Participants: Wynn Horsely, Agatha Thrash, Don Miller
Series Code: HYTH
Program Code: HYTH000172
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00:01 Hello, welcome to "Help Yourself to Health"
00:04 I'm Agatha Thrash, a staff physician 00:06 from Uchee Pines Institute 00:08 and we're going to be talking with you today about the back 00:12 and some things that can go wrong with the 00:14 back and make it hurt... 00:16 So we hope you will join us for this program and 00:19 that it will be a blessing to you. 00:41 Welcome to "Help Yourself to Health" 00:44 with Dr. Agatha Thrash of Uchee Pines Institute 00:47 and now, here's your host, Dr. Thrash 00:52 You know, the back has such a wonderful design. 00:57 When you look at it, and you know that our Heavenly Father 01:01 designed it... you know that it was made well. 01:05 Some people say that the reason we get backaches 01:08 is because we are still in the process of evolving... 01:13 and that we haven't fully achieved proper back support. 01:20 But I think, it's the way we live and what happens 01:24 to us here during our lifetime that makes us have a problem. 01:29 Now there are some back problems that are serious 01:32 and some back problems that are not so serious. 01:35 One of the not-so-serious ones is the backache that 01:40 we get when we've been tense all day. 01:42 And I'd like to have some help by my granddaughter. 01:47 This is Melissa Thrash and this is her friend, Shannon Jenkins. 01:52 And they're going to show you how, when you've had a 01:56 tense day, or you're very tired and your back aches 02:00 somewhere back there or somewhere up here 02:02 and you feel very tired. 02:04 Melissa is going to show you how you can do something for 02:09 a friend, or for a family member that will make them 02:12 feel a lot better. 02:13 Melissa, who do you have here? 02:16 I have Shannon Jenkins... 02:20 Okay, we're going to start by doing some neck kneading 02:25 and when you do this, just support the head and 02:28 have them relax their neck and then slowly knead the muscles 02:33 in their neck. 02:39 Oh, that looks relaxing and good just to see it, doesn't it? 02:43 All the way up to the base of their skull. 02:50 You can do this several times. 02:52 And once you're done with that, you can do some squeezing 02:55 and hold the muscle and let go... 02:59 squeeze the muscle, hold it, let go... 03:09 and do this again up to the base of the neck 03:12 And then do some lifting at the base of the neck as if 03:14 you were going to lift their head... 03:23 all the way around. 03:26 It looks as if Shannon is about to go to sleep with this nice 03:29 relaxing massage... 03:31 You can do some squeezing of the shoulder muscles as well. 03:34 This will relax... 03:37 That helps to relax the neck and to make the whole 03:41 neck and head feel good. 03:44 Well let's say you've got a headache or feel 03:48 strange in the head, what can you do for that? 03:51 You can use a head massage... 03:53 just put your fingers on the scalp and make some slow 03:58 circular movements on the scalp, near the temples 04:07 I see you're working up to the temporal muscles there. 04:11 Um hm... That's good. 04:14 They often get VERY tense... 04:16 And also in the back, near the occipital muscles 04:22 you can do some of the same... 04:23 Ah ha... occipital muscles get very tense 04:26 And then even where there are no muscles... 04:30 The scalp itself gets tense. 04:31 Sure, cover the whole head. 04:33 I knew a masseuse one time, who would actually 04:37 sort of scratch the scalp a little bit and it 04:40 was very relaxing. 04:43 She would do the same thing for the back and 04:45 the back would relax very nicely. 04:49 Okay, so those are some things that you can do for just 04:52 ordinary fatigue and tension. 04:55 Now, there are some serious back problems that we treat 04:59 with an ice massage. 05:00 Can you show us, with Shannon, 05:02 just what is involved with an ice massage. 05:06 And I see you've got some ice here already. 05:09 And, let's see what's going to happen here with... 05:12 Can you get your sleeve up so that she can show 05:15 the ice massage on her arm. 05:18 Of course, we would not do it on the back right now, 05:22 but you can certainly do it on the arm. 05:24 What is your technique for that? 05:26 It is possible to take a Styrofoam cup and 05:30 freeze water in it and then just cut the base of the cup 05:33 and use that as a nice little handle, and as that melts, 05:36 the ice will come down in and you can ice 05:38 and massage with that... 05:39 But if you don't have that, you can use just regular ice 05:42 that you'd get out of the freezer... 05:44 just little cubes of ice. 05:45 And realistically, most of the time, in the home, 05:47 you probably wouldn't have a Styrofoam cup frozen 05:50 with ice... that's right. 05:51 So you'd need to use the ice cubes... 