S4E3: CONSTANT, SEVERE PAIN is not new. We want to know_ WHY_ it's there.
The BIG DEAL about labs, bloodwork, bloodwork, and LABS?
EBV is a key player in:
CANCER, LYME, CoViD, HeRPeS 1, 2, Cytomegalovirus, Neuroinflammation
Severe Pain is Not New.
Persistent, Complex, CONSTANT, 100%, SEVERE PAIN is not new.
We want to know_ WHY_ it's there.
FIBROSIS?
Spondylolisthesis?
Brain?
EBV is a key player in:
CANCER, LYME, CoViD, HeRPeS 1, 2, Cytomegalovirus, Neuroinflammation
Severe Pain is Not New.
Persistent, Complex, CONSTANT, 100%, SEVERE PAIN is not new.
We want to know_ WHY_ it's there.
FIBROSIS?
Spondylolisthesis?
Brain?
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00:00Thank you for joining us for Season 4, Episode 3 of DocTalks with Dr. Forrest Tennant and friends.
00:00:07Thanks for being with us tonight and we appreciate you all tuning in with us. We have a great show
00:00:13ahead of us. Thanks so much and Doc, it's all yours. Please take it away. Okay, well thank you
00:00:19very much. I'm glad we're getting started here. What I want to do to start off our show tonight
00:00:27is to talk about pain perhaps different than it's been talked about in centuries.
00:00:34I want to give you a quick brief history. Since time began, physicians have noted that there's
00:00:42a group of chronic pain patients who are special. Today we usually call those patients intractable
00:00:51to indicate they have severe pain, that they need potent medications, but this is not new. This has
00:00:59gone on for a long, long time and you can find references to this subgroup of chronic pain
00:01:05patients even in the writings of Hippocrates in the years 4000 BC. Now this subgroup of
00:01:15chronic pain patients has been assigned different names over time. In recent times, we've called
00:01:23various people in the last 20 years have called this subgroup persistent pain patients,
00:01:29central pain patients, neuropathic pain patients, high impact pain patients, and I'm sure neuropathic
00:01:37pain patients. They've assigned them different numbers, but the bottom line is there is
00:01:44this special group. Now I thought I would show you something. In the 1700s, there were two
00:01:52famous world physicians. One was an American known as Benjamin Rush, and he was in Philadelphia,
00:01:59and the British famous physician was a Dr. John Fothergill. Now I have here in my hand
00:02:08Dr. Fothergill's book written in 1781, and he makes a very, very interesting comment about this
00:02:19interesting group of patients. I'm actually going to try to show you his picture here.
00:02:25This book is not 100% preserved, but it's not in too bad of shape, but there is a picture of Dr.
00:02:35Fothergill. Now what's fascinating about this is that he actually was a doctor. He was considered
00:02:44the top of his day, and he tried to treat this subgroup of patients, believe it or not,
00:02:50and he called them persistent patients, persistent, and he also made the comments
00:02:56that they were complex patients, and therefore no doctors wanted to see them, so he would.
00:03:02Sound familiar here in this century and in this year? I mean, in other words, he's writing in 1781,
00:03:09he's calling this group of people persistent, and other doctors don't want to see them, so he's
00:03:14going to make a shot at it. He actually describes, he didn't call it arachnoiditis, but he actually
00:03:20describes a patient of his that had, it had to have it, he said arachnoiditis, had all the symptoms
00:03:28of today, and so I want to call your attention to this because a lot of this isn't new until now.
00:03:36Now what is new about research is there are several things. The decade of pain and the
00:03:43one to ten scale may be gone. We may be a much smaller group, but nevertheless there's been a
00:03:49lot of dedicated people trying to deal with this subgroup, and I know that's who primarily watches
00:03:56this show, and most of you who watch this show, you have arachnoiditis, you've got a genetic
00:04:01collagen deficiency, you've got CRPS, you've had head trauma, you've had diabetes, you've had a lot
00:04:10of these causes of this persistent or what we call intractable pain patients today. Now one of the
00:04:20first discoveries about this group of patients occurred some 10 years ago when it was learned
00:04:29that a cell in the brain and spinal cord called a glial cell produced inflammation.
00:04:37Now no one knew why it caused this inflammation, but at the same time it made it clear that it
00:04:44occurred in this subgroup of people, and a lot of brain scans were done showing that tissue had
00:04:51been destroyed or made dysfunctional on brain scans in these individuals who had what we call
00:04:58intractable pain and whose studies in rats and other people showed that it was caused by
00:05:05inflammation, brain inflammation. Now that was a new concept 10 years ago. Okay, and so what has
00:05:12transpired since then is that it is time that everybody watching this, including physicians
00:05:20who take histories or nurse practitioners, chiropractors, anybody who deals with patients,
00:05:26the time has come to subdivide intractable pain or persistent pain patients into two groups,
00:05:34and it's primarily based on constancy. Here is the term that I want you to grab right now.
00:05:42The term constant pain, in other words, is your pain there or is the patient's pain there
00:05:49a hundred percent of the time except when they're asleep, and if the pain's persistent, you're likely
00:05:54to have to take something to sleep to go to sleep. Okay, constancy is the name of the game.
00:06:00Now there are two kinds of constancies, actually, one hooked on to another. Now you hear stories
00:06:08about we have, you know, a few million people with chronic pain. Yes, but those are what we
00:06:16would call intermittent cases. Now a lot of people have arthritis, they've got little neuropathies,
00:06:24they've got bunions, they've got carpal tunnel, they've got different kinds of pain, particularly
00:06:29if you get older, I can testify to that, that you're going to have intermittent chronic pain.
00:06:36Now in this group, you may also have some people who develop constant pain, but it's mild.
