Coals to Newcastle

By Lendon H. Smith, MD

I suppose you "DC" readers know all these things, but they are new to me. I must write about them so they will become a part of my approach to the treatment of various disorders. I write so that I can become familiar with what my mind is doing.

A middle-aged friend told me he had been visiting a chiropractor for some weeks because of a chronic low-back pain. (That seemed to be a reasonable response to back trouble.) He was so stiff and sore in the morning it was difficult to get out of bed. (I have heard that symptoms can be related to hypothyroidism.) The spinal adjustment relieved the pain and tightness but it all came back in just a few days. (Sounds like alkalosis was preventing the minerals from being soluble enough to soften up the muscles.) After a couple of months of this helpful, albeit temporary relief, the chiropractor asked my friend if he had ever needed to get up to urinate in the middle of the night. (Was he groping for something?)

"I awaken feeling full enough that I should urinate, but I just tighten up that sphincter, roll over, and go back to sleep."

DC, firmly: "Get up and go."

He did. No more back ache.

This anecdote fits nicely into the well-delineated ideas in Dr. Grady Deal's book, Detox, Diet, and Wellness Lifestyle.

He wants us all to know that diseases start in the colon. (I didn't know that.) The constipation and toxicity that are the result of our modern diet and use of drugs cause absorption of poisons that cannot be detoxified sufficiently by the liver and are then exhaled by the lungs (whew!), squeezed out through the pores (bathing helps for only 20 minutes), or is dumped into the kidneys for excretion. The kidneys need extra fluid to dilute these toxins, so the urine volume is increased and the kidneys are overworked.

Get this from Dr. Deal: "Dairy, coffee, alcohol, drugs, smoking, not drinking sufficient amounts of water, and eating too much meat are the most common causes of kidney toxicity and low back problems!" (Now I know it and I suppose you will all say, "Smith, we tried to tell you; where have you been?")

Lendon Smith, M.D.
Portland, Oregon

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