The Unleashed Human: How To Crush Headaches, Migraines, Neck Pain, Back Pain, Bio-Hack Your Spine and Increase Human Performance With Chiropractic BioPhysics
On this episode we talk about why taking care of your spine extremely vital for you to be healthy. You know, that thing in the back of your body that keeps you upright and allows you to move your legs. That thing that controls every single organ in your body. Yea that thing is called your spine. You should pay attention to it more often because it is what determines your quality of life. When your spine becomes decrepit and degenerated it starts to lock itself into place, which means your spine is literally fusing itself… to itself. Your bones start to become fixated and your range of motion becomes severely restricted leading to nerve impingement. Your nerves then become compromised and all your organs, tissues and cells suffer due to loss of nerve flow to keep them alive and healthy. This episode is likely to become very controversial, as I talk about different types of spine management approaches and why some of them fail. I will also be talking about types of Chiropractic care and why they are so different. So, if you have had a bad experience with a chiropractor, I will tell you why that was the case. Or if you went to a Chiropractor and you were immediately turned off because of how weird and quaky they were, I will tell you why. Trust me, I know how weird chiropractors can be, because a lot of them do really esoteric things that are beyond what seems scientifically reasonable. There are, however, chiropractors who provide scientific evidence and research for what they do. These Chiropractors are super analytical and make sure that their patients understand how the human spine works and functions based on biomechanics and loading forces on the spine. You see, visiting a chiropractor is just like visiting a dentist or visiting a medical doctor. If you went to visit a dentist and they did a piss poor job leaving you with a bad taste in your mouth.. literally… would you just decide “I’m never getting my teeth cleaned again and never seeing a dentist as long as I live, or would you find better dentist?” I’m pretty sure you would find a new dentist, because regular checkups are crucial, as we know gum disease can lead to many issues like cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative disease and even diabetes. Just like you wouldn’t just immediately opt-in for a spine surgery, you would seek all conservative approaches to spinal care before spending hundreds of thousands of dollars with the potential of becoming paralyzed or becoming worse from surgery. You also wouldn’t ever discard all medical doctors forever because we need medical doctors for things like emergency medicine and severe bacterial or viral infections. Every single healthcare practitioner plays their role in healthcare today or else there wouldn’t be board advisories set up for them to exist. This being said, find the right practitioner for you and don’t lump them all into a group as the same. Do your homework and you will likely find the fit for you. Here's the thing…. Dentists, just like Chiropractors all practice differently and have different techniques. Although both Dentists and Chiropractors both go through 4-year programs undergoing the core curriculum in order to pass national board testing, they also undergo specialized training in the technique or specialty of their choosing. Some people are either turned on or turned off by the specialty these physicians’ practice. Now, In my experience, most humans prefer visible, tangible, factual and scientifically based health care and treatment routes. You know, care that someone can actually understand and visually make sense of. That is why I practice the most scientific and research-based form of Chiropractic on the planet which is called Chiropractic Biophysics. I am embarrassed to say that a lot of my Chiropractic colleagues do things that are way out of what is reasonably acceptable for health care standards. Things like energy-based chiropractic where the chiropractor doesn’t even touch you and says that they were able to adjust your spine with their mind. Or muscle-testing techniques to see which nutrients your body is or isn’t deficient in. Some people are into this kind of thing, and it works for some people, but if you are a more analytical person who needs the facts, then you are going to be extremely weirded out and then lump the entire Chiropractic profession into an insane group of quacks out to take your money. Believe me.. I get it.. because I would feel the same way if I was looking at Chiropractic from the outside-in. However, just know that, that is just a small population of the Chiropractic profession and that many Chiropractors are extremely knowledgeable and research-based physicians. That is to say that, myself and my other colleagues who practice Chiropractic BioPhysics technique work with some of the world’s