00:06:43It's not overwhelming. You don't have to take a potent opioid. You don't even maybe have to
00:06:48take medications every day. So your first category is either intermittent or periodic chronic pain
00:06:56or mild constant pain. That's group one, group one. Now group two, severe, constant pain,
00:07:05medications every day, you're disabled, you're bedbound, your life is ruined, you can't think,
00:07:11you can't eat, you can't do anything. Those are the people today that we normally call intractable.
00:07:18Now what I want to segue to real quick is what causes the constant pain. Now the reason I say
00:07:26this is a little new is because you're going to hear something that I've never seen written or
00:07:32talked about until just lately, and that is what causes constant pain. Well there can be three
00:07:38reasons, three reasons, and everybody watching this and everybody you talk to needs to ask
00:07:44themselves these questions right now. If you've got 24-7 pain and never goes away,
00:07:50why do you have this? What's different about your body from other people? And keep in mind
00:07:57one other thing, it's mystified doctors for centuries. Why can two people with the same
00:08:03disease that looks like the same pathology, the same everything, except one patient's got severe,
00:08:09constant intractable pain, and the other people takes a little aspirin once in a while.
00:08:14Why? That has plagued, that question has plagued doctors for centuries. Well now we've got some
00:08:21answers. Now first off, what are the three reasons you can have constant pain? Well first off,
00:08:29you can have what we call nerve entrapment or nerve destruction. Now a lot of people don't
00:08:36quite know what nerve entrapment means. That means that you have a nerve, and for example let's just
00:08:42take a nerve, one of the sciatic nerves in your leg or maybe in your arm, and that is that around
00:08:52the nerve you've developed fibrosis, scarring, and it has trapped that nerve or group of nerves
00:09:02or it's been destroyed by trauma, and so consequently the body's natural flow of
00:09:08electric currents can't pass. Okay? So entrapment means electricity can't pass. The normal flow of
00:09:19electricity is generated internally and goes down the legs to go on out into the air through the
00:09:25toes and the feet or through your ears, the tip of your nose, or your hands. In other words, you
00:09:30generate electricity in the brain or in your internal organs and it flows outward. If you get
00:09:39an entrapment, the electricity backs up. That's pain. That's why, you know, things like acupuncture
00:09:49or a magnet or a massage may allow some electricity to pass that entrapped or damaged area. Okay?
00:09:57Now for your information, arachnoiditis is an entrapment disease. The cauda equina
00:10:05nerves glue themselves to the lining, the spinal canal lining, and it forms a mass that entraps
00:10:14cauda equina nerves. So remember, adhesive arachnoiditis is an entrapment disease among
00:10:20other things. Okay? So entrapment. Now, the second reason you can get constant pain
00:10:28is that some process in your body, and we now think it's what we call autoimmunity,
00:10:34destroys the small nerve fibers. And on this show in the past, you've heard us talk about
00:10:41small fiber neuropathy. These small nerve fibers in your skin, and there's a lot of them,
00:10:49for example, at the bottom of your feet, in your mouth, in your crotch area, and those small nerve
00:10:56fibers get damaged and they may disappear. If they disappear, guess what? You have the same problem
00:11:04as you do with entrapment. Electricity is backed up. That's going to give you constant 24-7 pain.
00:11:13Okay? So those are the two reasons, two of the three reasons you can get constant pain.
00:11:19Now, the third reason is in the brain and spinal cord itself, and that is there is a mechanism
00:11:26inside the brain and the spinal cord, and scientifically, or actually the lay public's
00:11:33catching on to this, we have these glial cells are attached to something in there, some little
00:11:41microscopic things called receptors and neurotransmitters. In other words,
00:11:47pain inside the brain is controlled by something we call scientifically
00:11:53neurotransmitter receptor systems. And there's about seven different ones. The major one is
00:11:59called is endorphin. That's the neurotransmitter and dopamine and GABA and serotonin, cannabinoids,
00:12:06things like this. And what happens is that you can get inflammation or damage like a stroke
00:12:15in the brain and it damages or knocks out enough of these neurotransmitter receptor systems
00:12:25that it no longer can function properly and shut down the pain. In other words, the body's natural
00:12:32God-given biology is that we have these systems in the spinal cord and brain to shut down pain.
00:12:41So if you've damaged enough of those things inside the brain or spinal cord,
00:12:47the pain stays constant. Let me repeat. You can have three reasons to have constant pain. That's
00:12:54why it's far more important to know whether you have constant pain rather than whether it's chronic
00:12:59or persistent or periodic or anything like that. Is it constant? And it can do due to three reasons,
00:13:07nerve entrapment or destruction, small fibers that have disappeared and can't conduct
00:13:12electricity. Or thirdly, you have neurotransmitters or receptors in the brain and spinal cord that
00:13:19have been damaged or disappeared and the pain will no longer shut down. So right now, anyone
00:13:25watching this and when you talk to your social media groups and your doctor, try to figure out
00:13:31which one or do I have more than one reason for my pain being constant? Okay, so now what do we
00:13:38do about it? That's going to be a subject for another day, but we at least now know the three
00:13:43causes. We know what's now to look for. The first step in finding some help, some amelioration,
00:13:52some cure, some relief is what's the cause? Well, we know now what causes constant pain
00:14:01and we're getting some treatments for all three of the type of constancies that is out there.
