cancer, prevent or heal disease, and otherwise support optimum health. While probably a bit more reductionist that what Michael Pollan has been advocating in how we think of our food, I still found it incredibly enlightening.

Though I wonder how someone with Chrohn's Disease could tolerate that much veg fiber. According to all these sources though, Wahl, WAPF, the book authors I mentioned, it seems all agree that veg and fruit are easier to digest than grains and legumes.

mothers' breast milk is one of the fattiest foods (fattier even than other mammal milks)

While I was working with marine mammals, I was told that an orca's milk was 27% fat.
I guess they need the fat while roaming arctic waters.

John Polk wrote:

mothers' breast milk is one of the fattiest foods (fattier even than other mammal milks)

While I was working with marine mammals, I was told that an orca's milk was 27% fat.
I guess they need the fat while roaming arctic waters.

Ah, that's right! I think I've been corrected on this before. Maybe human milk is only the fattiest milk of land mammals.

To follow up on my comment about humans having shorter digestive systems (though the participants in this thread likely do not need this), which, according to the Perfect Health Diet authors, is, among other things, a powerful indicator of eating less fibrous foods (grains?) and more omnivore foods, as part of an optimal diet. Here's a table from the book to illustrate what they mean.

Collagen! Bone and meat broths and stocks. Consuming those connective tissues I think would be incredibly healing/nourishing to the nerves and spinal cord, though it's a guess. I'm trying to find healthy ways to get these into Paul, as well.

It's a challenge. Not certain anything is helping or not. Here's what we are trying.

More fish

more healthy fats, including animal fats

no red meat - not because it's 'bad', but because we've stopped being able to digest it for some reason we can't figure out. (fats from these animals are fine, and so is bone broth, it's just the meat that's causing problems.

more pulses (chickpeas and favas - less insoluble fibre than many other pulses

more green veg, and local in season veg

for some reason a strong craving for bananas, so we broke our no-imported food rule and started buying bananas

main meal of the day changed from evening to noon or early afternoon

We are also avoiding a lot of the anti-inflammatory foods as they seem to worsen the nerve symptoms and/or the crohn's. Why they work for so many people and not us is something I've been looking into. There is a theory rattling around in my brain about why these healthy diets don't work for everyone. But I can't quite articulate it yet. I'm not a doctor or dietitian or anyone else with the authority to say this is a way to customize your healthy eating to your body. Yet more and more I wonder... there seems to be something to this idea. It's just a matter of finding a way to express it.

Thanks for the update! I'm surprised to hear more pulses are working, though again, there are those differences for different people.

I think your observations about different supplements not working is quite brilliant, and to get these things from food instead. I'm trying to get us there.

There is controversy around magnesium stearate, a commonly used "flow agent" in the manufacture of supplements. I tried to find a magnesium supplement for Paul that did not contain it (erring on the side of caution) and found a liquid mineral magnesium (with other trace minerals) that I thought would be helpful. I tried a 1/4th dose in plain water myself and it made me sick to my stomach. Me, who takes all kinds of bitterest of bitter herbal tinctures, undiluted, straight on her tongue! And while it might be coincidence, I had severe digestive distress for two days after (sorry for the TMI). I had given Paul a 1/4th dose in some cherry juice with ginger extract on the same day and it didn't seem to bother him. That was 4 days ago, I'm going to try a little bit again tonight to see if it might help him sleep.

In a way, I'm not surprised some of the anti-inflammatory things aren't working as much. Tumeric is pretty powerful stuff! So is ginger (I don't always tolerate it very well myself). I'm not sure what all else you're lumping into that category (maybe the bromelain?) though anything that potent might actually be doing damage as it does some good. Sometimes gentler, milder, albeit slower ways are called for.

My best to you!

I think you are n the right track with the Weston Price diet, bone broths and veggies are excellent, along with saturated fats. Perhaps there are herbs that can target strengthening the spinal discs as well. This post by herbalist Jim MacDonald records his success with herbs:

"Along with chiropractic, I used the rather agonizing experience to figure out how best to treat this condition. I ended up blending together a formula with Solomon’s Seal, Mullein Root, Horsetail and Goldenseal to excellent results (I daresay…). This was created not so much as a pain reliever, but to restore strength and integrity to the disc itself. To address the attendant muscle spasms (which were the worst part, in terms of outright agony), I used a combination of Black Cohosh and Arnica tinctures, taken in frequent small doses to help ease the sensitivity & reactivity of the muscles. The results were excellent. I could literally feel the disc growing stronger and the muscles relearning how to be relaxed. "

http://www.herbcraft.org/mullein.html

I myself have not tried this remedy, as I am lucky enough to have a healthy back at the moment. I will be trying it out once I can find the plants in my neighborhood, I may end up growing them as Mullein is not difficult at all. The neighbors would get upset if I started cultivating Horsetail, though, it's impossible to get rid of! I will post my own results then.

You could look into cbd rich oil, also the homeopathic Hypericum perforatum may help reduce the pain though I think that would only give temporary relief.

Google Dr. Robert Morse.  Call the clinic if you wanna hear examples of people with spinal trauma that have healed.  Here's a new one to me that I just heard of, who followed Dr. Morses suggested protocol.  A man jumped from an airplane, his chute either didn't open or fully open, he hit the water at 80mph and was paralyzed, he followed Dr. Morses protocol and recovered.  There are lots of other people who had similar traumas who have healed via following the suggestions of Dr. Morse.

The body heals and regenerates, if given the opportunity.

I've been using Hericium (Lion's Mane) to good effect with my spinal stenosis of the neck, as well as some memory issues. As an anti-inflammatory I've also been using curcumin in a gel cap (commercial name I'm using is Phenocane) for my chronic pain from disc issues. I also experienced what felt like electric shocks to the point it felt like my body was on fire - but only if I bent my neck a certain way. Weird stuff all the nerve and spine things that can happen to a body.

I read about person, who healed his sciatica nerve pain with chaga mushroom. I can't remember if he used just tea or also double extraction (water and alcohol) tincture. If you have birch trees growing, this medicine is free (but leave some, when you harvest, to let it regrow, and not to kill the birch as chaga mushroom covers its wounds. It is a good tonic to drink all the time instead of coffee (it looks like coffee, although it doesn't particularly taste like one, but tastes nice.)