05:54 Underneath her arm, we have some towels here because 05:59 it tends to melt and get everywhere. 06:06 Now notice that she is just rubbing the ice directly 06:11 on the skin and you can see there how she is doing that 06:15 At first, I can tell you what's going to happen to Shannon 06:19 Her skin is, at first, going to feel very, very cold 06:22 then unpleasantly cold... then it begins to sting 06:25 and then it begins to burn... 06:27 and after a while, that occurs over the first minute or so... 06:33 And after a little bit, she is beginning to think... 06:36 "Well I really wish this ice massage would stop" 06:39 But just about the time she's ready to say that, 06:42 then the whole area turns a very beefy red 06:47 And, I think I can see just a little bit of whitening 06:50 that precedes the reddening. 06:52 You first see the constriction of blood vessels 06:56 and then you see the dilation of blood vessels 06:59 and when you see that dilation, then you're beginning to get 07:03 a very nice treatment. 07:05 See the blanching there... of the skin that comes from 07:10 the first whitening... that's the thing that comes first, 07:14 and then, shortly on the heels of that, will come the reddening 07:18 And that's what you're looking for. 07:20 You just keep moving it. 07:21 Don't let the ice stay still, or that might cause a little 07:26 frostbite... it's unlikely but it might. 07:30 But just keep it moving and pretty shortly, 07:34 you'll start getting a little reddening. 07:36 You can see already... a beginning of reddening 07:39 around the edges. 07:41 Now on the arm where Shannon doesn't have any pain or ache, 07:45 it's not likely to cause her to have much relief of any 07:50 kind of symptom but if she were having a problem with 07:53 her back or an acute back strain, or acute backaches, 07:58 or sprain, a sprained ankle, or something of that nature 08:02 then what Melissa is doing for Shannon, would indeed be 08:08 a very fine treatment. 08:11 All right... thank you, girls. 08:12 That's a very nice demonstration. 08:15 You can already see it getting nice and pink, 08:19 and it will turn beefy red in the area where the ice is 08:22 and that's nicely cold! 08:26 All right... thank you girls, so much. 08:28 I appreciate your showing us this nice little massage. 08:33 Back massage, or an ice massage anywhere 08:36 can be MOST beneficial, and people who get it 08:40 can often be almost cured with just one 08:44 application of the ice. 08:46 The length of time to continue with rubbing with the ice 08:49 is about 12 to 15 minutes for injuries that musicians 08:55 get... such as people who play a harp, 08:58 or people who do plucking of strings such as those who 09:05 play a guitar or a mandolin, or one of those 09:11 kinds of instruments. 09:12 They often get injuries of the hands and the hand will 09:15 swell and be very painful. 09:18 Sometimes they will even get a trigger finger, 09:20 and for them, you can also use ice in the form of 09:24 an ice water bath with ice actually floating in it. 09:29 And the length of time then, is 20 minutes in the ice water. 09:33 And because it isn't pleasant to hold your hand in 09:35 ice water that long, the person who is going to do it 09:38 actually needs to set a timer because they'll 09:41 begin to think... "Well, I've been in this ice water 09:43 for an hour or more... 09:45 when it's only been about 10 or 12 minutes. 09:48 Now, a specialist in this kind of thing is Dr. Winn Horsley 09:52 and he's one of our staff physicians at Uchee Pines 09:55 and I have asked him to help me talk with you about 09:59 backaches. 10:02 Dr. Winn, I was just looking at this model of the vertebrae 10:08 and I am amazed at its design. 10:10 It is PERFECTLY designed to do what our Creator intended 10:15 that it would do... for man to walk ERECT... 10:18 in the ERECT position. 10:19 We don't walk on all 4's but walk in the erect position and 10:23 this is so situated, that it's just ideal for us to do that. 10:27 You know, when you look at the human skeleton, 10:30 the human spine, you get a quite marked change 10:35 in the size of the vertebrae when you come down 10:37 from the neck, down to the low spine... the lumbar spine. 10:43 They become quite a lot more massive and it fits perfectly 10:50 with the fact that it's going to be carrying more weight. Yes. 10:53 I don't think that you get that same kind of gradation 10:57 in size... say, in a dog, who's always got his spine 11:00 horizontal. 11:01 Yeah, they're much more delicate in a dog. Um hm 11:04 And much more uniform. 11:06 Yes, that's what I was thinking. 11:09 Now, you know, it's interesting the demands that are placed 11:13 on the spine. 11:15 As in all the body, you want the bone to be tough 11:19 It's the material that handles weight and handles 11:22 the forces of the muscles and tendons to allow good 11:25 movement to take place. 