Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:21 Dr. Jay, happy Monday to you, buddy. I hope you had a good weekend and we're ready to start a new week today on the docket, we were talking about some common conditions that we see with patients. And one of the prevalent conditions as chiropractors is neck pain. We love talking about nutrition, but our real bread and butter is the musculoskeletal condition. So let's riff about neck pain. Have you seen any neck pain patients today or recently?
Speaker 2 00:00:46 Maybe every other one. It seems like sure. It's prevalent in our society. It seems like every third patient has got neck pain, whether it be headaches shoulder, a lot of these conditions stem right back to the neck. So common in our, in our practice. Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:01:02 For sure. I'd say the vast majority of neck pain patients that I see also have headaches being caused by the neck pain and they call that a cervicogenic headache got migraines. You got tension headaches, you got cluster headaches, but a cervicogenic headache is what's caused by neck pain. And that's usually a pretty quick fix. Wouldn't you say?
Speaker 2 00:01:20 I find a lot of those that are diagnosed as something else come back down to headaches associated from the cervical spine Genesis coming from exactly. So tension headaches, and a lot of times in the history, they'll tell you that they're brought on by stress tension, prolonged use at the computer, postural stresses. Those are keys that the symptoms may be mimicking that of a migraine, right?
Speaker 1 00:01:47 Yeah. What kind of questions do you normally ask to help you narrow down? Whether it's a migraine or serve a good genetic headache or something else?
Speaker 2 00:01:55 You know, I found that if you take time to listen, your patient will give you the greatest amount of information in the history. I find often the causation is gonna be revealed in the history, whether they're chronic computer users, stressful in their li in their life tension. And then again, sleeping. I mean, if you think about it and then the cell phone, my goodness. Right. But I think the would have, I don't wanna say diagnosis, but Don don't they even have a term for that now. Like, uh, tech, tech neck. Yes. I mean, and 20 years ago it was computer.
Speaker 1 00:02:34 Yeah. Technology, posture. I posture, you know, iPhones, iPads. They talk one of the biggest things that I see that will help me differentiate whether it's a CERV Cogenic headache or a migraine is the x-ray when you see a lack of cervical curve, that cervical hypo losis. That means when you have military neck or tech neck, or when you have a, when you don't have a curve in your neck, the bones in your neck are straight. Instead of being curved, like a banana that is also called military neck or tech neck. And that is a surefire way to get chronic headaches. What I typically do with a patient who comes in and they have this type of posture in their neck, number one, I always give out corrective home exercises. I make 'em a, a program that's just for them and they take it home and they have homework. So I always tell them that, look, this is, this is not a one way street. This is a team effort here. So if you want to get this posture corrected that you may have had for years, you gotta do these exercises.
Speaker 2 00:03:38 It's gotta be done that way.
Speaker 1 00:03:39 Totally. So the combination of home exercises with cervical adjustments, um, I love the arthro stem tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, and it helps to push the curve back in their neck. Obviously, cervical adjustments make a huge difference. And most patients that I see have a noticeable improvement in their symptoms after one adjustment, wouldn't you say
Speaker 2 00:04:00 Yes, in a, nearly a perfect world. That's what we're after at least significant amount of relief to let them know that they are in the right place and that we are on what we believe to be the cause of the problem. There, you mentioned with the loss of what we call the loss of the cervical curve, the military neck, and sometimes that curve is actually reversed when this happens. Of course, now the posture is actually thrown forward from the center of the bodies midline. So in a sense, stress being carried when they're in the upright position, I call it against gravity, which pretty much we are most of the day, except for that period of time, when we get to sleep and lay horizontal. So you're continually under a stress gravitational pull towards the earth, right forward position forward, head carry, which is going to cause the muscles that run from the shoulder blade. If you will, and attach into the back of the head, they're continuously firing in a state attention. And then you have anything from stress and even gravity itself is still, still extenuating that pool into forward flexion. And we don't stop in our day and take time and go into extension where we're actually letting the neck muscles in the back of the neck, take a break. And
Speaker 1 00:05:11 Yeah. And the, in the head bends backwards. Yeah. What you're describing is are the symptoms of upper cross syndrome up across syndrome is where you have that anterior head carriage. It's when your head is shifted forward. So in, in perfect posture, your ears will line up directly over your shoulders mm-hmm <affirmative>. But when you have that anterior head carriage, your head is shifted forward. And what happens there is that muscles on the front of the neck and the chest muscles get really tight and muscles on the back of the neck and the upper shoulders. Like Rovos, they get weak, the muscles that run all the way across the top of your head have to tense up just to maintain forward gaze. And when those muscles get tight, they're gonna pinch nerves and cause headaches. It happens every time.
