Participants: Nick Evenson (Host), Dr. James Marcum
Series Code: UP
Program Code: UP000090B
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00:01 Welcome back to the program.
00:02 I'm your host Nick Evenson here with Dr. Marcum, 00:04 and on this program we're discussing neuropathies. 00:06 And Dr. Marcum, 00:08 you did a fantastic job of explaining this. 00:09 Well, that's complex and let me ask you as a student 00:12 what did you pick up 00:14 'cause if you don't understand 00:15 that the audience is not going to understand, 00:17 so what did you pick up where we might have to clarify. 00:20 Some of the key points that I picked up is that 00:22 the most common type of neuropathies are the ones 00:24 that happened in the periphery in your hands, arms, 00:27 legs, feet, right? 00:29 And that's when the nerves 00:31 aren't sending the signals correctly maybe... 00:33 The nerves are damaged. 00:35 They're damaged yes, they're damaged. 00:36 And so you may feel pain 00:37 even though there is nothing aside 00:39 from the nerve causing that pain, okay. 00:41 And then if it's, it could be out of the extremity 00:44 or it could be where the nerve connects to the spine. 00:47 Spinal cord. Right. 00:48 Or if it's not there, it could be in the brain 00:50 where the nerve connects in the brain. 00:52 So there are several different places 00:53 that the nerve could have the neuropathy, right? 00:55 And the nerve itself is the problem, 00:57 not what it's reporting on. 00:59 Right. Okay. 01:00 And the brain is involved and it can be very tricky 01:04 because the brain can trick the nerves 01:05 into reporting on things it's not a problem 01:08 or the nerve can be damaged. 01:09 And that I think if we have that under our belt 01:12 that will help us understand neuropathies 01:15 especially peripheral neuropathies 01:17 as we answer these questions. 01:18 Right. 01:20 Yeah, we got some questions that are coming 01:21 from the website 01:23 and we encourage you to visit the website 01:24 heartwiseministries.org. 01:25 You can get on there and ask the doctor your questions 01:28 or you can request prayer for your health problems 01:31 and there is also library of lot of health articles there 01:34 that we like for you to enjoy and share with your friends. 01:36 But let's get right to it. 01:38 One viewer writes in and asks 01:39 what can be done to help a peripheral neuropathy? 01:43 Now this is one that's out in the extremities. 01:45 Yes, the nerve has been damaged itself 01:48 and we want if we can find out how the nerve has been damaged. 01:53 Unfortunately sometimes nerve has been damaged 01:56 and they can't get better, okay. 01:58 Now we can, we understand that pretty well 02:00 if you poke out an eye, the eye is not coming back. 02:03 Yeah. Okay. 02:04 Well, sometimes you can poke out a nerve 02:06 and the nerve is not coming back 02:08 but it's still what it used to report on can create pain. 02:11 Okay. 02:12 And it's malfunctioning all the time 02:14 and it's not going to get better, 02:16 it's going to malfunction to some degree all the time, 02:18 so sometimes we can determine that 02:21 by taking a careful history. 02:23 But if we think about it what can be done to help it 02:25 but first of all find out 02:27 why the nerve is not doing well. 02:28 And if there is anything we can do to help the nerve 02:30 be happy, let's help. 02:32 What do nerves like? 02:33 Nerves like a good blood supply. 02:34 Okay. 02:36 Okay, and the nerves in the periphery 02:37 like everything that our brain likes. 02:39 They like less stress, they like a diet 02:42 that's a whole food plant based diet, less in fat 02:45 'cause that causes inflammation. 02:46 Right. 02:48 They like the right type of vitamins, 02:49 they had to have B6 and B12, 02:52 those are very important for nerve function. 02:55 They like to have oxygen so the basics 02:58 that the whole body needs the nerve needs. 03:00 Right. 03:01 And then there are some things that can cause damage 03:04 to the nerve itself, alcohol can damage nerves. 03:06 Really? 03:08 Drugs can damage nerves, it's a toxin. 03:10 Certain chemotherapy can damage nerves 03:13 and actually certain medicines can cause neuropathies. 03:16 Okay. 03:17 Sometimes removing the medicines 03:18 can improve the neuropathy, 03:20 sometimes the nerve is permanently damaged. 