00:14:06So that's your basic, it's a little scientific, it's a little hard to understand, but I think if
00:14:12you think about it, it's not all that tough. We're going to talk about each one of those things
00:14:16periodically over the next few weeks, but that is it. Again, in summary, if you've got pain 24-7,
00:14:24does it come and go or is it mild? If that's the case, you certainly don't need the potent
00:14:29pain treatments you're going to need. If it's severe, constant, putting you in bed, you can't
00:14:34think, you can't eat, you can't function, that is, we call that severe intractable pain usually right
00:14:40now, but it really should probably be called severe constant pain. You know, the whole world
00:14:47knows Rhonda, so we know about her and what have you, and Rhonda has been telling me a little bit
00:14:57of a story. She's one of the people who has taken the time and the diligence to study,
00:15:05to find the good doctors and actually share a lot of great things with us. Rhonda,
00:15:12this morning you told me a fascinating story, not so fascinating, but one that I'd like to hear
00:15:18because you've got multiple doctors that you personally attend and you've got a very comprehensive
00:15:26program, and when I first met you, I never thought you'd be doing as well as you are today,
00:15:32and so I'm delighted. Rhonda, tell us a little bit, I know about your, you'll be some people
00:15:39here who don't know your background, but again, the story you told today is one that I hope is
00:15:44repeated in every community and every medical clinic in the country. Take it away, what happened
00:15:49to you today, or the story you told me today? Well, as I told you this morning, Dr. Tennant,
00:15:58excuse me, I saw one of my numerous doctors, and within this physician's network, she sees that I
00:16:10see another doctor, so she asked why I was seeing the rheumatologist, so I explained to her,
00:16:17reminded her, because usually I see a PA in her office, so anyway, I reminded her that
00:16:23that my rheumatologist is seeing me for, you know, keeping track of my blood labs, the cytokine
00:16:32levels for the inflammatory process, and a number of other issues that deal with my underlying
00:16:42disease, which is adhesive arachnoid diet. Well, it just so happened that she had a medical student
00:16:51in with her, in with our appointment this morning, and she said, well, would you mind
00:16:58telling this, this young man here, he was about 25, 28, 30, somewhere in there, would you mind
00:17:04telling him a little bit about adhesive arachnoid diet, and I said, yeah, absolutely, I would,
00:17:12so I just went into an explanation of, you know, what it is, that it is a neuropathic,
00:17:19it's a complex neuro-inflammatory disease of the spinal canal, where the nerve roots
00:17:27in the cauda equina stick together, and they form adhesions, and they can form adhesions together,
00:17:33or they can form adhesions to the outside covering within the dura, and these images
00:17:39can be seen on an MRI, and when I had this, this injury of an epidural steroid injection,
00:17:47you know, it was a number of months later that led me to Dr. Tennant. The physician I saw this
00:17:54morning is familiar with Dr. Tennant's name. I've given her a number of his books on the topic,
00:18:02and I told him that I want to see Dr. Tennant. He diagnosed me with adhesive arachnoid diet as a
00:18:12three-step protocol, who the other doctor that was mentioned, my rheumatologist,
00:18:18is now prescribing for me, so he asked a little bit about that, like what, what's involved in
00:18:22your protocol, so I told him, like, you know, the suppression of inflammation,
00:18:29and the neuro-inflammation with deprimentary injections, petroleic injections,
00:18:35I can't remember now exactly what all, but I did list a number of other things, so anyway,
00:18:44I went into the part two of the protocol, which is to regenerate nerves within the cauda equina,
00:18:54so he was kind of fascinated with that one as well, and I told him that it is progressive
00:19:02if it's not caught and treated early enough, and I'm fortunate enough that,
00:19:08and I did tell him, Dr. Tennant, that when I first saw you, that I was bent over a walker,
00:19:15and you told me we're going to dump that thing, and we did, and here I am, and that, that of course
00:19:23led into a discussion of what I do to stay active, which is gardening, butterfly gardening, vegetable
00:19:29gardening, etc., etc., but then the number three part is, is the pain control, and that plays into
00:19:37that three-component plan that has allowed me to have my life back, and it's all because of Dr.
00:19:45Tennant, so if, if my name is known, it's only because of you, Dr. Tennant, so thank you very
00:19:50much. Very good. All right, well, what I, again, you make a point that at this time,
00:20:00some of these painful diseases fall in the cracks of medical specialties, okay,
00:20:10and I'm going to talk a little bit about why that's happened, and why that's one of the reasons
00:20:14on why patients who have severe pain problems, constant pain problems, can neither find doctors
00:20:21nor find anyone to prescribe, is because the diseases that cause severe constant pain are not
00:20:29well known. They continue to be somewhat unusual. They're not considered rare necessarily, but
00:20:37they're certainly not as common as asthma or peptic ulcers, for example, and so you're going to,
00:20:45like in your case, you see, do you see a neurologist, just a rheumatologist, family doctor,
00:20:51a surgeon, a pain specialist? Who do you see? How many different doctors do you see?
00:20:58I see a rheumatologist, which has basically taken over my primary care physician spot. I see
00:21:07a pulmonary doctor, which is who I was at this morning. I've had a node on one of my lungs since
00:21:17when I was 20 years old, so they just keep a constant eye on this, and I see a pain management
00:21:27physician, and I think that's, I feel like I'm forgetting someone. That may be it,
00:21:39but yes, this gentleman here, he was, he had never heard of adhesive rheumatitis,
00:21:47so he was thankful for that little, you know, 10-minute education that I was able to give him,
00:21:53and I was thankful for the opportunity that my doctor asked me to tell him about.