top orthopedic surgeons, neurosurgeons, neurologists and medical doctors. This is because they understand how biomechanics, arthro-kinematics and postural deformities put stress and strain on the spine through repetitive micro and macro traumas over our lifetime. And when we show them how we are remolding healthier postures and spines by implementing chiropractic adjustments, strengthening weakened muscles with dynamic exercise, re-establishing proprioception and balance to the brain stem using vibration platforms and stretching spinal ligaments (which is the glue of our spine) into positions that keep our spine upright using spinal traction units. By using all of these tools, modalities and treatments, this allows other healthcare providers to understand what we do truly makes logical sense. Because at the end of the day we are trying to bridge the gap between the medical model of surgery and drugs towards implementing more conservative approaches to health care first through Chiropractic, nutrition and physical therapy. Let’s touch a little bit on this thing called Chiropractic BioPhysics… Now my job on this episode is not to persuade you or to show my bias towards Chiropractic BioPhysics. My purpose is to simply tell you about the technique and how it provides incredible outcomes. In fact, I don’t have to persuade you into anything, because the research sells Chiropractic Biophysics alone. I don’t intend on putting any other technique down but I do intend to show you how Chiropractic BioPhyics is a technique that is tangible and understandable that everyone on planet Earth can understand backed by solid research. Now Let talk about the technique…just like there are normal measurements for blood pressure and cholesterol levels, there are normal measurements for the human spine. These normal measurements of our spine is known as the ideal spine model. This model was founded by Dr. Don Harrison who received a master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and a PhD in applied mathematics. Which if that wasn’t impressive enough, he attained these degrees simultaneously and had to have special approval from his university’s educational board to work on these degrees simultaneously because nobody in their right mind would do these together due to how extremely rigorous they are by themselves alone. This is to say, Dr. Don Harrison was an extremely intelligent and hardworking individual. Dr. Don was almost savant-like, with a passion to advance the Chiropractic profession to what health care should be focusing on.. which is looking to the spine first to determine how curvatures and posture affects a person’s health. In other words, the further you get away from healthy and normal spinal curvatures, the lower the quality of life you will endure. The other side of the coin is the closer you are to the ideal spine model of humans, the healthier and higher quality of life you will endure. Quickly before we move on I will tell you what the normal curvatures of each part of our spine should be according to the ideal spine model in humans. We have three major regions of our spine: First is our cervical spine which makes up our neck and has 7 bones C1-C7. Our neck has a lordotic curve made from a piece of a circle. The ideal degree of curvature of our cervical spine is 42 degrees and a normal degree of curvature is 34 degrees. This being said you want a lordotic cervical curve anywhere between 34 and 42 degrees. Second is our thoracic spine which makes up our upper and middle back and has 12 bones T1-T12. Our thoracic spine has a kyphotic curve that should have an ideal curve of 44 degrees T1-T12 so that our heart and lungs can function to their best. Third is our Lumbar spine which makes up our low back and has 5 bones L1-L5. Our lumbar spine is a lordotic curve just like our cervical spine, but instead of a piece of a circle, it is a piece of an ellipse. The ideal degree of curvature for our lumbar spine is 40 degrees. The more your spinal curvatures start to go below or above these values, the more pain and organ disfunction you are likely to incur. Now.. Like I said, after this episode I will likely have other chiropractors being mad at me or coming out of the wood-work stating their case… great! I invite that. But you cannot argue facts and science that have been given solid evidence that is published in the top spine journals on planet Earth. That being said, the standard chiropractic adjustment which chiropractors are known for, is not what creates lasting change from pain, organ dysfunction, and posture deformities. The chiropractic adjustment is an amazing treatment for acute care and symptomatology. Things like headaches, neck pain, back pain, joint pains, jaw pain, constipation, numbness and tingling in extremities and the list goes on. However, as much as I hate to say it.. a chiropractic adjustment is a temporary band-aid, because if you’ve been to a chiropractor before you get adjusted and feel great for