Ultimate Prescription

Neuropathy

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Nick Evenson (Host), Dr. James Marcum

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Series Code: UP

Program Code: UP000090A


00:01 The following program presents
00:02 principles designed to promote good health
00:04 and is not intended to take the place
00:05 of personalized professional care.
00:07 The opinions and ideas expressed
00:09 or those of the speaker.
00:10 Viewers are encouraged to draw their own conclusions
00:13 about the information presented.
00:16 Have you ever experienced pain
00:18 that the doctor had a hard time explaining?
00:20 Sometimes our body signaling system
00:22 has issues that can be difficult to diagnose.
00:25 Learn more about pain from the nerves on today's program.
00:29 I'm Dr. James Marcum.
00:31 Are you interested in discovering the reason why?
00:34 You want solutions to your healthcare problem.
00:37 Are you tired of taking medications?
00:40 Well, you're about to be given the Ultimate Prescription.
00:46 Welcome to the Ultimate Prescription.
00:47 I'm your host Nick Evenson
00:49 here with Dr. James Marcum of Heartwise Ministries.
00:52 And today we're talking about pain
00:54 and more specifically we're talking about neuropathy.
00:58 Now, Dr. Marcum, neuropathy is a big word.
01:00 What is a neuropathy?
01:01 Yeah, well, we're going to talk a lot about
01:03 that today's program
01:05 but neuropathy is when the pain is coming
01:08 from the nerve itself.
01:10 Okay.
01:11 You know, we've talked about lots of pains from trauma,
01:14 we've talked about head pains and chest pains
01:16 and belly pains and your general pains
01:19 and foot pains,
01:21 so but those are all the organs are damaged
01:24 or are hurt and then the nerve picks up on it and says,
01:27 I've been damaged, something is wrong.
01:29 We call that nociceptive type pain.
01:31 A big word that says the nerve is okay,
01:33 but the part that it's supposed to be reporting on has damaged.
01:36 Right.
01:38 And remember nerves have the ability to do
01:39 all sorts of things.
01:41 They send signals back to the brain
01:43 and let us know if we're having pain,
01:45 sensation, works out in space,
01:48 all that information get sent back to the brain.
01:51 Right. Well, guess what?
01:53 Sometimes the nerves themselves can be the problems.
01:57 You know, the part that it's coming
01:59 from usually are okay, we call that neuropathy.
02:03 So a neuropathy would be like a fire alarm
02:06 that's supposed to warn you of fire going off
02:08 when there is not a fire?
02:10 That's... Well, it can do that.
02:11 Okay. Okay.
02:12 That's a good analogy.
02:14 Another thing the way you might think
02:15 of sometimes both processes are damaged.
02:18 Sometimes the organ itself is damaged
02:21 and the nerve that's supposed to report on is damaged
02:23 and it can't signal on the damage.
02:25 Okay.
02:26 So we have sort of a double whammy,
02:27 so sometimes there can actually be overlap,
02:30 for instance in severe injuries, okay.
02:34 Crush injuries where the nerve is damaged
02:36 and the body is damaged as well.
02:38 Okay, you can have neuropathy
02:40 where the nerve itself is damaged
02:41 as well as the tissue that's around it is damaged.
02:45 We see this in phantom pain, okay.
02:48 In phantom pains the nerves are no longer there,
02:51 but the part it support, you know,
02:52 it's just really confusing to the upper parts of the brain,
02:56 on the central nervous system said well,
02:58 listen there used to be nerve there
03:00 that was signaling on pain
03:01 and now there is no part there
03:03 and I don't know what to do.
03:06 Okay.
03:07 You know, so I guess I'm telling the body
03:08 that there is still pain there.
03:10 So the central nervous system which processes the information
03:13 from the peripheral nervous system,
03:16 all is involved in neuropathy.
03:18 It's a very interesting subject
03:21 and we're going to talk about that a little bit.
03:23 I want to talk a little bit about the brain in Heartwise.
03:25 Yeah, that's right, a lot of topics you discuss,
03:28 you approach them a little differently
03:29 than some physicians do.
03:30 And give us a little bit of your philosophy
03:32 as it relates to pain
03:34 and just treatment of the whole person.
03:35 Yeah, well, this goes with pain and everything
03:36 'cause when we sort of move away
03:38 from the way God designed us,
03:40 that puts stress on a system.
03:43 Right.
03:44 And if stress goes on long enough
03:46 no matter where the stress is from,
03:48 whether it's from pain that's a stressful situation,
03:50 you just drink a glass of water that's a stressful situation
03:54 if you don't have enough of water.
03:55 Yeah, dehydrating.
03:57 Not having rest and all puts stress on the body.
03:59 If you can stress the body and over long terms of time,
04:02 long term stress can cause symptoms.
04:06 Okay.