00:22:04Right. Very good. Yes, if we have a minute, I would beg your indulgence. I had a little
00:22:13something I wanted to share with people before next week about our bodies, because I hear a lot
00:22:20of people feel like they're at war with their bodies, and they are angry at their bodies, and
00:22:25I just want to put in a good word for our bodies, because to me, they're also an important part of
00:22:32creation of God, and our bodies suffer with us. I don't think they do these things to us on purpose,
00:22:39and sometimes when I want to give myself grace, I say, this is my beloved body in whom I am well
00:22:47pleased, and I just want to encourage people to kind of like love their bodies, you know, in spite
00:22:56of all the stuff that we go through with our bodies. Well said. Very well said. Yeah, you've
00:23:05only got one to work with. If anybody has any off-the-cuff questions, any quick ones, we had,
00:23:17it was a son that is 49 years old, and he is a paraplegic, if I remember correctly,
00:23:23and she, her name is Christine, if I remember the name correctly, and she had some,
00:23:32she's been trying for three months to find a doctor willing to interpret his lab work,
00:23:37so Dr. Jenin, do you have any recommendations on, or any notes on what a person could do if
00:23:46about lab work that is hard to interpret, or a lot of times people are unable to get someone
00:23:57to order the lab work, and that, it's a real problem. Do you have any suggestions? Yes, I'm
00:24:03so glad you brought this up, because this is going to be a subject for a later session. Today,
00:24:09because of all this new research on pain, blood work really should be done. Now, I want to caution
00:24:19you one thing about laboratory work. Today, your insurance coverage may not pay for it.
00:24:27It's become too expensive for any normal person to pay cash, and so, from what my recommendations
00:24:35are, don't hold back on treatment waiting for blood work, okay? Get started. Yeah, time is
00:24:42wasting, so I want to make it clear. I'm going to tell you the blood work I'd like to see,
00:24:47and I'll give you some ideas how to get it interpreted. Right now, the whole concept of
00:24:54parasitic autoimmunity and reactivation, particularly with the Epstein-Barr virus,
00:25:01is hot stuff, and I'm hearing from a doctor a day on how, what blood tests to order, and then what
00:25:08do I do with them? How do I interpret them? So, our foundation, we've got some stuff we just
00:25:13prepared to send to anybody, free by email or U.S. mail or what have you, so there is blood work to
00:25:20be done, but let me explain. Let's go back to Rhonda's visit with her doctors this morning,
00:25:27and let's talk about why a lot of people are having trouble. I had another patient this week
00:25:32says, I went to a rheumatologist and told him I had a teseo-arachnoiditis, and the
00:25:39rheumatologist says, oh, well, that's a neurologic disease. I can't treat that. You got to go to the
00:25:43neurologist, and then they went to the neurologist, and the neurologist said, oh, well, I can't treat
00:25:48that. That's a medical autoimmune disease. I can't treat that, so consequently, no one's going to
00:25:54So, we have, besides, that's why we like Dr. Ibsen on here and some of the other advocates,
00:26:01we keep trying to get regulations and rights, the right ability to get any medication you need for
00:26:07some of these conditions, but we also have the problem within the medical profession
00:26:13of the specialties, okay? Now, let me explain just real quickly a little background on these things.
00:26:19The organized university medical training occurred right around World War I by something
00:26:28called the Flexner Report that came out of John Hopkins, and it created the university medical
00:26:33systems as we know them today, and after World War II, they got even more specific. In other words,
00:26:42today, the surgeons don't know a darn thing about medical treatment.
00:26:48The anesthesiologists were trained to be surgeons. They don't know a darn thing about
00:26:54prescribing, and today, I was hoping Dr. Ibsen was going to come on because he and I were trying
00:27:01to do something about somebody who's had their pump cut in half, and that's the surgeon for you.
00:27:08He doesn't know that that's going to throw somebody in a terrible heart problem and collapse
00:27:12and what have you because they just have no medical training, okay? On the other hand, today,
00:27:20somebody who goes through internal medicine practice residency, for example, may not have
00:27:27any idea when you should go ahead and do that laminectomy or that fusion of the spine because
00:27:34they don't know a darn thing about the anatomic problems that inflammation and autoimmunity may
00:27:42cause, so we have that basic thing. Now, the big one that affects us in pain management today,
00:27:50however, is the confusion about the word autoimmunity, okay? Autoimmunity. Unfortunately,
00:28:02I'm going to have to try to get everybody, including physicians, somewhat educated about
00:28:07what this term means and the pitfalls that have come about. Now, if you go clear back to the 1800s,
00:28:15it was recognized that infections, and it was called autoinfection. After you got tuberculosis
00:28:23or even a sore throat or pneumonia, you might have some disease that affects your back or your
00:28:32stomach or your ear or something after the infection, and they call that autoinfection.
00:28:38Dr. Colburn, Alvin Colburn, was the man who, in the 1930s, discovered that a strep throat
00:28:46could give you scarlet fever and rheumatic fever, glomerulonephritis, and rheumatic heart disease,
00:28:53so he is the champion among physicians in discovering that an infection can lead to
00:29:01what we now call an autoimmune disease, okay, after the infection, right?
00:29:10After infectious mononucleosis was identified, I personally published a paper in 1968,
00:29:16if you can believe this, in which, after an infectious mononucleosis, a young man got
00:29:24kidney disease, glomerulonephritis, and that goes clear back to that time. But the big
00:29:31issue for us today has to do with the term autoimmunity. Now, after World War II,
00:29:41the profession or the specialty of rheumatology took root. Now, the term rheumatism goes clear
00:29:49back to the pre-biblical times, I believe, and rheumatism meant generalized pain in your joints,
00:29:58maybe the face, the foot, wherever, and so rheumatism, that pain all over,
00:30:06still does to some extent. But the rheumatologist took up the cause of autoimmunity,
00:30:17and dictionary, medical dictionaries, started to define autoimmunity. The first one I could find
00:30:24is 1961. Look up in Tabor's medical dictionary or Dorland's medical dictionaries in the early
00:30:311960s, and you will see that autoimmunity is defined as what's called an autoantibody
00:30:41that destroys your own tissues, okay? Now, the kicker on all of this is the term autoantibody.