Speaker 2 00:05:59 Well, and like you were mentioning about the, the fact that pro perceptionally, the body, the shoulders want to be under the ears. So if I lose that curve, then what's gonna happen to the ears, what they gonna translate forward. So with that forward translation, guess what the shoulders are going to do. The posture's gonna drop them forward. Under the years, when that happens, then you're continuously, like you said, you are flexing the muscles on the backside of the back and into the shoulder blades continuously, cuz they want to be under the ears. So I can say, Hey, chase, hold your shoulders back. And as soon as you will, but as soon as the subconscious takes over, shoulders are going back under the ears.
Speaker 1 00:06:35 We're Hey, you don't have to tell me, doc, I get compliments in my posture every day, bro. My shoulders are good.
Speaker 2 00:06:40 Well, you know, you're that 1% brother. And that's why I do enjoy just looking at
Speaker 1 00:06:45 You. We gotta lead by example, right?
Speaker 2 00:06:47 Yes. Healer first heal. They self
Speaker 1 00:06:49 Speaking of ears, you gotta talk about your ear adjustments. I don't know of any other chiropractors who adjust ears, but we have a story about our office manager. She had grown up what she'd had tubes in her ears. She'd had maybe ear Sur she'd had surgeries on her U station tube. She she'd had all these issues and she pretty much lost almost all hearing in one of her ears. And she had that for years
Speaker 2 00:07:16 In her right
Speaker 1 00:07:17 Side when she started working here, what happened?
Speaker 2 00:07:21 So I think it was her third day in practice. She came to me and she asked me if I would give her an adjustment. And I said, I'd love to, so let's take a couple x-rays and see what we're working with as well. So I could also explain to her a little bit more of the, the biomechanics going on with her body. And I like to have the x-rays to sort of work off as a blueprint. Cause as years go by changes are gonna occur to that spine that are not going to be the way they were designed. And so I like to identify those and see if we can correct those. So with her, that's what we did after we looked at the x-rays of the neck, we talked about the interior translation of the cervical spine. She had that excessively. So with her history, I was not aware at this time though, that she had lost most of the hearing in the and her right ear.
Speaker 2 00:08:14 So I understand I was not going after that and was not treating that, but we did find alignment issues in the upper part of her cervical spine and those first three vertebra in the cervical spine, those nerves go upward and they supply the ears, the eyes, the sinuses, and on into the head. And so we treated her in that area and there was quite a bit of movement that needed to be corrected upon doing so I will very often adjust inner ear on patients as well. Swimmer's ear is one of the major causes for the adjustment there.
Speaker 1 00:08:50 Joey, what does that ear adjustment look like?
Speaker 2 00:08:54 Oh, the ear adjustment's just a gentle tug on the ear lobe. The thrust, if you will, is a gentle thrust, posterior and inferior are backwards. If you wouldn't slightly down. And a lot of times you'll get an audible with that. Uh, like you would, if you adjusted a cervical vertebra.
Speaker 1 00:09:11 Yeah. You hear it.
Speaker 2 00:09:12 Yes they do. And um, remember there's three bones in there and those bones are designed to vibrate. That's how we pick up sound.
Speaker 1 00:09:19 Yeah. Smallest bones in your
Speaker 2 00:09:21 Body. That's right. So therefore poor little things. I mean, let's not neglect them. So I perform the adjustments and a lot of times, like I said, especially with swimmers here, they'll almost immediately tell me they can feel the drainage occurring.
Speaker 1 00:09:37 So what happened with office manager?
Speaker 2 00:09:40 Well, here, I mean, first thing that we have to consider is could a problem like that be neurological first place to look right. The second vertebra in the upper neck supplies, the auditory nerve. So I mean, there's always that possibility and she was subluxated there and we corrected that. So was it the upper cervical adjustment or was it the air? Well, we'll leave that up to the maker to determine
Speaker 1 00:10:03 She told me that she felt her ears drain and that the hearing restoration wasn't immediate.
Speaker 2 00:10:09 Well, see, we went directly to lunch. So I didn't get a chance to hear that from her. She, uh, explained to me that she went home and her mom was at the house and she explained to her mother that she was able to, uh, for the first time, quite some time here out of her right here and has ever since. So here again is a beautiful thing. I mean, that's the way the body works was I was I treating her for a symptom? No, I was not. I was unaware of the fact that she was unable to hear fully out the right ear. So I wasn't treating that. I just was looking for Aran motion, if you will, what we call a subluxation R improper function in the spine. And I restored that. And of course think about it. The nervous system exits out of the spinal cord in that area as well as it is everywhere else. So,
Speaker 1 00:10:55 So the hearing restoration was a nice side effect.
Speaker 2 00:10:58 Uh, exactly. Well put, I mean, this is what I explain to my patients. Sometimes look, I sperm and the egg comes together. Spinal cord comes before everything else, really not to oversimplify it, but it's a great place to start when you're looking for maybe an underlying cause to chronic conditions. That's not responding to other treatment. If you haven't gone there, what a great place to start.
