I N T R O D U C T I O N
THE ALARM PIERCES THE PITCH-BLACK WINTER NIGHT and jars you out of your broken sleep. It’s 6 A.M. and time to start another day. You just sigh. The months of broken sleep - sleep interrupted by the pain shooting through your neck… usually right after you finally fell asleep.
You feel like a zombie. You wonder to yourself… will today be the day? The day when you can’t make it through work. The day when your life really starts to crumble. Your spouse is fed-up with the excuses for why you didn’t… didn’t go to Bobby’s baseball game… didn’t make a decent meal and fed the kids fast food… didn’t want to talk to your hubby about what’s really going on and went to bed instead.
You feel disgusted with the whole situation. Disgusted with the doctors that never helped you. Disgusted with your husband for not understanding. Disgusted that your friends stopped calling. Disgusted with yourself… the anxiety, depression, stress and feelings of helplessness that you can’t get out of your head.
You’re frustrated and angry… and think that there MUST be something that can help.
Well, I have great news! First of all, it’s not your fault. The doctors are just treating your symptoms… not getting to the root cause of your neck pain.
I put together this guide to help you troubleshoot your pain. There are solutions!
Hi, I’m Dr. Howard Lubin and I get to the root cause of my clients’ chronic neck pain and sleep issues. I’m a certified Functional Medicine Practitioner and spend my days working full-time to free my clients of their chronic neck pain.
PUT THE FIRE OUT: That fire is called inflammation. Think of what happens when you blow up a beach ball. It puts pressure on anything it touches. The same thing happens in the human body when you have inflammation raging inside you.
There are many causes of inflammation. Exercise causes inflammation. Stress causes inflammation. So does lack of sleep. Here’s the biggest problem: poor diet.
The Standard American Diet (a.k.a. SAD) is at least 30% highly processed foods.
This includes preservatives (chemicals), food colorings (derived from crude oil) and tons of hidden sugars… mostly high fructose corn syrup. Obviously, you should avoid these. When shopping, shop around the periphery of the grocery store and avoid the center aisles with junk food.
Take a look around your kitchen. Do you see canola oil, peanut oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, soybean oil, or vegetable oil? All of these are high in Omega-6 fatty acids, which are proinflammatory. Throw them out and avoid them for the next 7 days.
The first step to putting out the fire that is inflammation is to eat way less bad fats and eat more good healthy fats.
Another more scientific way to put this, is to improve your ratio of Omega 6 fatty acids to Omega 3 fatty acids.
Here are the good fats to eat instead... which are high in Omega-3 fatty acids. They are butter, coconut oil, olive oil and lard. These are the only fats that you should cook with.
H E R E A R E 5 W A Y S T O H E L P R E L I E V E Y O U R N E C K P A I N
1
EAT GOOD BUGS: Many people are eating the Standard American Diet (SAD) which is full of processed foods as we mentioned above. This actually kills the good bacteria in your gut (medications like ibuprofen do the same thing) and allows bad bacterial strains to grow.
The gut bacteria are responsible for proper digestion of food and also produce Serotonin, which is the “feel good” hormone. Many people suffer from leaky gut syndrome and imbalanced gut bacteria (dysbiosis).
Imagine your small intestine as a tube where food passed through and is digested. Around the edge of the tube are little fingers, known as Villi. The Villi resemble shag carpeting and selectively absorb nutrients your body requires while filtering out chemicals and toxins that should stay out of your bloodstream. With Leaky Gut, the shag carpet turns to Berber and all kinds of toxins pass through the wall of the small intestine into the bloodstream.
The body is overwhelmed with irritants, which cause autoimmune problems, inflammation and pain.
Leaky Gut is caused by diets high in sugar, wheat protein (gluten), food dyes and preservatives. Basically, any highly processed food, which makes up a majority of the SAD Diet leads to leaky gut. Another huge cause is the overwhelming overprescription of antibiotics, which kill both good and bad gut bacteria.
The solution is to eat probiotics, as well as apple cider vinegar, yogurt, kefir and sauerkraut (fermented foods). These foods get the right kind of bugs into your gut.
2
USE THIS DETOX PROTOCOL: Believe it or not, the average middle age adult has over 800 foreign chemicals in their body! This includes pesticides, fungicides, Bisphenol-A (from cans and cash register receipts), fluoride, chlorine, mercury, cadmium, etc.
Your body is likely very toxic right now.
Here are some additional red flags that you’re struggling with toxicity right now (other than your neck pain):
● Weight gain… even though you may eat like a bird
● Frequent infections… like constant sinus problems
● Tired all the time (chronic fatigue) along with constant headaches
The toxins are everywhere...in the air, water, food, clothing, cars, carpeting, sofas and many other places. It is virtually impossible to avoid all toxins. These chemicals gum up the workings of your body and cause pain. You can fight back, though, by doing the following:
Get the poisons out by following a regular, daily detoxing protocol. One good method is to take 5 - 10 grams of Vitamin C daily. You want to be just below what is called “bowel tolerance”, which is the point you develop diarrhea.
Another good method is to take 2 - 3 grams of Modified Citrus Pectin (made from the rinds of Citrus Fruit) daily. This is a potent detoxifier for a wide range of heavy metals and many other chemicals. However, it does not remove important vitamins and minerals from your body. It is available in convenient capsules or powdered form.
