Amy Nett: The first question we have submitted by Nick, this is about Hashimoto’s and neuropathy. Nick describes a 26-year-old female with numbness, tingling, pain and what he says are strange sensations along the extremities, especially forearms and wrists.
Just thinking about that, definitely we hear numbness, tingling, pain, and sort of abnormal sensations, it sounds like maybe radiating to forearms and wrists. We’re thinking about, as he said, neuropathy, and he mentions allodynia, sometimes if you’re thinking about upper extremity pain you might also even consider doing something like cervical spine imaging, making sure that there’s not any sort of nerve compression, but if it’s just forearms and wrists and nothing above that, maybe elbow issues. I don’t know. I mean, I might look into the structural issues as well. We do want to rule out the structural issues as well.
And then he goes on to say, “She has her TSH, T3, T4, and reverse T3 all within optimal functional ranges. Gluten-free, dairy-free, follows a strict Paleo diet, lowered toxic burden and she avoids harmful cosmetics, detergents and uses a Berkey filtration system for water. Based on DUTCH testing, she fits some of the criteria for PCOS.”
Even though she’s reduced her toxic burden, which is fantastic, I think you still need to check heavy metal levels. I would still absolutely want to rule out lead in particular, but also mercury for neuropathy. I think that would still be really important, even though, again, awesome that she’s lowering that toxic burden. But I’ve definitely seen elevated lead levels as causing neuropathic-type pain.
And Nick goes on to say this question, “While we look for underlying pathology, do you find any of these supplements or dietary recommendations to be helpful with allodynia-like symptoms?”
In terms of dietary recommendations, you’re spot on. I mean, you need to do that low-inflammatory diet, so you said gluten-free, dairy-free and strict Paleo, so I’m guessing that is grain free and pretty much as good as we’re gonna get in terms of low inflammation. And then you mentioned your checking for underlying pathology, so yes, make sure you’re checking serum B12 and folate, methylmalonic acid level, as I mentioned, heavy metals. Dealing with just the pain issue specifically, Steven Buhner, I think we’ve mentioned him before. Chris and I have probably mentioned him before. Steven Buhner has some botanical protocols, generally antiviral, antibacterial kind of Lyme treatment. I will take a look at some of his topical protocols, specifically for shingles, I’m thinking, because I’ve viewed some of those for neuropathic pain, specifically lemon balm, like a lemon balm-infused oil, which is pretty easy to even make at home, but you can certainly also purchase them. Then for nerve regeneration he has a formula that includes senega and lion’s mane. Those would be two that you might think about. Again, lemon balm I’ve found really nice topically. I think the company Beyond Balance also offers a topical balm for neuropathic pain, so you could give that a try as well.
It sounds like you’re on the right track. I mean, really you need to look for underlying causes, but those could be some Band-Aids, so to speak. And then the other thing always worth considering in the setting of chronic pain is sometimes our brains will rewire in the setting of chronic pain. If you haven’t already taken a look at the book by Norman Doidge, I think it’s The Brain’s Way of Healing, not pretty sure, but it’s Norman Doidge, and I believe it’s his more recent one. He talks about neuroplasticity in the first chapter, in particular discusses the role of neuroplasticity in chronic pain.