Speaker 1 00:11:21 We got off on ears for a minute, but I want to circle back to talking about neck pain because we talked about the problem, but we didn't offer any solutions. So a couple things that I recommend to patients are number one, uh, we gotta work on the posture to improve the neck pain. So a couple of practical tips you can do. Uh, number one, when you're on your cell phone or your laptop or your iPad, hold it up a little higher instead of looking straight down and slouching over around it. Hold that phone up in front of you. And yes, you'll look goofy, but you'll feel better doing it. Number two is I have a lot of patients who work from home and or patients who work at an office and they might have a cubicle. They might have a, a workstation, but they'll have a keyboard. And nine times outta 10, their monitor screen will be way too low. So they're having to look down all throughout the day. And that's a recipe for neck pain. So recommendations for good work posture are number one, set your monitor to where the top one third of the screen is in direct alignment with your, with your gaze. Number two, set the height of your chair so that your elbow is at exactly 90 degrees. When it rests next to the side of your body, not
Speaker 2 00:12:41 Lifting
Speaker 1 00:12:41 Your shoulder, not lifting your shoulder and also make sure that your wrist is in a straight position when you're using your mouse because carpal tunnel is so common. And so what we wanna do is set your chair to height so that your knees are at 90 degrees and your hips are also at 90 degree to help your body stay in a healthier position so that you don't have these painful conditions.
Speaker 2 00:13:04 Good point there. And that's ergonomics of the working station. And we talked about this earlier. Remember I was saying that a lot of times, just the history will tell me a lot about the patient. And I can almost tell you what side they prefer to sleep on from their history, whether it's low back pain. Certainly when we're dealing with a neck issue that might be coming out of the shoulder area, you were talking about the stresses associated work because what we work eight hours a day, right? Have shorter hours than that, but sleeping. Now that's another story because when we're sleeping, if we're fortunate enough, we're gonna get one third of our life in that bed, right? This is where I find that a lot of the mayhem takes place. Um, if we're a side sleeper, which a good deal of the population are, and we're using too small or too flat of a pillow, we're going to have to roll our shoulder blade to get the head to the pillow.
Speaker 2 00:14:04 A lot of people think they're just gonna tilt the head to that side. That's not what happens. We roll the shoulder blade. And like we were talking about earlier the muscles from the shoulder blade, going up into the head, it's the same condition that we're dealing with when we have that loss of the curve during the day. Right? But now we're, even though we're gravity neutral, if you will, we're still stressing that. That's where side sleepers need to use a larger pillow. When they're sleeping on the side. If, if a back sleeper uses that same side sleeping pillow, that's gonna put their neck deflection for eight hours, six to eight hours of the night. That's not good.
Speaker 1 00:14:37 So that pillow needs to be the exact depth of the distance between your shoulder and your head
Speaker 2 00:14:44 Side sleepers. Absolutely. And a big guy needs a rather large pillow, but even 110 pound female, she still could use at least a four inch thick pillow when she's size sleeping. If not, a lot of them will put their arm up underneath the pillow to bring that hide up. And then, then you're really asking for her neck problem associated with that shoulder blade right now, if that person's laying on their back, that's gonna put the neck deflection. So a back sleeper needs a, a smaller pillow, a thin pillow, or preferably something like a down pillow where they can actually roll the feathers up underneath their neck and allow the head to drop slightly backwards, which is what the cervical neck curve should look like in an ideal person. But you and I know that eight outta 10 patients to come into our practice have lost that curve to some degree before they get out of their teens.
Speaker 1 00:15:33 Exactly. So for side sleepers, you want that pillow to be a little thicker that way you're not rolling to the, the back of your shoulder. And then secondly, I tell patients to put a pillow between their knees. That way their hips stay in a neutral position when they're laying on their side and also back sleepers, put that pillow underneath your knees. That way you take pressure off your low back, your body's gonna go into a more relaxed state, couple of other recommendations for better sleep. And that is to keep your room a little cooler than you would throughout the day. Uh, they say that your body is gonna drop down to its most natural core temperature when you bedroom is between 64 and 68 degrees, which is a little lower than most people might keep it. But you know, that's the best thing about going to, uh, sleeping in a hotel. I love those cold sheets who walk in the air conditioner, hitting you in the face. It's freezing cold in there. I sleep like a baby in a hotel.
Speaker 2 00:16:24 Personally. I always find that you can put enough on top of you to warm you, but you can't always get enough off of you to cool you. Right? My wife would argue a hundred percent the other way.