11:27 In the spine, of course, the bones, the vertebrae 11:32 must be able to handle all that weight... 11:36 As a matter of fact, all the way to the body above any 11:38 vertebral level must be handled by that vertebra. 11:41 Well that's true of this vertebra... 11:43 Let's say that we've got it set upright here like 11:46 it would in my spine. 11:48 And then, of course, this next vertebral level 11:51 must handle all the weight above it, plus 11:56 this new added vertebra... 11:57 I mean we're further down, so we've got more weight. 11:59 But what about the disk? 12:00 Ah ha... I see immediately... 12:02 It's got to handle all that same weight 12:05 And so, the demand that we put on disks 12:08 is equal in terms of strength to what we expect in the bones. 12:15 BUT, we don't expect our whole spine to act like one bone. 12:19 We expect to be able to bend and move... 12:21 And all that movement... it doesn't come from the bones 12:24 It all comes from the disks. 12:26 So we've got 2 rather demanding requirements 12:29 on that disk material. 12:31 It must be strong... Weightbearing 12:33 Secondly, it must be flexible. 12:35 It's got to move... It does. 12:37 So those 2 demands make for kind of a special situation 12:44 for disk material... 12:46 And we should maybe get into that in some detail 12:51 a little further along. 12:53 I've been looking at these drawings that you've got 12:55 here on the board with great interest... I'll be glad when 12:57 you get to that. 12:58 Well, I just wanted to say a word about back pain in general. 13:01 In fact, this shows one of the issues of back pain... 13:05 Do you see this little reddish bulging area? 13:09 This is to symbolize that some of this disk material 13:13 has bulged out of place. 13:16 It's now displaced and you can see what it's putting 13:19 pressure on... this yellow material is a nerve root. 13:24 We all know that in the spine, you've got the spinal cord 13:28 running through behind the vertebral bodies... 13:32 And the spinal cord is there precisely to be able to give 13:37 nerve roots to go to all the areas of the body. 13:39 Well this nerve root, in this model, is going to be getting 13:43 pressure from that bulging disk... 13:46 I'd like to point out some of the beauty of the design of this 13:50 ...that the spinal cord is TOTALLY surrounded by bone 13:56 and yet this bone back here, in the back part, 14:02 is not as massive as this that is going to be weightbearing 14:06 And then these little facets here, have mobility in 14:11 them too so that they can move nicely. 14:15 And actually, you pointed out this is not so massive here 14:20 but there is plenty of protection for the spinal cord 14:22 because this is all filled with muscle... 14:24 This is only a rather limited model and the muscle 14:29 here fills in and is a tremendous padding 14:31 for all the underlying structures. 14:34 And then, in addition to that, while we're on the topic of 14:38 structure, inside this canal the spinal cord is not just 14:43 thrown in there right next to bone, 14:45 it has 2 layers of meninges and a layer of dura 14:51 on top of that, and then the bone has its periosteum. 14:55 So, it is WELL insulated and BEAUTIFULLY designed. 15:00 I'm just always amazed at the design of bone 15:05 that shows Divine engineering. 15:07 There's no way that the limited intelligence of a human being 15:13 could make something so small and yet so functional... 15:17 and so varied and everything that it has to do. 15:20 Well this topic of back pain is a very practical one. 15:25 Back pain is such a big issue... 15:29 I don't think most people realize it. 15:31 Most people have an episode of back pain in the lives. 15:34 They say that 80% of people are going to be incapacitated 15:38 for maybe a day or 2, so that they might not even be able 15:42 to go to work during their lifetime. 15:45 But, I don't know that people realize what a tremendous 15:48 impact it has, even on the economy. 15:50 Fifty percent of workers' compensation 15:55 payments go out to low back pain problems. Is THAT right? 15:59 So it's not just the #1 cause, it's as much as 16:02 everything else put together... I'm amazed. 16:05 We're talking about something that's a terribly 16:07 practical problem. 16:09 Well, let's take a look at what we have then... 16:16 in the back. 16:17 I think we could go to the board here. 16:26 This gives a little bit more of an idea of the structure... 16:31 Here are the 2 bones that we showed in the model there... 16:34 the 2 vertebrae. 16:36 And here is the disk in between them. 16:40 Now the disk is very tough material on the outside 16:46 and then, it's kind of creamy in the center. 16:50 Around the disk, I should say in front of the whole spine, 16:56 you have a layer of material that functions like a capsule 17:01 to the whole joint, and its periosteum here in the spine 17:06 And then in back, you have another structure... 