00:30:51Now, early on, researchers did some great research, and they found out
00:30:58that diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus, Sjogren's syndrome,
00:31:04and maybe a couple of other rare conditions produced in the body something called an
00:31:09autoantibody. And a lot of you have probably taken a test for one. That's the rheumatoid factor.
00:31:17That's the lupus test. Sjogren's has that test. Ankylosing spondylitis have that test,
00:31:24and they test for something called an autoantibody, meaning that the body has developed
00:31:31a protein, a globulin, that will attack your own tissues, okay? Attack your own tissues.
00:31:40Now, the catch is, with such diseases as Euler's Danlois and some other diseases,
00:31:48acted like they were autoimmune, but they didn't have autoantibodies.
00:31:53So, the rheumatologist didn't want the case. Most of them still don't. However, the new research,
00:32:01particularly with one study out of Cincinnati, it's a profound great study, one that
00:32:07changed my whole thinking about this. They documented that you could have an autoimmune
00:32:14process without autoantibodies. Now, you got to think about what this means. It means a lot of
00:32:23your rheumatologists out there don't want you. It's not a rheumatic disease if you don't have
00:32:28an autoantibody. Now, we got to get everybody over this. We don't fully understand how it works.
00:32:37But the best definition for autoimmunity, and it's one that every constant pain patient needs
00:32:43to fully understand, and that is there is some element or process inside the human body
00:32:52that is causing tissue to degenerate and become inflamed and perhaps even cancerous
00:33:00or form adhesions. And we now know that almost all of the intractable pain or constant pain
00:33:07conditions have autoimmunity as one of their causes. Now, there is no medical specialty
00:33:17who specializes in this at this time. And it's not well understood. It's new to medical practice.
00:33:25And you pain patients are going to have to go do the educating.
00:33:30Okay? You've got a vested interest, and the medical profession is taking this hard.
00:33:36I'm going to be honest about it. This is an 800-pound gorilla in the room.
00:33:42All right? In other words, those surgeons who operate on spines or your hips,
00:33:49those anesthesiologists who do all those epidurals and all those people who do infusions,
00:33:56all those mental health people who think it's in your head and you need to reform your thinking,
00:34:01they're taking this whole concept of autoimmunity without an autoantibody very hard.
00:34:08Okay? They're taking this very hard. But it's very clear this is what's happening.
00:34:13And there were some studies in 2018 out of the children's and VA hospitals in Cincinnati,
00:34:19highly funded by the government, a few dozen researchers, hard data, and showing that an
00:34:27autoimmune process without an autoantibody might cause multiple sclerosis and type 1
00:34:38diabetes, perhaps iliac disease, maybe some of your bowel syndromes,
00:34:46Sjogren's syndrome, some of these conditions don't have to have an autoantibody. And we've
00:34:51just finished our studies of 110 patients showing every one of them had high antibodies but no
00:35:00autoantibodies. And so most of your constant pain problems are autoimmune, meaning there's
00:35:09some element or process in your body eating away at you and causing inflammation and deterioration
00:35:17and knocking out your transmitters or your small fibers, but you don't have autoantibodies.
00:35:23Now, what doctor is going to treat that? At this point, it's the doctor who gets interested.
00:35:31There is no specialty that's going to take this at this point. So what I'm recommending to
00:35:37everybody is for you to start understanding it, and so ask the doctors for help, but don't just
00:35:41depend on that doctor to do it. Every day, there's not a day goes by I don't get a request,
00:35:47would you tell me a doctor who specializes in RSD or Ehlers-Danlos or arachnoiditis
00:35:53in upstate New York? What? I need a doctor in lower Michigan who treats it. There is none.
00:36:04Where is the doctor in Florida who treats these conditions? They don't exist.
00:36:10So you've got conditions, you've got constant pain, you fall through the cracks.
00:36:15There is no medical specialty who wants you. Dr. Fogg,
00:36:21the doctor in the 1700s, he was right. If it was persistent and complex, nobody wanted you.
00:36:28It's still going on today. But I want to make you aware that this concept of autoimmunity
00:36:36is kind of throwing the medical field into a tizzy, okay? Nobody understands it too much.
00:36:43It's new, it's different, but the research is well backed up. And of course, you're going to
00:36:48hear about the Epstein-Barr virus. That's the big elephant in the room. And it's a virus that causes
00:36:552% of the world's cancers and causes a lot of these other things. And the Epstein-Barr virus,
00:37:01incidentally, can be boosted by Lyme, COVID, herpes one and two, cytomegalus, what have you.
00:37:10So these viruses can gang up on you, okay? And so we're going to talk a lot about it,
00:37:16but that's really the aegis of the inflammation inside the brain,
00:37:22inside those small nerve fibers. It causes a lot of entrapment. And so this is kind of new,
00:37:30but it goes back to the practical point that we don't have a doctor in every community who even
00:37:37understands this, much less knows how to treat it. Now let's get to the blood work. That's how
00:37:41we started out this conversation. If a patient, and I've got a little, I'll be glad to send this
00:37:48to anybody. I'm recommending that you take three, if you've got constant pain, there are three
00:37:56classes of blood tests that I highly recommend. If you can get them through your insurance, you can,
00:38:01they're too expensive to pay for. The first one are the Epstein-Barr markers.
00:38:08Now LabCorp, Quest, and your big labs now all do a four panel Epstein-Barr antibody panel.
00:38:18Now, in order to, in my opinion, in order to get the right treatment for not only adhesive
00:38:25arachnoiditis, but RSD and some of these other conditions, you need that four panel. The catch is
00:38:33a lot of your doctors aren't going to know how to interpret it, but we can teach them. It's easy.