a week or so and then you have to go back for another adjustment. This is because an adjustment really only releases nerve pressure and increases physiological range of motion for short periods of time until your spine, muscles and ligaments go right back to where they were. You want to know why? Because THE ADJUSTMENT DID NOTHING TO CHANGE YOU POSTURE LONGTERM. If you get nothing out of this episode other than understanding that permanent posture change is the ultimate determinant of eliminating spine pain and increasing nerve function then I will have done my job. That being said, a chiropractic adjustment can only change posture temporarily. The only way for posture to remain permanent is by retraining your muscles and ligaments to hold your spine in place. This will lead to much better outcomes like nerve function, athletic performance, brain performance, organ function and dramatic increase of quality of life. You also won’t need to get adjusted every damn week. So put that idea that you have to see a Chiropractor for the rest of your life to bed. Now, as I stated earlier, I myself am a Doctor of Chiropractic and I treat the spine in a conservative, non-invasive and drug-free fashion. At the time of this recording, I work alongside Dr. Miles Fortner who has been published in 5 peer-reviewed pub-med indexed journal articles on conservative treatments of spinal deformities utilizing Chiropractic Biophysics protocol. Two more research cases are expected to be published here in the coming months with my name on it as the lead investigator. If you don’t know what pub-med is, it is one of the largest research databases in the world for new advances in science, health and human advancements. This being said, the type of Chiropractic care that we do inside our office is unlike any conservative treatment you will ever find. Just about everyone has a spine related issue in their lifetime. Whether that is physical pain in the neck, upper, mid and lower back. Spine related issues, however, are not always perceived as spine generated. In other words, most people don’t even realize that their current condition or issue is coming from their spine. For instance, having chronic migraines or headaches have been known to be spine generated but most people think they have a brain tumor or neurological deficit. What we find as chiropractors more often than not is that those people with chronic headaches are suffering from an unhealthy cervical spine also known as the bones in your neck. Headaches are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to poor functioning spine and spinal cord. The conditions and symptoms you have been suffering from your entire life could be coming from having a poor posture, which leads to a poor spinal structure, which puts a ton of pressure on your nerves and decrease nerve conduction velocity and impulse to every single cell, tissue and organ of your body. Let’s first start with some conditions relating to an unhealthy cervical spine aka an unhealthy neck. Again, these are things you have been living with that you may never think could be due to an unhealthy neck. Things like Migraine headaches, tension headaches, ringing in the ears, vertigo, dizziness, nausea, jaw pain, jaw clicking, grinding teeth at night, snoring, sleep apnea, spots or floating lights, numbness and tingling in hands, coldness in hands, weakness on grip, forearm cramping, getting sick easier than most, staying sick longer than most, thyroid dysfunction and troubles regulating body temperature. A lot of stuff huh? And those were just the conditions related to a poor cervical spine aka the bones in your neck. I’ll give you a quick case report on a woman with a cervical spine condition that drastically decreased her quality of life. This woman had a large right head translation along with a surgical cervical spine fusion. If you don’t know what a right head translation is, imagine a string is attached to your right ear and is pulling your ear purely to the right parallel to the ground. Now Two CBP colleagues Dr. Paul Oakley and Dr. Deed Harrison published a case report on this woman. I will mention that Dr. Deed Harrison is the son of Dr. Don Harrison we spoke about earlier. Dr. Deed Harrison is currently the President of CBP technique and seminars. Now this case I am going to tell you about can be found in The Journal of Physical Therapy Science and is titled Alleviation of pain and disability in a post-surgical C4–C7 total fusion patient after reducing a lateral head translation (side shift) posture: a CBP®case report with a 14 year follow-up . Now let’s set the stage. This was a 56-year-old female who had turned her neck a certain way, she felt a pop in her neck and immediately had localized neck pain. She then went to see a local Chiropractor for pain relief but unfortunately this Chiropractor failed to do a proper examination and X-rays. What the Chiropractor failed to understand, is that the patient already had a pre-existing