Care and Control of Adhesive Arachnoiditis Depends on Water

By Dr. Forest Tennant

Chronic illness tends to decrease one’s desire to drink fluids. If you have Adhesive Arachnoiditis (AA), however, you must drink some fluids about every 2 hours while awake. Why?

AA is an inflammatory disease of the spinal canal in which cauda equina nerve roots become attached by adhesions to the arachnoid-dural membranes covering the spinal canal. 

The arachnoid membrane is unique among tissues in the body as it doesn’t have its own blood supply. No arteries feed into it. Consequently, it depends on a “full tank” of spinal fluid that comes from the fluids you drink. Spinal fluid brings nutrients and medication to the arachnoid. It also bathes the inflamed area and washes away inflammatory waste and toxins.

Spinal fluid must be constantly kept at a high level. The body makes about 500 milliliters (17 ounces) of spinal fluid a day. If you are dehydrated due to lack of regular fluid intake, you may not make enough spinal fluid to control AA, including its pain.

Water Soak Every Day

Soaking in water daily is also important to control pain and inflammation from AA.

Water soaking is an age-old remedy for pain that is still worthwhile. It is believed to relieve pain by relaxing muscles and increasing blood flow to damaged areas of the body.  

Water soaking also extracts excess bioelectricity and inflammatory toxins that have accumulated due to inflammation and damage to the neurologic circuitry in the body. 

Here is a list of water soaking measures that are applicable to a person with AA: 

1. Stand in the shower and let water flow off your back, neck and legs.

2. Immerse your body up to your neck in a bathtub, hot tub, jacuzzi or pool.

3. Drape a warm, water-soaked towel over your back.

4. Soak your feet and ankles in warm water.

The soaks should be done for 5 to 15 minutes. Minerals or herbs can be put in foot baths. The most popular mineral preparation is Epsom Salts.

Forest Tennant, MD, DrPH, is retired from clinical practice but continues his research on the treatment of intractable pain and arachnoiditis. Readers interested in learning more about his research should visit the Tennant Foundation’s website, Arachnoiditis Hope. You can subscribe to its research bulletins here.

The Tennant Foundation gives financial support to Pain News Network and sponsors PNN’s Patient Resources section.   

Why Water Soaking Works

By Forest Tennant, PNN Columnist

There is no medical treatment older than water soaking. It is legend and still works. Adhesive Arachnoiditis and other Spinal Canal Inflammatory Disorders (SCID’s) are particularly helped by water soaking – so much so that we consider it an essential treatment.

Why water soaking relieves pain has been a mystery until recent times. It is known that damaged or “dead” nerves won’t conduct  the body’s natural electric currents, so electricity backs up and is trapped or retained in body tissues. The result is more inflammation and pain “all over.”

Electricity has a negative charge and water tends to have a positive charge, so it pulls out excess electricity from the body, reducing inflammation and pain. If the water contains a mineral, it will pull out even more electricity. That is why mineral hot baths and Epsom Salts are so effective.

The lumbar-sacral spinal canal is loaded with nerve roots. They constantly conduct electric currents that go from the spinal cord to the legs, feet, bladder, sex organs and intestine.

Any damage, by any cause, to the spinal canal nerve roots causes a backup of electricity which is painful and produces even more inflammation. To prevent disease progression, daily water soaking can be most helpful.

Types of Water Soaking

You don’t have to have a jacuzzi or pool to do water soaking. A bathtub is great, but most of us take showers. When you shower, keep the water as hot as you can stand, and massage and stretch your back muscles as the hot water runs over your back. Soaking for 10 to 15 minutes in a jacuzzi, pool or bathtub is preferable, but hot showers morning and night is about as good.

Don’t forget the Epsom Salts. The body normally excretes its excess electricity into the air, mainly through nerve ends in the hands, head and feet. Foot soaking, particularly with Epsom Salts or other herbal salts, is an age-old remedy that attracts the electric currents that travel down the sciatic and other leg nerves.

Another soaking technique is a warm, water-soaked towel or other wet wrap placed over the lower back for 5-10 minutes. Remember, water soaking isn’t an “all wet” idea.

Forest Tennant is retired from clinical practice but continues his research on the treatment of intractable pain and arachnoiditis. This column is adapted from bulletins recently issued by the Arachnoiditis Research and Education Project . Readers interested in subscribing to the  bulletins should send an email to tennantfoundation92@gmail.com.

The Tennant Foundation gives financial support to Pain News Network and sponsors PNN’s Patient Resources section.