00:38:38There's none of this so difficult that a smart fifth grader can't understand.
00:38:43If you can educate fifth graders, doctors have a shot at it. So we'll keep working with that. Okay.
00:38:49All right. The second class of blood tests you need is a hormone panel. Now,
00:38:56constant pain patients need three hormone tests, four really. One is pregnenolone. The second one
00:39:02is DHEA, that's dehydroepiandosterone. The third one is testosterone. And the fourth one is cortisol
00:39:11or cortisone. However, the cortisone will drop down if you're already taking cortisone.
00:39:17Don't bother to take the test. Now, there's a lot of other hormone tests you can take, thyroid,
00:39:23estrogen, insulin. You can take a lot of tests, but the three that are relevant to pain and
00:39:28regeneration of tissues are pregnenolone, DHEA, testosterone. Those are the big three. And those
00:39:37are the ones that everybody watching this should have those, that panel test. You can get it every
00:39:42six months. Now, the third class, and you've heard me talk about cytokines in the past. Well,
00:39:48now that's actually progressed to where there's only certain cytokines and they're called
00:39:53interleukins that we like to test for. And there's about four of those. Now, all of the laboratories
00:39:59have developed an interleukin panel. Now, the major ones we look for have numbers. They're
00:40:05going to not mean much to you, but there's six and eight and 10 and two. I mean, there's three
00:40:11or four that are really key. Six and 10 are the two we want to look at the most. If you can, and
00:40:17if your doctors would order them, you want to get that panel. Why? The interleukins tell you whether
00:40:23you're in, whether that autoimmunity is causing inflammation. Okay. Out of hand. So, if you can
00:40:31get it, we need your Epstein-Barr titers or hormone antibodies. We need your specific hormones.
00:40:39And also we need your interleukins. If you can get any one of those three panels, great. They're
00:40:45a big help in knowing what to do about the conditions. But if you don't have insurance
00:40:50and the ability to get these done or no doctor or don't hold treatment back, go ahead and get
00:40:56started with your three panel components. I want you and Rhonda to, I want to change the subject
00:41:02for a minute. I know I've talked to both of you about this and something I feel very strongly
00:41:07about. Okay. We know that these conditions I'm talking about are not curable except in rare
00:41:14situations, rare instances where we can catch the disease real early and do something about it.
00:41:20A lot of you have suffered for years. Nobody knew what you had. I think we had somebody on the show
00:41:25last week that went 20, 30 years, no diagnosis. And we have people like that. Okay. But what I want
00:41:32to talk about here right now is that I realize that and that I've been talking a lot of science
00:41:38here now. It's complex. I'm aware of that, but I do think you have to know it given your serious
00:41:43condition. Now, with these serious conditions that all of you have, you're disabled or you can't work.
00:41:51You can't do a lot of things like you used to. And what I, on this show, many times we've talked
00:41:58about people's spiritual connections, about their prayers, their life. Jamie and Rhonda, I'm going to
00:42:05ask you guys this. You guys, frankly, I don't know why you're alive. I know a little bit about your
00:42:13cases. You've made it through a lot of your spirituality. What have you guys done? I want to
00:42:20hear not only from you, but what do you want to ask everybody else out there about? How do you get
00:42:25a quality of life given the seriousness of your disease? How do you stay in touch with a God and
00:42:32your people to stay alive? Okay. My medicines are going to help, but you've got to have that
00:42:37spirit. You've got to have a God. You've got to have a lot of willpower to live through this CRAP.
00:42:45Okay. Rhonda, you want to go first? That's a great question.
00:42:53I will follow you, Jamie. I've had a moment to talk, so you take it away. Okay. I want to say
00:43:01that I think that the time that I really called out the most on God when it came to
00:43:11being in the middle of suffering was when I was hospitalized for four straight months, 115 days.
00:43:20I had a lot of time to think and a lot of time to pray and a lot of time to really question
00:43:28life and question Him. I wrestled with Him a lot. I don't recommend that. I never won that
00:43:36wrestling match, but I do have to say that it gives me hope that this isn't all there is to
00:43:44life. It's just to live for a few years. Some of us may suffer through. Some of us may live for
00:43:53three years. Some may live for 103, but I think a big thing is the way that we love each other
00:44:03along with having faith. It really does. It opens up a lot. I know that there are
00:44:12so many questions that we have, and there have been so many times that I've said,
00:44:17you know, God, where are you? I remember just recently, I said, Lord God, please help me.
00:44:25I remembered the scripture that said, I am. So when I said, please help me, that scripture,
00:44:33I am, came to me. So that's been my only way that I've made it through on the science aspect
00:44:43is I don't think that I could have made it through this. The pain, the agony,
00:44:54besides all of everything being so perplexing, then you have the stigma, and then you have
00:45:01public opinion, and then you have people that really don't understand. It's a big uphill battle,
00:45:08and it will make a warrior out of you, if nothing else.
00:45:15I've got another question and a thought for you. I've had a number of disagreements over the years
00:45:22with people who say, well, all those intractable pain patients are just hanging around in bed,
00:45:27taking all our medicines. They don't do anything for society. They're totally unproductive and
00:45:31really ought to go. My answer to them has been real simple. You don't live very long if you're
00:45:38not doing something else, just doing something good for someone else. I've talked to people all
00:45:46the time, and they say, well, I'm really not doing much for anybody. Then I talk to them,
00:45:51and I find out all of a sudden, oh, they're talking to their grandkids every other day.