03:23 And if it's permanently damaged, 03:24 it's not going to report on things as well as it's not, 03:27 so it might chronically report pain 03:30 when there is no pain at all or hot or tingling 03:33 where there is no hot of tingling at all. 03:35 Radiation can cause that, burns can cause that. 03:40 I had a situation in my arm once 03:42 where I didn't have enough blood flow 03:44 and then that enough blood flow damaged the nerves 03:47 and I had a tingling sensation for many, many years 03:50 because the nerves were damaged. 03:52 And eventually that tingling went away, 03:54 so it's very complex, and lot of it has to do 03:57 also with how your brain interprets the data. 04:00 I've seen some people were after few years 04:03 where they've lost the limb, where they've lost the nerves, 04:05 the nerves reported on things for a while 04:08 but then brain says no, this is not working anymore, 04:11 I'm going to turn off this nerve 04:13 because this is not giving me important information anymore. 04:15 Right. 04:17 In downstream it's not helping me, 04:18 I'm turning it off. 04:19 Those are nice situations to have, okay. 04:23 And then sometimes the neuropathies 04:25 if we can't figure out what's causing, 04:27 diabetes is the main cause of neuropathy 04:29 because of the metabolism of it, 04:31 because of the blood supply is compromised, 04:34 so diabetes can cause peripheral neuropathies 04:37 where the nerves don't feel well, 04:39 so you can get infections and tinglings 04:42 and pain from that, 04:43 that's probably that most common neuropathy that we have. 04:46 But we can get neuropathies from things like sleep apnea, 04:48 not getting enough oxygen. 04:50 We can get neuropathies in blockages 04:52 and blood supply to the nerves. 04:54 Different toxins in the environment 04:56 that might affect some people 04:58 that don't affect others, pesticides that we get. 05:01 Some people get neuropathies from things of that nature. 05:04 Some people just don't have the right mineral mix 05:06 in their body, 05:08 so there is lot and this is very complex 05:09 and then how the brain interprets the signals 05:12 is very complex, 05:13 but if you can know 05:14 what's causing the peripheral neuropathy 05:16 and treat the nerve like you do your brain, 05:18 give it all the good things that it needs to heal 05:20 that gives us best chance 05:22 may be to not be a chronic problem. 05:24 When a person has bypass surgery, Nick, 05:27 we cut their spine in two, 05:29 nerves take a long time to heal. 05:31 The chest in two. Yeah, yeah. 05:32 What did I say nerve in two? The spine. 05:33 No, we cut the sternum through. Sternum, yes, yes. 05:36 I'm glad you said you cut the sternum, 05:37 we cut the nerves. 05:39 Those nerves there can be damaged 05:41 up to six months. 05:43 And when a nerve is cut sometimes you know, 05:45 you establish that connection again, 05:47 sometimes you don't it's depending how big 05:49 and how important that nerve is. 05:51 Right. 05:52 You know, some people have cut themselves 05:53 or burn themselves and they touch it 05:55 and they feel numb, 05:57 the nerve has been damaged permanently, 05:59 they never get this feeling back. 06:01 So hopefully that's 06:03 just a little unimportant part of a nerve 06:04 but these neuropathies are very complex 06:07 multi involvement 06:09 and it's very frustrating for people 06:10 'cause sometimes their pain doesn't get better. 06:12 Yeah. 06:14 Because the nerve does not get better. 06:16 So when you work with the patient, 06:17 you teach them all the things that they can do, 06:18 try to do everything that doesn't hurt the nerve 06:21 and then you're unfortunately left well, 06:23 can we teach the brain 06:24 to interpret the nerve signals differently. 06:27 Cognitive therapy with chronic pain. 06:31 Can we treat the body to make endorphins, oxytocin, 06:35 different things that can help the brain do better 06:38 with chronic pain, 06:39 can we distract the brain's pain centers 06:41 so it's thinking about other things 06:43 that will turn down so that those things, 06:47 can we up shift the brain 06:48 instead of down shifting the brain, 06:50 so anything that brings our brain 06:54 to a higher level 06:55 and not at stress level should help neuropathies. 06:59 So this is very complex but I'm hoping we can get, 07:01 you get the basic just if you understand it, 07:03 hope for our audience will know about how complex it is. 07:07 Okay, great. 07:09 Let's move on to another question 07:10 someone asks, what does neuritis mean? 07:13 What is neuritis? 