04:07 You know, we talked about, you know,
04:09 muscles and joints not too longer,
04:10 if you use the muscle too long,
04:11 it just put stress on it and there is a reaction.
04:14 Well, that happens at every part of the body
04:17 including the brain.
04:19 Well, part of what Heartwise does
04:21 is we let people know the place for modern medicine,
04:24 especially to get over emergencies.
04:25 Right.
04:27 And once they're over that emergency,
04:28 let's say it's a pain and then the next thing we do is say,
04:30 hey, listen what cause that pain?
04:33 Sometimes our stresses are genetics, Nick,
04:35 and we can't change them.
04:37 Right, nothing we knew about that.
04:38 We're given the genes that we're given.
04:39 Right.
04:41 So sometimes there are some things
04:42 that we can't change
04:43 and we can improve our chemistry.
04:45 I mean and then sometimes we can't do anything of our own
04:47 and we just need God to be in our lives and heal us.
04:50 And we know that even if we can't do everything,
04:53 if we can't take steps one step at a time,
04:55 God is there to make the difference
04:56 as long as we have a relationship with him.
04:59 And this is important for neuropathies
05:01 'cause we now know that worship actually changes
05:05 the chemistry of the brain itself.
05:07 Now that's an interesting concept
05:08 that probably a lot of people haven't heard before.
05:10 How does worship improve your brain health?
05:12 Well, Dr. Newberg
05:13 at the University of Pennsylvania
05:15 has done some research
05:16 and so as when you worship consistently every day,
05:19 it increases the part of your brain
05:20 called the anterior cingulate cortex.
05:23 Okay.
05:24 This is the upper part of the brain
05:26 where we do thinking, reasoning,
05:27 figuring complex things out, loving,
05:29 this is that part of the brain.
05:31 And this is a part that's unique to humans, right?
05:32 Yes, unique to humans.
05:34 And when that part of the brain is working,
05:36 we actually turn down other parts of the brain,
05:38 stress parts of the brain.
05:40 Okay.
05:41 So stress parts of the brain actually activates
05:43 more of our flight or flight, I got to stay alive.
05:47 So it enhances our pain pathways
05:50 and other things that we do to stay alive.
05:52 So you always wonder well,
05:54 why did you know, Steven when he,
05:56 you know, was being stoned,
05:58 he didn't seem to have pain, you know.
06:00 What was going on with that?
06:02 Well, maybe his worship was so developed
06:04 that those pathways were turned down,
06:06 something physiologic was happening
06:08 and also something supernatural.
06:10 When the supernatural happens, it has a physiologic response.
06:13 That's right.
06:15 So God has the physiologic response
06:16 in our lives
06:18 so he makes the brain better by worship,
06:20 so worship is going to help pain get better.
06:22 Yeah.
06:24 So Heartwise tries to you know,
06:25 show people where the place for modern medicine is.
06:28 We also show them the place for natural remedies,
06:31 but we also point them to the ultimate healer
06:34 and all these natural remedies, Nick,
06:36 whether it be water and living water
06:39 are being outside in the light the truth,
06:42 the living light.
06:43 Eating healthy foods, the bread of life.
06:46 Right.
06:47 Create me a new brain, all these things
06:48 point back to Christ.
06:50 And the physical and the spiritual
06:53 are together on this.
06:54 Yeah.
06:56 And as we see this, it makes healing
06:58 and approach to medicine and healing much easier.
07:01 And I think this is important to understand,
07:03 so we try to get this message out
07:05 and we also give it to other people
07:06 to help their neighbors and their friends.
07:09 We recently developed the Bible study series,
07:12 it's very interesting that people can use
07:14 as an evangelistic platform.
07:16 But this really relates to neuropathies,
07:19 'cause neuropathies involve the brain,
07:21 the brain and the central nervous system.
07:24 I think it's a really great message
07:25 because it's a message of hope really.
07:27 There's people regardless of you know,
07:30 they may be fantastic Christian folks
07:32 and have great relationship with Christ,
07:33 but they may not experience healing while here on earth.
07:36 Yeah.
07:37 But that's the key point
07:39 is that when Christ takes us to heaven
07:41 there will be healing.
07:42 He has promised that
07:43 and you could take that to the bank.
07:45 You know, he loves us, he wants to take care of us.
07:47 We don't necessarily know God's ways nor we ever,
07:50 but he's promised us and that's what face all about.
07:53 Get back to neuropathies.
07:55 Yeah, let's get back a little bit deeper
07:56 into neuropathies.
07:57 Let me ask you a question here.
07:59 About how many brain cells do you think
08:01 there is in the brain, you probably know this
08:03 from talking to me before, how many brain cells...
08:04 I wish I hadn't just looked in my nose.
08:06 How many brain cells do you have?
08:07 But there is a 100 billion.
08:09 Is that right with the B billion.
08:10 Billion, good.