00:45:56They're visiting with somebody. They're reading something. They're doing something for their
00:46:00church, their neighborhood, and their family. They're doing something. Give me your thoughts
00:46:06about that. Of course, you guys are very dedicated to humanity and trying to help and care,
00:46:11but I think that this idea that nobody does anything for anybody else is the biggest bunch
00:46:17of hooey I ever saw. You don't live long if you're not. If you're just that selfish person,
00:46:22doing it on your own, you're out of here pretty quick, particularly if you've got arachnoiditis
00:46:28or RSD. Give me your thoughts about that, Rhonda. You're absolutely right, Dr. Tennant.
00:46:39Going back to the beginning of all of this, I could not see what is the purpose of all of this,
00:46:49just all of a sudden struck down with something that I didn't even know what it was at first
00:46:56until you. What is the purpose through all of this? Well, as you go through this path,
00:47:05myself, I'll just say me, as I went through this path and I started learning from you,
00:47:15I became active on social media where I was not prior to. I didn't have any social media account
00:47:21prior to all of this going on. I was too busy. It slowed me down. I've met some of the most
00:47:34incredible, warm-hearted, genuine people that I have ever in my life been blessed to know.
00:47:43Dr. Tennant, you're at the top of that list. You've saved my life and everything you have
00:47:48done for me. I want to be able to turn around and give back to other people. It's my way of
00:47:59paying it forward. What you've taught me, what you've given me, I want this for every single
00:48:05person that I come in touch with. That's what I do besides gardening and grandkids and family,
00:48:16but that's what I do. That's what feeds my soul. Yes, yes. To wrap us up today,
00:48:23no, you don't have to do everything alone. There's a lot of groups, a lot of families,
00:48:26a lot of ways to join these days. Social media has been a godsend, in my opinion,
00:48:31for a lot of people who are bedbound and housebound. You don't have to go it alone,
00:48:36but joining a group is one way you give back. Don't try to do everything alone unless you have
00:48:45to for a while. Let me close out with this. When people don't feel they're contributing anything
00:48:59and they're sick and they're wore out, obviously, they think about ending their life. Do you have
00:49:05any last thoughts here about recommendations for that person who's in that situation right now,
00:49:12today? They're thinking about the end. They're taking their life. What's your recommendation?
00:49:18I would like to say something on that. My father took his life when I was two. Two of my brothers,
00:49:27two of my sisters have all taken their life. There were seven of us. My mother buried six,
00:49:33one at a time. I got to that point a couple years ago. Jamie talked to me. I was thinking
00:49:44maybe my brothers and sisters and my father knew something. I didn't know. I fought all my life to
00:49:50keep fighting and to keep living. I got those deep, dark things where nobody would help me.
00:49:58Whatever. Anyway, what I need to say is trust in the Lord. He will not leave you. He will not forsake
00:50:07you. No matter how deep down dark you get and your thoughts are, there is going to be morning.
00:50:16There's going to be light at the end of that tunnel. That's all. Thank you. Well said. Last
00:50:23comment, anyone? If not, I will sign off. Again, we've had a scientific session here today. Don't
00:50:32forget, there's that man upstairs. There's a lot of people around. There's a lot of goodwill to be
00:50:39done. Thank you for being here. We'll see you next week. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Taylor.
00:50:45I do want to add one more thing. I just want to add one more thing is that it is truly like
00:50:51medicine when we can reach out to another person and turn a frown upside down. Smiles
00:50:59are contagious. If you can just be a friend to somebody, like Rhonda said, paying it forward,
00:51:06that's the way to do so. Just be a listening ear. That may be what that person needs. It might just
00:51:12be all they need is to know that someone is out there and that they understand.
00:51:16Well said, Jamie. If Dr. Tennant's still here, I did have a question for him.
00:51:25But if he doesn't have time, that's I understand. Let me double check for you, Amelia. I think he
00:51:31might have already. Yeah, I think he jumped off. Yeah. Well, I mean, I can even ask all of you,
00:51:40you know, if you've experienced those. So I'm running into problems with my PCP
00:51:48pretty much wanting to do anything for me. You know, and I know he's retiring,
00:51:55and I know that that's probably a lot of it. You know, he just wants to be done.
00:52:02But like, if you all come across this where, you know, you're requesting referrals to different
00:52:09places or, you know, like or a medication like pentoxifilin, and they won't do it. They said
00:52:19that she said that she wanted to see my next MRI before they were about to prescribe pentoxifilin.
00:52:28And I asked her why, because I had submitted all the proof she should need that I have
00:52:34adhesive arachnoiditis, you know, and along with Dr. Tennant's protocols.
00:52:43Do the MRI, because what they do, what that doctor needs is the MRI order by
00:52:50them with their name on it. That protects him. There you go. Because I just had two done today,
00:52:58my thoracic and my lumbar. Oh, wow. It was a new doctor. I just started this. Jamie can
00:53:06vouch for this. And Jamie's right. If it wasn't for Jamie Sanchez, we could talk,
00:53:13talk, talk, and we can make each other feel so much better by just having a conversation.
00:53:19She started out, she'd have a, you know, you can tell Jamie's like down or feeling a little
00:53:25hopeless. But after we get down and have a conversation, it's like the Holy Ghost
00:53:29then took over us and then lifted up our spirits so high that no one can take us down.
00:53:35Jamie's wonderful. Jamie's wonderful.
00:53:41Yeah. And, and so I did, I actually did go to the ER yesterday. The reason being
00:53:48is because I lost bladder control. And so, you know, the new spine rehab doctor I've been seeing,
00:53:58that was her recommendation, go to the ER. And, you know, I felt like the only benefit in doing
00:54:05that was because my doctor had through that health system had already placed an order for an MRI for
00:54:11me with contrast. And I was not happy with this resident doctor because he was questioning why
00:54:19she ordered it with contrast. And he did not do it with contrast.