17:12 Actually in front of that periosteum, I should have 17:14 put other material... it's a big heavy ligament 17:19 that's running up and down here, 17:21 and there's another one... 17:22 I couldn't show it as heavy there... 17:25 I didn't leave myself enough space, but if you can see the 17:27 green, that's another firm ligament. 17:31 And, in behind that, I put in red, are spinal cord. 17:37 Now let's go over here to this cross section that I've 17:42 drawn of a disk... 17:44 Basically, this is what you would see if you were to cut 17:49 straight through a disk... like that. Um hm 17:52 So, here we see the tough material... kind of layered... 17:57 several layers like so, and then in the center, 18:01 you have this jelly-like center. 18:05 Now, someone may wonder... 18:07 We just talked about how it's supposed to be so strong... 18:10 Why would the Lord make it like a cream puff? 18:12 With a center like that... 18:14 Well, a person needs to realize what human engineers 18:19 have been doing for a long time and that is 18:22 ...when you contain liquid completely, 18:25 then it can withstand tremendous pressures. 18:27 A hydraulic lift that lifts a whole car or heavier vehicle 18:30 it's doing it with oil... Um hm 18:32 And the only thing you have to have is a container that's 18:35 completely closed in. 18:36 Well here, the Lord used that same principle. 18:38 You've got this tough material that's all surrounding the 18:44 jelly-like center. 18:45 Well why have something creamy in the center? 18:48 Well, there's nothing more flexible 18:50 than liquid... That's true! 18:51 And so everyway we turn, this central part has 18:53 no trouble at all adapting completely to the shape. 18:56 Now this is a normal disk. 19:00 This is the way we would like to see it always stay. 19:02 But what happens is, we get some bad changes that occur 19:11 and here, really, we're talking about a problem that happens 19:16 not only to disks, but to all the material that's like 19:20 disks in the body. 19:21 And, now, the disks are cartilage... 19:24 You may have, in your work as a pathologist, 19:27 looked at cartilage a fair bit... 19:29 And this is a special cartilage, a fibrocartilage! 19:32 Fibrous tissue plus cartilage. 19:35 Okay... I think it makes it particularly tough. 19:38 Ah ha... very tough. 19:39 But mobile too, but moveable 19:43 Yeah, it's a little pliable. 19:45 It's not absolutely rigid. Right! 19:47 Well, the topic of cartilage degenerating is really 19:53 a topic of osteoarthritis. 19:56 Really, the same kind of problems that we're talking 19:58 about here in the back, are going on in 20:02 all the other joints in the body of many people 20:04 One of the things that one sees, when we start 20:11 getting this degeneration is cracks in this cartilage 20:15 and they'll run like so... 20:23 We can actually SEE that under the microscope in a 20:26 degenerated disk. Interesting! 20:27 We can actually see those tiny, little cracks. 20:30 Now, you may wonder... 20:32 why does that kind of thing happen... 20:34 Well, you know, when you talk about osteoarthritis, 20:37 a lot of doctors say it's the wear and tear of years. 20:40 You know... as though it's totally inevitable... 20:43 there's nothing you can do about it. 20:44 But there really ARE some things that we could say 20:48 that have been found to point to the fact that it's 20:50 not just inevitable... there are things in our life 20:54 that we have as habits that lead us into that problem. 20:59 One of the points to note is that smokers get a lot more 21:06 of these disk problems than nonsmokers. 21:10 It's amazing! They get a lot more skin wrinkling too. 21:14 Skin deterioration... 21:16 You know, some people might wonder why... 21:19 It's kind of obvious that if you're taking smoke into 21:22 your lungs, you're going to be ruining your lungs. 21:24 Why would it affect the rest of the body? 21:26 I think we can explain it because it makes blood vessels 21:29 constrict... Blood flow is not as good. 21:32 Another factor involved in this kind of degeneration... 21:36 is the main disease that afflicts us in this country 21:41 which is arteriosclerosis! 21:43 Where are your blood vessels there in the disks? 21:46 Well, this is the kind of subtle aspect 21:51 to all the joints in the body. 21:52 They have no blood going inside the joints. 21:56 Cartilage in the one tissue in the body that has no 21:59 blood flow. 22:00 Now of course, it, like every other tissue depends 22:03 on the nourishment the blood gives but the blood 22:06 ONLY gets to this tissue that's on the outside... 22:10 Here, it would be this periosteum... 22:15 this capsule around the joint. 22:17 And from there, it must just seep in to basically the 22:21 watery type of fluid that takes care of the joint. 22:24 Only the blood plasma ever gets to the disk... That's it. 22:30 And it gets all of its nourishment from the blood 22:33 plasma that comes to it from a distance... 