Low back pain doesn't happen overnight and once understood, can resolve quicker than you realize. We have to look at our lifestyle, nutrition, how we think & feel, etc. to unravel the condition. You could take a pain reliever but still the underlying imbalance will be there after the relief is gone. The key word for low back pain is DEFICIENCY.
Contributing Environment: Our work and personal life may be stressing us out to the degree that our circulation is constricted not allowing nutrients to feed our organs and toxins to be eliminated. Our dietary preferences in the U.S. are excessive while empty of nutrients, full of preservatives, pesticides, hormones and processed with additives. Our generation has to manage more stress, life events, media exposure and emotional changes thus disturbing our sleep quality. The result is we lack the necessary energy or life force to be our best. This further makes us irritable in our relationships which worsens all the scenarios described before.
As we break down our energy, immunity and support, our self image and esteem parallels our internal organs ability to weather the challenge. In particular our kidneys and adrenals become weakened or deficient requiring us to take back what has been given up to regain our essence, vitality, our quality of life.
Initially, winning strategies in lifestyle, diet and rest need to be re-constructed. This article was wriiten to suggest successful alternatives enabling the reader to rapidly acquire anti-aging versus aging strategies.
The source of deficiency stems from 4 main areas:
- LEFT KIDNEY DEFICIENCY
- RIGHT KIDNEY DEFICIENCY
- KIDNEY ENERGY DEFICIENCY
- EXTREME CHRONIC FATIGUE
FOOD THERAPY: LOW BACK PAIN
This issue may involve not only low back pain but also sciatic pain complicated by other syndromes such as chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, Epstein Barr, etc. Four causes of low back and leg pain.
There are several categories based on Chinese medicine nutrition and Traditional Chinese herbs that support and correct low back pain:
LEFT KIDNEY (yin) DEFICIENCY:
Characteristics: Heat symptoms, dizziness, ringing in the ears, dry throat, dry mouth, fever, low backache, weak legs, involuntary seminal emission, spontaneous sweating, red tongue, emaciation, deep shiny red tongue
Foods: millet, barley, tofu, string bean, black bean, black soy bean, mung bean, mung bean sprouts, kidney bean, azuki bean, and most other beans, kuzu root, watermelon and most others, blackberry, mulberry, blueberry, huckleberry, water chestnut, wheat germ, potato, seaweeds, spirulina, chlorella, black sesame seed, sardine, crab, clam, eggs, pork, cheese
Herbs: marshmallow root, rehmannia root, Asparagus root, aloe vera gel, colloidal silver (If the constitution is cold and/or most or low back & sciatic is cold and/or moist then choose from the groups below)
RIGHT KIDNEY (yang) DEFICIENCY:
Characteristics: cold symptoms in the body such as cold extremities, weakened knees, weakened lower back, avoidance of cold environments, pale skin, depression, lethargic thinking, deficient libido, intermittant menstruation and clear vaginal fluid
Foods: walnuts, black beans, onion family (onion, garlic, chives, scallions, leeks), quinoa, chicken, lamb, trout, salmon
Spices: cloves, fenugreek, fennel seeds, dried ginger
Avoid cooling foods, fruit, raw foods, excessive salt, use seaweed cautiously.
KIDNEY ENERGY (qi) DEFICIENCY:
Characteristics: deficient energy constitution with lower back pain, lack of knee strength, tongue (pale), cold areas of the body. Urinary problems: incontinence, dribbling, frequent urination, unable to urinate, involuntary seminal emission as well as other urinary/seminal problems.
Foods: wheat berry, sweet rice, parsley
Herbs: rose hips, oyster shell, clam shell, schizandra berry, raspberry and blackberry leaves, gravel root
EXTREME CHRONIC FATIGUE (Jing Deficiency):
Characteristics: dizziness, ringing in ears, loose teeth, loss of head hair, painful knees and lower back
Food: micro-algae (chlorella, spirulina, wild blue-green), fish, liver, kidney, brain, bone and its marrow, human placenta, cereal grasses, wheat grass,solomon seal, almonds, ghee (clarified butter), goat's milk, nettle leaves, royal jelly, bee pollen, Doddler seeds, millet, wheat, black sesame seeds, soybeans, chestnuts, mulberries, raspberries, strawberries, seitan, walnuts
Herbs: deer antler, deer horn velvet, Deer Placenta, Lycium fruit, Polygonum multiflorum root, Eucommia bark, Dendrobium stem, Cinnamon bark, white ginseng, semen cuscutae, astragali seed (complanati), cordyceps, astragalus, codonopsis, reishi, morinda, eleuthero root, paeonia , gambir, gecko, cibot rhizome, tianshan snow lotus, tibet carthami
For final decision on which foods to choose for your condition, please consult a trained master herbalist with in-depth knowledge of Traditional Chinese herbs and food therapy, American herbology and other nutritional systems.
Related Blogs