08:11 How many connections do we have?
08:13 Trillions.
08:14 A quadrillion. A quadrillion man.
08:16 I can't even understand it.
08:17 That's 10 with 15 zeros added, so the brain...
08:19 It's a lot.
08:21 And it's processing center is much more complex
08:24 then even the internet.
08:25 Yeah.
08:27 Okay, now this is important to understand this
08:28 because the brain ultimately is the one
08:32 that decides what we do with pain.
08:33 Okay. Right.
08:35 The thalamic, the pathway where the pain comes in
08:37 it's interpreted with our brains,
08:39 our experience with pain,
08:41 our dealing with pain over long term,
08:43 the brain decides what to do with it.
08:45 I had a neuropathy in my arm for six years.
08:50 It felt like my arm was at sleep
08:51 because of chronic nerve damage.
08:53 Okay.
08:54 And it hurt or tingled everyday but it only tingled
08:57 when I thought about it
08:58 and after six days one day the brain turned it off.
09:01 It said, you know, your nerves are sending signals,
09:04 it no longer needs to do this, we're done.
09:07 So it just recognized that it was a false alarm essentially.
09:09 Yes, or it didn't need to fire anymore
09:11 or whatever it just,
09:12 it just quit.
09:14 And that's one thing and people that have neuropathy
09:16 where the brain is the cause of pain,
09:18 the nerves are causing the pain.
09:20 In my experience this is so complex,
09:23 we're just now beginning to understand little bits of it.
09:25 Right.
09:26 You know, a person's experience with pain
09:29 and everyone's brain deals with pain differently.
09:32 You know, some people senses
09:34 a burn pain is a lot more than a stab pain.
09:37 Okay.
09:38 Or a bone break which is usually
09:39 the worse is worse than everything,
09:41 but typically neuropathy is caused by nerves itself.
09:45 It can present in many different ways
09:47 but a lot of the time it's a lot of burning.
09:49 Okay. A lot of burning.
09:51 And usually neuropathies happen in the nerves
09:54 that are the furthest from the brain.
09:55 Okay.
09:57 You know, in the fingers and in the legs.
09:59 We call that peripheral neuropathies.
10:02 Okay, because it's on the extremities.
10:04 Yes, the extremities... Further away from...
10:05 The nerves are from the control center.
10:06 So where the controls don't, can't work as well.
10:10 The nerves are damaged from numerous things
10:12 that we're going to talk about.
10:13 Now central nervous system
10:15 in the brain itself in the spinal,
10:17 we call that central
10:18 'cause that's where our processing,
10:20 that's where all these connections are going on.
10:22 And just think when a pain stimuli come in,
10:24 you might activate
10:25 a million different interconnections
10:27 within the brain.
10:29 One might say, well, this is what it is
10:30 and one part of your brain hippocampus,
10:32 well, this is your experience with this before
10:34 and this one say, well, this is how I react with this
10:37 and different part of brain says, is this dangerous,
10:38 is this going to kill me type of pain.
10:40 I mean, other one says, well, do I need inflammation,
10:42 do I need to pull back,
10:43 what do I need to do with this stimuli,
10:45 so it's very, very complicated, Nick.
10:48 But a central nervous system
10:49 cause of a neuropathy is sort of rare.
10:51 Okay.
10:53 Usually that's in the brain itself
10:55 and usually that type of pain is intractable,
10:58 it goes on and on and on and on.
11:00 It's usually a burning pain, it's an agonizing pain
11:04 and we give that a name based on the part of the brain
11:07 that comes from it's called a thalamic syndrome.
11:09 Okay.
11:11 Okay where the brain itself is causing that.
11:13 Well, any lesion, a brain lesion
11:15 or damage in that part of the brain that does this,
11:18 that interprets pain and then sends out that can cause this,
11:21 neoplasms can cause this cancer I mean,
11:24 cancers in the brain.
11:26 If you have an infarction of the brain,
11:28 doesn't get enough part in that part of the brain
11:29 that interprets pain dies,
11:31 that can sometimes turn on this severe agonizing pain,
11:34 it's a thalamic syndrome.
11:35 It's some of the worst pain ever, okay.
11:38 Now sometimes you can also have pain
11:41 in the central nervous system.
11:42 Remember the brain is much more complicated than
11:45 a big nerve, okay.
11:46 Right, yeah.
11:48 But you know, some people think of it
11:49 as a big nerve,
11:50 but it's much more complicated but it's a part of it.
11:52 Now the spinal cord
11:54 that's where the nerves continue to move from the brain
11:56 and that part of the brain,
11:58 the spinal cord nerves mainly are involved,
12:00 they don't do thinking, you know...
12:02 Right.
12:03 They don't figure out how to walk to work.
12:05 That part of the brain is the sensing part,
12:07 senses the body, tells the body
12:09 when it's in trouble what to do, you know, helps,
12:12 you know when you're under stress,
12:13 helps regulate body functions if it needs to be regulated.