22:36 And, therefore, in a sense it's more dependent on that 22:41 blood... if there's any problem interrupting that chain, 22:44 it's going to be complaining even sooner than other tissues. 22:48 Now, let me just finish here what would happen if 22:56 let's say someone is in this situation... 22:59 We've drawn one here... one of these cracks 23:01 that only has a hair of tissue holding it together at the end. 23:04 And so this person then leans over maybe to pick up something 23:08 ...a piece of paper... A piece of paper! 23:10 This terrible, heavy work injury appears... OOH OHH! 23:13 And he doesn't even want to straighten up... 23:16 He doesn't want to bend further... 23:17 He doesn't want to move in any direction. 23:19 And, what we have is... 23:22 We've opened up this crack and I think it's clear 23:28 to anyone looking at this... 23:29 Well now, the jelly-like center can just go straight out 23:34 and, furthermore, this rather tough material of the disk 23:40 is also now free to make a move out... 23:44 It's not held in place. 23:45 So now, we can push... first of all directly against 23:50 the ligament here in back or the ligament in front 23:53 and that can be painful. 23:54 I could've said here, that there really are no major 23:57 nerves... There aren't a significant 23:59 amount of nerves in the disk. 24:02 So the person that had... before we did this break, 24:04 final break, the person may have been totally unaware that 24:07 he has a back problems. 24:08 But now, the ligament definitely is sensitive 24:13 ...He'll have pain 24:14 And then, of course, we could get, what we showed on that 24:17 model, where it goes right out against the nerve root. 24:20 He'll be VERY aware of pain along the distribution where 24:23 that nerve goes... it could be right down the leg. 24:27 Well, when this happens, we could tell the person, 24:31 Well, he, you know, should have been doing the right things 24:36 to avoid arteriosclerosis... and some of those things of diet 24:40 Or, that he shouldn't have been smoking, etc. 24:44 It might be a little unkind to be rubbing all 24:46 that in at that time. 24:48 Is there something we can do for a person that's in that 24:51 situation right now? Well, there is! 24:55 And, just before calling on someone to demonstrate this, 25:02 I want you to look again at this picture here of the 25:06 spine... 25:08 I would like to just turn to the side and show you 25:11 that this is actually showing the spine the way I'm standing 25:14 now, the skin of the back is here, 25:17 and I'll put that up on the board... 25:19 Here is the skin of the back running along here, 25:22 and, in fact, you can even feel the bumps that correspond 25:25 to these bony projections on your back... 25:27 if you don't have too much padding there. 25:30 And, what we want to do is somehow open up this space 25:38 a little further... I'll show you why 25:43 These 2 vertebrae have compressed this disk, so now 25:48 it is actually PUSHING OUT... I hope this is clear enough 25:54 We're getting this disk pushing out where it shouldn't be... 25:57 And we would like to nudge that back forward and 25:59 OPEN up that space so that it will all come back into place 26:05 We'll show that with the girls, will we? 26:08 That's right... Let's have them to come forward and 26:11 the last 1-1/2 minutes, we'll show these nice little maneuvers 26:17 that they can do. 26:20 Okay. How do you position? 26:24 The first point would be that we do it on a pillow 26:27 because the person might not even want to straighten up 26:30 Now, as she gets more used to lying down and there's no 26:32 weight on her spine, we'll pull the pillow away. 26:34 Can we do that for you, Shannon? 26:36 Now this would have taken, perhaps, many minutes to do. 26:39 Maybe 15... Might be 15 or even more. 26:43 Now the next thing to do... 26:44 Notice we've got some... just a minute Melissa, 26:48 we're going to just watch here the position is, with a bit of 26:52 arching of the back which tends to open this space. 26:56 Now the NEXT thing we'll do, after a couple of minutes 26:58 at least in this position, will be propping up on the elbows 27:03 Good... and that arches the back further which opens 27:09 up this disk space more. 27:12 And then, finally, we will be pushing UP, 27:16 and arching even further. 27:18 Okay, we might do several repetitions of that. Okay... 27:26 Now, one further thing that can be done is a person 27:30 can actually do some work directly with pressure 27:33 on the spine, right at the center... 27:35 Just apply and sort of doing it oscillating 27:40 and doing several repetitions of pushing, maybe 6, 8, 10 times 27:46 And that will open up those disk spaces very nicely 27:50 so that, hopefully, the person will not have a backache anymore 27:54 And we hope that you will be blessed by the Lord! |
Revised 2014-12-17