07:14 Yeah, neuritis, anything ITIS just means inflammation 07:17 and that neuritis means 07:19 you have a inflammation of other nerve, 07:21 that's all it means, 07:23 and that nerve can be anywhere, 07:25 inflammation can be caused by lots of trauma 07:27 but inflammation is usually caused by damage to a nerve 07:31 and when a nerve is damaged, 07:32 the immune system tries to come in and help it, 07:34 it frequently infections cause neuritis 07:36 but inflammation of a nerve, trauma through a nerve, 07:39 all those things can cause neuritis. 07:41 All right, so we want to reduce the inflammation 07:43 through a number of different ways. 07:45 Yeah, keep the trauma over use, make our bodies healthy 07:49 as we can especially in the food 07:50 and the toxins that we bring into our body. 07:53 All right, let's talk about this. 07:54 What is an autonomic neuropathy? 07:58 Okay. Autonomic is that right? 07:59 Yeah that's all right, okay. 08:00 Automatic, you know what automatic is, 08:03 the body does it automatically. 08:04 Sure. 08:05 So a neuropathy is the nerves that control 08:08 our automatic functions are messing up. 08:11 Remember nerves do all sorts of things, 08:12 they can tell you if you're having pain, 08:15 they can tell you your sensation, 08:17 peripheral nerve can tell you where you're at in space, 08:20 also we have nerves that regulate our blood pressure, 08:23 our bowels and all these things. 08:26 But when those nerves aren't doing things correctly 08:28 what happens? 08:30 Bad things. Why? 08:31 If you had autonomic, some of the automatic things 08:33 like blood pressure might be messed up, 08:35 so your blood pressure might drop. 08:37 Right. 08:38 Your bowels, you know, it regulates the bowels, 08:40 your bowel function might be messed up. 08:42 You might have what we call a gastroparesis 08:45 or your stomach might not empty in food, 08:47 if the nerve that's controlling the stomach 08:48 doesn't work correctly. 08:50 So the brain is sending signals to our body 08:53 to do these functions 08:54 that normally automatically happen on their own, 08:56 just well, the brain controls it 08:57 but we don't consciously think about, 08:58 oh, make sure this process happens. 09:00 And the nerve damage 09:02 causes the signal not to go through... 09:04 It doesn't work right. 09:05 And therefore the systems don't respond. 09:07 Right, on a autonomic neuropathy 09:08 and you know, you might get, 09:10 you know, normally when you stand up 09:11 your blood pressure goes up 09:12 because it automatically squeezes down, 09:14 it brings your blood, 09:15 but when you have an autonomic neuropathy, 09:16 maybe the blood vessels don't squeeze 09:18 'cause the nerves aren't working as well. 09:20 Now it's interesting that the nerves are just like 09:23 every other part of the body, okay, and they get old. 09:28 And sometimes the nerves wear out. 09:30 And of course we know 09:31 the nerves wear out in the brain 09:33 because you get dementia 09:34 but the nerves can wear out 09:35 in other parts of the body as well. 09:37 Trauma, repetitive trauma can wear out nerves, 09:40 but most of the time the autonomic neuropathy aging, 09:44 different diabetes things like that can do that as well. 09:47 So just one last word here. 09:49 What can people do to help themselves 09:52 from experiencing neuropathies? 09:54 Go to a good physician that can really listen to you 09:57 see if they can find out the cause 09:59 explain some of the complexities 10:00 or neuropathies to you, 10:02 get you to doing everything you can to heal yourself 10:05 your own nerves 10:06 and if you can't, 10:08 the nerves have a good regimen, 10:09 sometimes medications are needed, 10:11 sometimes changing the way we think is needed, 10:14 but one of the most important things for people 10:15 with neuropathy is worship, 10:18 'cause God has promised to create in us 10:20 a new brain to help heal us, 10:22 that's a key thing that people have neuropathies 10:25 and chronic pain that might not go away 10:27 is to realize that God's going to heal it just where, 10:30 when and how. 10:32 Thank you, Dr. Marcum. 10:34 And if you're watching at home 10:35 and you're experiencing neuropathy, 10:36 we want you to stay with us as Dr. Marcum will be 10:38 praying with us in just a moment. 10:49 Let's pray together. 10:51 Father God, I want to pray for those 10:53 that might be suffering from pain 10:54 especially neuropathies. 10:56 Be near to them and comfort them Father 10:59 and let them know that you're the great healer 11:01 is our prayer, amen. 11:04 Neuropathies are very complex, they're very common 11:08 and I hope you've learned a little bit today about that. 11:11 If you want to learn more go to our website 11:12 that's heartwiseministries.org. |
Revised 2017-01-05