condition in her neck known as a congenital fusion of two segments of her cervical spine. Congenital means she was born with it, as opposed to a surgical fusion when bones are fused together with surgical material. The only way to know that is to take spinal X-rays, in which this Chiropractor failed to perform. She also had an injury of the joint above the fusion where a bone had shifted forward which is known as an anterior-listhesis which is commonly found above or below in those with congenital fusions. So being completely blinded of her condition, this Chiropractor adjusted her neck and immediately made her neck flare up more and sent pain down her right arm. Now, I am not here to put down Chiropractors because I am a Chiropractor. What I am putting down is any health care provider that fails to provide standard of care whether that is a Chiropractor, Dentist, Medical Doctor or even a naturopathic doctor. In this case, the Chiropractor didn’t take an X-rays to see if she may have an underlying pathology whether that was an unstable cervical spine, spinal degeneration, cervical fusion or a more sinister but rare malignancy. After the patient was adjusted, she got concerned so she went to an orthopedic surgeon and from here you can guess that the orthopedic surgeon said the Chiropractor caused the injury. The reality is that the condition already existed in the patient, but the Chiropractor unintentionally exacerbated the condition by not doing a proper exam and x-ray. And of course, now the patient and orthopedic surgeons will continue to condemn ALL chiropractors from this one incident. The surgeon told the patient to never go to a chiropractor again and that she now needs surgery and ended up getting a cervical spine fusion from C4 to C7. So, guess what happened.. the patient was not better after the surgery, in face she was even worse after the surgery and didn’t require surgery in the first place.. but I guess surgeons know best right? After years of suffering from post-surgical pain, the patient finally decided to trust a Chiropractor again and reported to Dr. Deed Harrison’s office. She had chronic neck pain of 6/10. She had left arm numbness, migraines 1x week, left foot pain and tingling when walking, and she had decreased neck ROM and stiffness with a constant pulling of neck musculature. She was on 7 pain medications. Things like Tylenol (acetaminophen and codeine), Fentanol(narcotic), Amerge(antimigraine), Desipramine(antidepressant), Amitryptyline (antidepressant), Metoclopramide (antiemetic), Zanaflex (muscle relaxant) and in the past oxycontin (narcotic) The patient filled out a health survey form called an SF36 that lets you know based of her age and population norms, will let you know objectively how a person is functioning socially, mentally and physically. Her social functioning was so low that she couldn’t even hangout with her friends or do the things she wanted to do because of pain. On her Neck Disability Index, she was a 64% which is severe pain and disability. What Dr. Harrison found was that this patient had a 28 mm lateral head translation to the right which in inches is 1.1 inches which may not seem like a lot but shift your head to the right 1 inch and walk around like that all day and you will find it is very uncomfortable. In fact, the maximum amount a human should be able to translate their head left or right is 35mm. This means this patient is 80% of her maximum range of motion. It is 80% of her end range of motion and she is stuck in this position in her NEUTRAL posture. This is extremely stressful on the muscles, ligaments and nerves coming out of the neck. Now this patient was from Canada. So, in order for her to receive proper care, correction and increase her quality of life, she needed to set aside 2 weeks where she could stay in The United States and undergo an aggressive but precise treatment regimen. She was treated several times a day for 11 days straight. She had 25 sessions over an 11-day period. This consisted of mirror image postural adjustments, mirror image postural instrument adjustments, mirror image postural exercises and mirror image postural spinal translation traction to correct her right head translation posture. She had these treatments 2-4 times per day. After 11 days of care, her right head translation was reduced by more than 50% and went from 28mm to 13mm which is extremely impressive considering she had surgical fusions up and down her cervical spine. After 11 days, her SF36 health survey went from a 36.5 to a 51.5 on her physical pain component and 38.6 to 58.9 on her mental outlook component. For those of you who don’t know the significance of these scores, let’s just say these scores are amazing. After years of chronic pain and disability, Dr. Harrison was able to significantly increase this patient’s quality of life in just 11days. Based off these scores, she was just below population norms. This goes to show that a one and done approach to spinal