The cause of the DDD is unknown, I have never had any injuries or accidents, they only thing that I can think is that it is genetic (my dad has back problems as well) and up until a year or two ago I had a very physical labor job, so I think that has some to do with it as well.
As far as dealing with it, I haven't been found a pain management doctor that will take me, I have tried to get into so many that I just gave up. I did have one a few years back but he just wanted to keep doing steroid injections, and they weren't helping at all, every doctor I have seen refuses to write any scripts.

Toss with a little hemp oil (high in omega 3!), soy sauce (I just GF, reduced sodium), crack a little black pepper, sprinkle some smoked paprika and nutritional yeast on it. YUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMM...

While of course, juicing is the best cheat for the straight up nutrients (still waiting on someone strong enough to lift the damn juicer to get home so I can juice!) eating the kale in a raw a form as you possibly can is always recommended. If you look at the recipe I posted above, toss the kale and let it sit for a few hours, the oil and soy sauce will soak in and wilt the kale, not only making it more tasty, but also rendering it easier to digest, and super yummy! If you don't like the cheesy taste of the nutritional yeast, omit.

Dino kale is the most tender I find, plus, it has the most nutrients, and ANDI score of 1000, which is the highest you can go.

I would quite literally eat my hat if you don't have celiac disease. (Might have to make one out of kale just in case). :laugh:

The vast bulk of us are here because of injuries. We are (IMO, wrongly) Dx'd with DDD. But that makes no sense since the other discs are just fine. It sounds like you have *true* DDD.

Logically speaking, even before I looked it up, of COURSE celiac would cause DDD. The spine, unable to absorb the nutrients it needs, when shocked, would rely heavily on the discs because the spine itself is in a weakened state. It can heal, given time, but the damage already done likely cannot be reversed.

40% of the population has the gene. The disease is genetic.

If you were here in CA, and walked into Stanford with your sympotms, I guarantee you the very first thing they would do it check you for celiac. A 25 year old with no major injuries should not have DDD. The only possible thing I can think of that could account for that is celiac disease.

I know I keep squawking about it, but statistically, one in five of us carries the gene. It is most often turned on my trauma and pain. The highest incidence of celiac is in Somalia, where one in 22 people has it.

Chances are there are way more people on here than me who have it.

Unfortunately, I find that changing their diet seems to be the last thing people want to do.

Curt,

What a terrible story.

There are a lot of things that science can't explain; like people being helped by some very unusual diets (unusual by popular American standards). Given your age (I have neckties that are older than you) I'd encourage you to consider trying some of them before submitting to spine surgery.

Something that is routinely seen with spine surgery is that the patient will do very well for a time, sometimes for 20+ years, and then begin having new problems that are thought to be caused by the surgery that fixed the original problem. At 25 you're going to have to live with your decision and the resulting unknown results/variables for a long time.

I've tried a number of therapies suggested by the "whole" and "organic" foods culture for a variety of ailments; all to no avail. However, there are long lines of people that have been helped and even cured of assorted ailments after starting such therapies. Bizzare as they might sound, I'd encourage you to try some of these therapies. This Gerson Therapy that Harrison and Lilyth both use sounds like as good a place to start experimenting as any.

Having said all of that I will go ahead and recommend a US surgeon that I know has a four level lumbar ADR patient walking around symptom free today; Jack Zigler at Texas Back Institute in Plano, TX. However, because he takes a very conservative approach, my guess is that he'll probably refuse to do surgery on you.

Best of luck, Jeff

"Nutritional therapy" is going to be very slow and have very little apparent effect. It's a great way to improve overall health and will eliminate a host of things you could have suffered from but don't because you eat well. It's going to be difficult to quantify any real improvements because you can't estimate how bad you would have been eating junk food. It's also going to have limited effect on fixing existing problems. A bone broken, for example, due to osteoporosis isn't going to heal instantly if you start avoiding gluten and address the celiac that caused the osteoporosis.

Second thought: Gearson therapy done right is an extremely demanding process. You might want to look at modifying it to fit in your life and seeing how far you can improve your diet without compromising something else. Laura started baking to help me with my apparent celiac and got so wound up in it that she wasn't sleeping enough. We had to back off and realize that trading one problem for another wasn't smart and we'd have to find effective ways to help me without hurting her.

Thank you guys for all the replies, I have never heard of either Celiac disease or of the Gerson therapy.. I will admit that I don't have a very healthy diet but I have never had any problems with weight so that probably is a large factor into my junk food eating habbits, my wife tells me all the time that I need to start eating healthy, I should probably listen to her.

Just to clarify, I have never done the Gerson therapy. I know quite a lot about it and if I came down with cancer that is what I would look at to cure it. (If raw foods didn't work first).

And Jeff, have you tried going gluten free? If gluten is your problem, no amount of "healthy" foods will help you. I was eating "healthy" before too. Organic whole wheat, organic oatmeal, organic barley...

Curt, you don't have to be overweight to be having health problems due to what you are eating. And yes, listen to your wife. Wives are usually right about what you *should* be eating. If she would like to communicate with me directly, feel free to pm me her email address. No offense, but sometimes I find it is just much faster and more efficient for the women-folk to communicate. :laugh:

And yeah, you do want to strike a balance. I knew this week was going to be demanding, so I made a huge batch of egg salad. Not 100% raw, but I have celery and green onions in the mix (probably more of that than the egg). I've still got some kale salad from last night, but I needed something a little more substantial, hence the egg salad. Oh, and a carrot, apple, turmeric, orange, lemon, pineapple juice. I'm in quite a lot of pain lately (GOD surgery can't come fast enough!), so I thought juicing a bunch of turmeric would be a good idea (VERY high in anti-inflammatory), so I juiced a bunch. Along with the other stuff. You do NOT want just the turmeric juice alone. Also the bromelaine in the pineapple is an anti-inflammatory as well.

Oh, and the number one WORST ingredient to put in your body? (Aside from High Fructose Corn Syrup - I assume everyone on the planet knows to stay away from that by now). SUGAR. I cannot even BEGIN to tell you how bad sugar is for you!

I was scared to death you were going to say bourbon.

Hahahaha!

Actually, IMO, the sugar in bourbon is FAR preferable than white refined sugar!