3
TAKE CELADRIN: Nobody likes to live with neck pain… especially when pain interferes with the daily demands of life. We will do anything to get rid of the pain - often by taking an over the counter pain pill or (even worse) an opioid. What happens next?
Sure, the pain goes away after a few minutes. But the side effects are unpleasant and possibly deadly. These include stomach upset, ulcers with chronic use, possible liver and kidney damage and grogginess. Not to mention addiction with the opioids.
Celadrin is a better pain solution. It is a blend of esterified fatty acids in a capsule. The best part of using Celadrin is that it has almost no side effects. It is effective for arthritis pain, knee pain, muscle pain and fibromyalgia… so it treats a wide variety of issues that chronic neck pain sufferers typically have.
Next time your neck starts to ache, try taking 1 - 2 capsules of Celadrin instead of ibuprofen, aleve, tylenol or your prescription pain killer.
4
TRY THIS ‘1-MINUTE NECK PAIN RELEASING MOVEMENT’: One of the most important ways to combat the conditions that lead to chronic pain is to keep your muscles at their optimal muscle length, or O.M.L. Every time you move your head, the neck muscles contract and shorten - then temporarily fix themselves in this shortened version by building bridges across the muscle fibers. To stop the pain you must stretch the muscles back to their original O.M.L.
Here’s how: Reach your right hand over your head and grap the left side of your skull. Gently pull your head to the right until you feel some gentle tugging on the left side of your neck. Try to tilt your chin down toward your chest. Hold this pose for a full 30 seconds.
Now repeat the movement with your left hand… and hold for an additional 30 seconds.
Try to do this stretch first thing in the morning and in the evening every daily.
If you have neck pain during the day, using this stretch may help relieve the suffering.
The bottom line is that you can do this stretch as many times each day as you feel the need to.
5
Use these 5 tips as a starting place on your path to naturally stopping your neck pain.
The most important thing you can do is to pick two right now and try it today and see how your neck feels over the next few days.
But this is the only beginning. The truth is, there’s actually 7 common root causes for most people suffering from neck pain.
Most clients I work with have from 3 - 5 of these root causes keeping them stuck in pain. In order to stop the vicious pain cycle and begin to heal, you MUST correct each of these or you will live in pain for the rest of your life. You will also sleep more soundly and feel much better overall.
Here are the most common root causes:
1. An imbalance of bacteria in the gut
2. A lifestyle that promotes chronic inflammation 3. Toxins overloading your system
4. Lack of vitamins and minerals 5. Tight, painful muscles
6. Poor diet filled with carbohydrates, sugar and bad fats 7. Stress
Which of these root causes are causing your pain right now?
If you would like to get help identifying the root causes making your neck pain worse, the first step is to schedule a 30 minute FREE “Neck Pain Troubleshooting Session”
with me. I’ll help you identify the #1 cause of your pain and give you some insight into easy tips you can use to help finally relieve your pain.
This is the first step I recommend to all my neck pain clients and the most critical. Once we know which causes we need to work on, you’ll finally have a plan to permanently stop your neck pain and help you sleep more soundly.
H O W T O F I X T H E R E A L R O O T C A U S E S B E H I N D Y O U R N E C K P A I N ( T H A T Y O U R D O C T O R W O N ’ T T E L L Y O U ) . . .
Click here to schedule your 30-minute Neck Pain Troubleshooting Session now I’m excited to be able to work with you. Together, we’ll get you on the road to a better life.
Yours for less pain naturally, Howard
Hi, I’m Dr. Howard Lubin and I treat clients with chronic neck pain and sleep issues. I’m a certified Functional Medicine Practitioner, retired dentist, father and neck pain survivor. At my worst, I spent 18 hours a day in bed sucking on Tylenol after being told there was nothing more that could be done for me. Add in the 6 operations I had - that did nothing to help - and I was at the end of my rope.
Fast forward to today… I am almost pain-free, happy, healthy and enjoying life again.
I discovered Holistic Medicine and now have added in functional medicine that gets to the root causes of the “pain hell” so many neck pain patients are afflicted with.
I have been in practice for 4 years and worked with dozens of clients to make their neck pain history and get them back to living happy, productive lives. I live in the shadow of Lambeau Field by the frozen tundra of Green Bay, Wisconsin with my girlfriend Lauri and beloved dogs, Abby and Oscar.
DEAR HOWARD,
This letter is meant to thank you. I have received great help from you. After all this time, I am glad to report that I am off all 5 of my medications and my average BP is 130/88.
My average glucose is 117 and sometimes I get a 98 or 99. My cardiologist commended my A1C improvement. I am truly thankful for your having brought me into the natural medicine world. I am practically pain-free. My weight is 224 (down 70 pounds) which is not too bad. I am doing great and you were the starting point for the best part of my life.
ENRIQUE M.
75 YEARS OLD
If you are looking to feel better and improve your overall health, take the time and work with Howard. I came to Howard six months ago after watching him carefully help my wife deal with her allergies and improve her overall health. I saw first-hand the care and his attention to detail.
It was easy to see that he took the time to get to know her and understand her goals and objectives. After some encouragement and seeing the results after a few months I decided to give it a try.
After 6 months on his program, I am no longer taking prescription medications to address my high triglycerides, my seasonal allergies are no longer an issue, my knee and overall joint pain is gone, I have lost 20 pounds, I have more energy and I just feel good! With all that success there is still room for improvement and Howard continues to works to understand and is always tweaking and making adjustments. I feel like I have a partner in this.