From Pain Relief to Improved Digestion: Grounding Benefits Confirmed Through Thermal Imaging

On a routine basis Gregory Melvin, D.C., of La Mesa, CA gets feedback from patients telling him that grounding has accelerated healing on a wide variety of issues ranging from pain problems to poor digestion.

He is then able to actually confirm their feedback with the use of thermal imaging.

Infra-red thermal imaging (also known as thermography) is a widely-used evaluation method that can determine early signs of dysfunction and disease in the body. This imaging method produces color patterns corresponding to changes in skin temperature reflecting normal or abnormal functioning of the body.  The variations and patterns of colors are interpreted by experts, such as Dr. Melvin, just as X-rays and MRI images are interpreted by radiologists.

Thermography has been applied in thousands of medical studies. It helps, for instance, to identify the presence of early tumor development, as well as to assess soft tissue injuries, diabetes, arterial disease, nervous system and metabolic disorders, headaches and various complex pain syndromes, and neck and back problems.

Dr. Melvin has recommended grounding to his patients for more than five years.  Although initially skeptical, he became quickly impressed with the effects he saw through routine thermal imaging of patients.

“When I learned about it, I wanted to see if and how it could affect vascular changes and the extremities.  I gave some grounding pillowcases to a few patients and did pre-and post-grounding imaging. I wasn’t treating them, just asking them to be grounded for a few nights in bed.  After seeing significant degrees of changes within three days, I went on to do about a dozen more patients.  I saw similar significant improvements, and at that point, I knew I needed to include grounding in my treatment plans and in my imaging analyses.

“Since that time, grounding has become pivotal in my multi-faceted approach to health,” he says.  “We are bioelectrical beings, and grounding rapidly loads up the body’s electrical system, and fast.  It’s like charging a battery.”

Dr. Melvin says he has repeatedly seen improvements in imaging results involving dural stress loads. The dural tissue is the outermost membrane of the fibrous connective tissue of the brain and spinal cord.   Problems in this tissue, depending on where they develop, can manifest as pain, numbness, or dysfunction in the organs and limbs.

“Neurologically, if you have a tension or stress load to the central nervous system, it is like looking at a fuse box with a camera and seeing that the system is overloaded.  And then when you ground it, it is no longer overloaded.  A few nights of grounding alone achieved physiological changes in the spine that I would normally not see until weeks or even months of treatment.  Even though other kind of treatments needed to be added, patients were already reporting relief.”

Thermal images above of a woman with significant spinal duress and complaints of hip and leg pain. The image on the left was taken prior to grounding and shows the lower back area with thermal markers (heat patterns) indicative of spinal dysfunction, misalignments, and neural distress. The image on the right, after 20 minutes of grounding, shows a rapid reduction in the “hotter” colors (white, red and orange) and reflects improved inflammatory/dural-spinal cord duress.  

In 2014, Dr. Melvin collaborated with Gaétan Chevalier, Ph.D., director of the Earthing Institute, in a study that used thermal imaging to analyze blood and lymph flow, as well as digestive tract function, among 40 individuals who were either grounded or sham-grounded for one hour.  The results were published in the online journal Health in 2015.

The study demonstrated clear and impressive improvements in blood flow throughout the abdomen within a short period of time only among the grounded participants, according to the study.  Even more impressive, to the point of “astonishment,” Dr. Melvin adds, was the rapid impact of grounding on digestive tract motility.  The term refers to the autonomic nervous system’s regulation of the digestive tract.  Motility means movement.

“So it’s about how well the tract, from the esophagus down to the large colon, moves, processes, and absorbs food, and eliminates wastes, and how these actions affect other organs, blood flow, the nervous system, and the musculature,” he says.  “Obviously core activities for health are involved.

“Through thermal imaging, I have often seen significant changes among patients with common digestive tract disorders after just three nights of sleeping grounded that could otherwise take weeks or months using cleansing, postural, and other types of strategies.  The grounding alone in a short time produces significant clearing up of congestion that I could see in the images, which accompanied positive feedback from the patients. ”

Congestion in the digestive tract is often an undiagnosed and overlooked cause of such problems as constipation, abdominal discomfort and pain, chronic fatigue, swelling in the extremities, veins, and even in the testicles, he added.

The thermal images above are of a woman just before grounding (left) and just after grounding for one hour (right).  The right image reveals greater uniformity of skin temperature, indicating improved distribution and balance of blood and lymph circulation.  The left image shows a hot neck area, indicating congestion of blood and lymph.  The post-grounding image shows less red, a decrease of congestion. A greater temperature balance is seen between the breasts and around the breasts after grounding, indicative of better blood flow regulation.  In the lower abdominal area improved digestion and decreased bloating are reflected by warmer coloring.

In the grounding study, Dr. Melvin reported thermal imaging improvements of the ileocecal valve function within 20 minutes of grounding.

“This is indeed astonishing,” he says.

No such changes were seen in the individuals who were not grounded during the experiment.

The ileocecal valve separates the last part of the small intestine from the first part of the large intestine. Its role is to permit already digested food to pass into the large intestine, and prevent backup of the waste material into the small intestine. Any leakage or malfunction of the valve might lead to disturbed digestion and toxins being absorbed into the body.  As a result, seemingly unrelated symptoms, such as low back pain, pelvic pain, nausea, flu-like signs, headache, bad breath, diarrhea, constipation, and dizziness, could develop.

“There could even be a backup of pathogens, such as e. coli, into the small intestines, from the colon,” says Dr. Melvin.  “Usually we think of such bacteria as coming from the food we eat.  It can also come from within our own bodies.”

Dr. Melvin works with clinicians from around the world who have incorporated thermal imaging as an analytical measure in their preventive and therapeutic strategies.

“This kind of imaging often gives clinicians a revealing view of abnormal functioning in the body that more common types of imaging don’t register,” he says. “I’ll write the thermal imaging analyses of patients for these clinicians, and often also recommend what should be done. And for more than five years I have strongly recommended grounding.  The connection to the planet is essential to reload the system, to recharge our bioelectrical battery. Grounding can’t fix everything but it can fix a bunch of things, and often pretty fast.”

Click on this link to read a report showing how thermal imaging documented accelerated healing and relief from grounding among actual patients with various types of pain problems.

Featured photo by Alicia Petresc.

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