00:54:30Yeah. Mom's not contrast either, but just don't try not to get upset.
00:54:36Uh, once you show up upset and hostility, I mean, uh, it's like the golden rule,
00:54:44Dr. Tennant taught, you know, do unto others as you would do unto you and speak for that doctor
00:54:50way you would like to be spoken to. It's not his fault because the AMA even came out and said this
00:54:58a few years ago, by 2025, 85% of all medical doctors will be retired out.
00:55:05Because they're burned out and they tired the insurance and government dictating their healthcare.
00:55:12And I had a friend who went to school where I went to high school out. He was an MD and said,
00:55:18if I'd known this was what's going to happen, I would have never became a doctor because I can't
00:55:23practice medicine the way I was taught to practice medicine because of insurance and oversight of the
00:55:29government. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I do. We, I, I truly believe that. Yeah. They're leaving.
00:55:37Rhonda, did you have one? Did you have something? I did have a question. What is the problem? Why,
00:55:44why is your doctor having such an issue prescribing? I don't know. So, so this is what
00:55:52she said. She said, I'm already on a fixer, you know, an antidepressant, only 150 milligrams,
00:56:00which she said can have the potential to cause bleeding from what I read up on it. It's very,
00:56:06very rare. She's also said that Pentoxyphiline has the potential to cause bleeding and that,
00:56:15you know, they would just have to find out the correct doses and everything that I need, which
00:56:21I already sent to them, you know, from what Dr. Tennant had recommended. So, so yeah, I don't
00:56:31understand. Fortunately, I have another very, very gracious doctor who was willing to prescribe
00:56:38Pentoxyphiline. Sometimes they are, there's a concern about medic medication interactions.
00:56:50Sometimes there's a concern about liability, liability if there's a GI bleed, but I could
00:56:58see if two or three medicines were prescribed and all three had that chance or that risk of
00:57:07bleeding in the stomach. But I just, maybe she, maybe she's just trying to protect you,
00:57:15but it sounds more to me like she's being overprotective and protecting herself, but yeah.
00:57:24Because like I even checked with my pharmacist, my local pharmacist, and they said there's
00:57:29absolutely no, like interactions between any of the other meds that I'm taking.
00:57:36All right.
00:57:37Dr. Tennant said that, that this isn't, you know, an old school,
00:57:45yes, old school medicine. It's very safe. Doctors should not have a problem with it.
00:57:51So that's it. That's right. Yeah.
00:57:55It has, it can't, okay. Vincent said it interacts with catorlax and he is correct. There is,
00:58:02there is that chance. However, I am one of the lucky people. I don't know, but I've been taking
00:58:09catorlax and pentoxifilin since day one and soon, Dr. Tennant, with no issues.
00:58:15Yeah, that's great.
00:58:17That is correct. It can interact with catorlax.
00:58:21Yes. I think the key is though, that if it's that intermittent dosage, like the once a week
00:58:26catorlax or the one a week, rather than every single day of both medications, that would be,
00:58:34I could see being worried if it was every day of both meds that you're taking NSAIDs to or some
00:58:40other, but if it's, if it's taken the way that Doc has suggested on an intermittent basis,
00:58:47it's truly, I think it's safer than the 800 milligrams of Motrin I was taking.
00:58:53I definitely agree.
00:58:56Oh yeah.
00:59:00Five years of that was enough to do it.
00:59:03And ibuprofen, you will not get the relief. I don't care how much of it you're not going to get.
00:59:09Nope.
00:59:10Because catorlax crosses that blood brain barrier and that's what you need to target
00:59:15that neural inflammation inside the spinal canal to drop that pain down and help prevent
00:59:23the progression of the disease.
00:59:25Yes. Yes.
00:59:28Well, guys and girls, it's been a great evening. I apologize that that happened with Denise
00:59:34and we hope that something can work out. We've got Julie on next week and looking forward to that.
00:59:43And we've got some more special guests coming in, but you are all of course, special guests as well.
00:59:49You're the, you're the family too.
00:59:51So are you, Jamie.
00:59:53Thank you, Jamie.
00:59:54Glad to be part of your family.
00:59:55Thank you so much.
00:59:57Thanks so much.
00:59:58Love you all.
00:59:58Thank you all so much.
01:00:00Bless you.
01:00:00Yeah, thank you everyone.
01:00:01Thank you so much.
01:00:02Not alone.
01:00:03It's been great.
01:00:03For all your insights.
01:00:05God bless.
01:00:06God bless you all.
01:00:08God bless you.
01:00:08God bless you all.
01:00:10God bless you all.
01:00:11See y'all next week.
01:00:12Have a good evening.
01:00:15Good night.
01:00:17It's so good to see you guys and stay alive.
01:00:20Yes.
01:00:21Please stay alive.
01:00:23Amen.
01:00:24Everybody stay alive.
01:00:26We got this.
01:00:27Even if we have to live for 120 years and we're not going to, that's really not a long time.
01:00:33If you think about it like that.
01:00:35We can make it to 120.
01:00:37No way.
01:00:37I think I'm not sure.
01:00:46I feel like the elders when they speak, say I'm 84.
01:00:58Yeah.
01:00:58And it's like, but no, I'm originally 48.
01:01:01You know how they'll say that.
01:01:02I said, Uncle Bobby, I'm 48 and I feel like I'm 84.
01:01:07Yeah, there you go.
01:01:09Oh my gosh.
01:01:09Do I hear you?
01:01:10Yeah, there you go.
01:01:12Now we get it, right?
01:01:14Oh, yes.
01:01:14Oh, yeah.
01:01:17Love you too.
01:01:18Good night.
01:01:18All right.
01:01:19Love to all of you.
01:01:21Have a good night.