rehabilitation is unrealistic. This patient needed more care even after 25 visits. Think about it.. she had been living with this condition for years. You can’t expect to fix a 56-year old spine overnight. Just like you can’t expect to grow muscle and obtain a six-pack after one workout session. You don’t change muscle and tissue in a day. It takes months to even years to see change in your body shape and it is no different for your spine. After 11 days the patient was able to self-terminate all of her pain medications under supervision of her medical doctor but was still advised to stay on her antidepressants as people cannot rapidly come off of anti-depressants or antipsychotics and takes more time for hormones to cycle back to normal. As chiropractors we cannot legally tell a patient to stop or start any medications, so we always advise the patient to speak with their medical doctor to help guide them off medications. But the cool thing as Chiropractors is that we get to witness patients coming off medications and having way less pain even when taking pain medications. Which goes to show addressing the underlying condition and successfully improving function conservatively will likely outperform the effectiveness of pain medications. After 11 days the patient’s Neck disability survey went from a 64% of severe disability to a 12% of mild disability. THIS IS MASSIVE. You really do not realize how incredible this change is. Just to give you perspective, just by improving 10.5 percent is clinically significant… this patient improved by 52% in just 11 days!!!! Since then, this patient is still doing amazing and continues to see changes in her quality of life every single day. This case is just one of thousands of cases that has given a person their life back by utilizing Chiropractic Biophysics technique by changing posture and spinal structure long term and not just a quick crack of the back or neck that traditional chiropractic provides. There are two more cases that I will discuss quickly but before we get to that I want to touch on some other symptoms or conditions you might be experiencing that you may not know is coming from your spine and posture. With dysfunction in your upper and mid back you can experience conditions such as: Upper back pain and trapezius tightness. Pain between the shoulder blades and posterior shoulder pain. You can also experience Heart palpitations, High blood pressure, Racing heart beats, Heart murmurs and Anxiety. You could be experiencing Shortness of breath, asthma, wheezing, chronic bronchitis, chronic cough, rib pain on deep inhalation and expiration. We also know the nerves in your upper and mid-back can create issues like stomach ulcers, acid reflux, heart burn, indigestion, gas, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, nausea after eating, tired or irritable after night eating for a while, blood sugar dysregulation, kidney stones, gallstones, adrenal fatigue and even food sensitivities. If you experience any of these aforementioned issues you might want to consult a Chiropractor or a Chiropractic BioPhysics Doctor. Lastly with dysfunction of your lumbar spine aka your lower back you can suffer from things like: Low-back pain, Hip pain, hamstring tightness, iliotibial band tightness, tailbone pain, hip pain, leg pain, numbness and tingling in the legs, coldness in the feet, cramping in legs or feet, weakness in legs or feet, loss of patellar and Achilles reflex, muscle pain and soreness, gait disturbances aka walking disturbances, Ulcerative Colitis, Chron’s Disease, poor gut microbiome, nutrient deficiency and malnutrition, poor sex drive, erectile disfunction, inability to become pregnant, heavy menstrual bleeding, heavy cramping, Since we just covered potential issues with a poor lumbar spine, I want to talk quickly about a woman that one of my colleagues Dr. David Bak and Dr. Curtis Fedorchuk helped in private practice utilizing Chiropractic BioPhysics technique. The case was titled “Resolution of Vulvodynia Following Chiropractic Care Using Chiropractic Biophysics and Diversified Techniques: A Case Report. Just to set the stage, for those who don’t know what Vulvodynia is, it literally translates into painful vagina. This was a 50-year old woman who had pain inside and outside of her vagina. She had been suffering with vaginal pain that radiated into her low back. This pain was going on for months and she had exhausted all medical treatments, she saw many specialists, and nobody could help her. It was at this time that her marriage was coming into question because her husband started to believe that she may be cheating on him with another man. Her marriage was being torn apart as her husband was at his wits end. It wasn’t until she visited Dr. Bak and Dr. Fedorchuk, that she finally found the reason as to why she was having vaginal pain. Turns out that through X-ray radiograph that her lumbar spine curve was far from normal and was causing inflammation of the nerves