12:17 And you can have problems in that part as well.
12:21 And these are called spino spine thalamic pathways
12:25 'cause the spine is involved
12:26 and it signals to the thalamus which interprets it.
12:29 Okay.
12:30 Problems along this they call radiculopathies.
12:33 Okay, radiculopathies
12:35 and these are still types of neuropathies
12:37 'cause nerves are damages
12:38 but these are damages in the spinal cord.
12:41 Okay, so we just recap what we've talked about so far.
12:43 The most common type is when it comes from
12:45 the peripheral nerves in the hands, in the feet, legs
12:48 and that kind of thing.
12:49 And then it also could happen in the brain.
12:51 Big nerve there, yep.
12:52 Yep, or in the spinal cord. The spinal cord.
12:54 And some of the doctors will say,
12:55 well, you have a radiculopathy.
12:57 Well, that means the nerve itself is
12:58 being damaged at the spinal cord level.
13:01 Okay.
13:02 Okay, not at the peripheral level,
13:03 not in the brain but at the spinal cord.
13:06 And usually it can cause by things
13:08 like arthritis and from accidents
13:10 can damage those types of nerves,
13:12 lack of blood flow can damage those types of nerves
13:15 and we term it based on
13:17 what level of the spinal cord it is.
13:20 The spinal cord as it runs through the neck
13:23 it's called the cervical region,
13:25 the cervical spinal cord store.
13:27 And if you have one of those
13:28 you might have a funny sensation,
13:31 a burning when you move your neck.
13:33 Or you look at reflexes,
13:34 you might have a decrease reflexes
13:37 when it happens.
13:39 Herniated disc can cause this.
13:41 Compressions can cause this.
13:43 And the way we find out if this is happening is
13:45 with the CT or MRI
13:47 to see the spine being damaged at this level.
13:49 Okay.
13:51 And then as you go down,
13:52 the nerves supply different parts of the body
13:55 like cervical lesion number 5 that does the lateral arm,
13:58 so if the lateral arm feels funny
14:00 or biceps are weak,
14:02 decrease strength in the biceps that might be the cervical 5,
14:05 and as you go down the C6 you know,
14:08 different muscles, C7 is the triceps
14:11 and the middle fingers
14:12 and then you get to the back you know,
14:14 the lumbar pain,
14:15 those pains typically move to the lower extremities.
14:19 So the doctors can evaluate those
14:21 with usually CTs and MRI scans
14:23 to see if that part of your nerve is involved.
14:25 Okay.
14:26 I still call those neuropathies
14:28 because they involve nerves, okay.
14:31 And there're usually nerves they're that and they rate,
14:34 and the nerve is damaged
14:35 in the distribution that it supplies.
14:38 So even though the nerve is damaged in the spine
14:40 you still feel it over here,
14:41 even though there is nothing wrong
14:43 with this part of your arm.
14:44 That's right. You see what I'm saying?
14:45 It connects through the spine and...
14:47 That's correct.
14:48 Is it that connection where it goes into the spine?
14:49 That's right. Okay.
14:51 So there is nothing wrong you know, you never had trauma,
14:52 there is nothing wrong with the part that is supplying
14:54 that is sensing on...
14:55 Right.
14:56 It's with the control mechanism is damaged, okay.
14:58 So that's why these neuropathies are very tricky
15:00 'cause it also involves the brain as well.
15:04 So as you go down you can see you know, you go the lumbar.
15:07 Lot of people have lumbar problems
15:08 because they have herniated disc
15:10 and those are damages.
15:11 And then eventually it gets into the peripheral nerves
15:14 called peripheral neuropathies
15:15 and we look at these with MRIs in the central
15:19 and then peripherally we do electromagnetic test,
15:22 electro muscle test, nerve conduction velocities
15:25 to see if we have damage when the nerves itself
15:28 and everything upstream is okay.
15:30 So this is a very complicated subject
15:32 but I just wanted to give,
15:33 just a break down of what it's involved
15:36 'cause the questions are going to be complex
15:38 and I just want to let our audience know
15:40 that neuropathies
15:41 are some of the most complex pain problems
15:44 that we have
15:45 and there is not always easy solutions or easy answers
15:47 'cause even the scientists don't understand
15:49 exactly what's going on with these nerves,
15:51 but we gonna share with people what we do know.
15:53 All right,
15:55 well, thank you very much, Dr. Marcum.
15:56 And if you're at home you have more questions,
15:58 please visit our website at heartwiseministries.org.
16:01 We don't have all the answers but we do the best we can
16:03 to provide sound medical advice
16:05 and Bible based advice as well when possible.
16:08 So we're going to be back in a moment
16:09 and talk more about neuropathy.
16:11 Stay with us.


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Revised 2017-01-05