originating out of the low back that go to the vagina. To her astonishment, she couldn’t believe it was her spine this entire time that was causing her pelvic distress. Through Chiropractic Biophysics Analysis, Adjusting methods, Postural Exercises and Spinal Traction, this patient was able to get both her health back and her marriage back to where it deserved to be. The results from this study showed how Chiropractic care had a major benefit in not only decreasing symptoms but enhancing nerve function from the spine to major organs. This also goes to show that Chiropractic BioPhysics technique has high inter-examiner reliability. This means that through the ideal spinal model and using CBP method of analysis, Doctors can successfully achieve the same results with patients if they stick to CBP concepts and methods. So next time you have organ pain and any form musculoskeletal pain, think about your spine health first because that is the origin of most conditions we suffer with today. I want to leave you with one more study that I helped write. This case was done by Dr. David Bak and was handed to me to write up for my senior research project. This case was really fun to write up as it involved increasing athletic performance by addressing human biomechanics utilizing Chiropractic Biophysics technique. The paper was titled Improved Quality of Life and Athletic Performance Following Chiropractic Care Using Chiropractic BioPhysics Protocol. The case involved a 36-year-old male athlete who was previously involved in a motor vehicle accident and presented to the office with low back pain, shoulder pain and neck pain with concurrent headaches. This patient was a big-time cross-fit athlete and lifted some heavy weight before entering the office. His deadlift was approximately 430 pounds, his squat was approximately 400 pounds and his bench press was approximately 370 pounds before care. Before care he had a headache disability score of 62/100 which is severe headaches and had a neck disability index score of 34 which is moderate to severe pain and his back-disability index was 28 which is severe disability. The patient underwent Chiropractic Biophysics corrective care consisting of CBP mirror image traction, mirror image exercises and mirror image postural adjustments. The patient was seen 3x per week for approximately 3 months for a total of 38 visits. Now here is the most amazing part of this case. This alone will drive you to see a CBP doctor even if you don’t have pain. The patient was instructed to stop all heavy lifting for 3 months. He was not allowed to step foot inside a gym or lift anything at all.. again for 3 months. He was to dedicate his time to coming into the office 3x a week to work on his biomechanics, muscle strength and ligament rehabilitation. And after 3 months of strict chiropractic biophysics care, this patient increased his strength and performance by 50 pounds on his deadlift, bench press and squat… This was one of the most amazing things I’ve heard out of CBP care. Because again… this patient didn’t lift a single weight but after fixing his posture, fixing his spine, and fixing his biomechanics he was able to gain strength and performance. If that wasn’t already amazing enough, his headaches dropped to zero, his neck pain dropped to zero and his shoulder and back pain dropped to zero. Who would have thought that bringing the spine back to their ideal curvatures would decrease pain and increase quality of life? Yet, we have surgeons who want to cut on people and chiropractors who want to quote unquote heal people with their magic hands and energy-based techniques that have no scientific merit. Anyway.. I’ll get off my soapbox. I hope I brought some light to some misconceptions regarding traditional chiropractic care and chiropractic biophysics. Again, if you have had a bad experience with chiropractic care, go find a new chiropractor that suits your needs and interests. There are good and bad chiropractors just like there are good and bad medical doctors. If you are looking to take your care and quality of life to another level I will highly recommend seeking out a Chiropractic BioPhysics doctor in your area by going to idealspine.com/directory. You can put in your address and search any CBP doctor all the way within 500 miles of you. You can also search a city and see if there is a CBP doctor near that city or address. If you want my personal recommendation on who to see near you, please reach out to me and I will gladly direct you to a CBP doctor I trust and know personally. If you enjoyed today’s interview or if you are enjoying the hour-long episodes that I am doing packed with research and new advances in medicine I would be so appreciative if you left a review and rating and even share with your friends and family. I put a ton of time into making these episodes and it would mean a ton to me if you gave me some feedback. If you want to reach out to me personally I would love to help wherever I can!