Speaker 1 00:16:38 Another one is the room should be pitch black. I was so fascinated to learn that you don't only have photo receptors in your eyes. You also have photo receptors in your skin. So just because your eyes are closed or you're wearing a sleep mask, doesn't mean that your skin won't detect sources of light in your room. So my wife, Katie laughs at me because any light in the room at all, whether it's a little blue light on a fan, whether it's, uh, the clock next to the bed, no matter what it is, I've got a piece of tape over it. It's covered up. I want the room to be pitch black. If I'm staying in a hotel, if there's like a, you know, like a cable box or something in the room, if it gives off any light at all, especially blue light, I'm putting a piece of tape on it. That way I'm gonna sleep way better.
Speaker 2 00:17:25 Yeah. There try to convince somebody who has to have the television on oh God, or a light turned on in the hallway that it's better to sleep in total darkness. But the interesting thing is, you know, there's a gland in the eye called what the, the Panal gland.
Speaker 1 00:17:41 Yeah, right
Speaker 2 00:17:42 Behind them. Yes. And this kind of regulates our sleep for us. And, um, uh, along with other functions, uh, hormonal functions as well, the deer, for example, this is when they know when it's time to not only to get up, if they're nocturnal and they're moving at night, but also, uh, when they go into rut is determined by the time by which it becomes darker during the day. And this is why a lot of people have really difficult times when they have the night shift, because we're really designed to be sleeping at that time. And the pan glands telling us it's time to go to bed and you're fighting a natural rhythm and it really tends to, uh, throw the system outta whack and especially the adrenal glands. And that's a big problem in our society major today.
Speaker 1 00:18:31 Yeah. You're talking about their circadian rhythm. That rhythm is largely regulated by light sunlight, particularly because what they recommend is first thing in the morning, when you wake up and get outta bed, let some natural sunlight hit your eyes. So what I do is I get up, I head over to Moss rock, get there in time for sunrise. And I just stare at the sun. And when it's that early in the morning, it's really not bright at all. So I let that natural sunlight, the full spectrum of sunlight hit my eyes. And that starts a 16 hour hormonal cycle in your body that really relates back to cortisol. So you get that cortisol spike. That is what gives you energy throughout the morning. Throughout the day, you have less and less and less cortisol flowing through your body. So that towards the time that the sun goes down, you should have very little. And that way you will be able to relax more and get better sleep. Get up at the same time, go to bed at the same time, get the eight hours of sleep. And that will retrain your body to have a healthy circadian rhythm. You will be able to tell the time without even seeing a clock like when nine o'clock rolls around. I know that I should be in bed no matter if I've seen my phone or not. So get in bed at nine, wake up at five, hit the gym, come to work, repeat
Speaker 2 00:19:50 Yes. However, in our society, those rhythms are completely outta whack due to our sleep patterns, due to our blood sugar and due to our stress levels, throw those caca rhythms off every bit, as much as lack of sleep. And then when they are off, then we can't get into that rhythm. If we want to, that's the patient who may fall asleep, but wakes up and can't get back to sleep because the rhythms are out of balance. And when they should be the highest in the morning for a lot of people, that's when they're tanking. So they may wake up after eight hours in bed and be just as tired as they went to bed because the rhythms are off right with our stress, with our stressful lives. It's sitting in front of the television until 10 o'clock plus at night that doesn't do us any good either. We've already said no to our man gland. If you will,
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Speaker 1 00:21:35 But back to headaches, we touched on neck pain causing headaches. It made me think about when I was in maybe sixth grade, middle school, I was, I started outta nowhere getting excruciating migraines, and I had never really had them before. So my parents started taking me to the doctor, the neurologist, nothing was wrong. I got, uh, MRI, CT scan, nothing was wrong. They the whole run up eyes checked, everything, nothing was wrong. Eventually they went away, but I went my whole life. Just, you know, not knowing what was causing it until I started studying health and nutrition and fitness. And I started to think back on that. I wonder if the fact that I was only drinking mountain Dew and milk had anything to do with it. I don't think I ever drank water during that time. I'm sure that I was dehydrated. That, that I say that to say that one of the biggest calls of headaches is dehydration. So I have patients in here all the time with headaches. First question I ask is okay. Level with me. Are you actually drinking enough water? And I don't mean three glasses a day. How much water are you drinking? What times are you drinking it? Are you actually hydrated? Or are you also living on a diet of coffee and milk? Because that's a surefire way to, to live in a state where you're having a constant headache.
Speaker 2 00:22:59 Yeah. Which could be from the dehydration, like you would talk about, uh, some people juice is not water. I mean, water is water people and coffee actually dehydrates you like you were saying. And then the other thing, the mountain Dew, well, what is, that's actually a, what is that neurotoxin? Right? Correct. Um, asperine it might be in there or whatever, artificial, blah, blah, blah, is in there. That's a, you know, not to mention also cause the dehydration, right. So very highly possible. But you know, we don't look at things like that, especially back when we were kids and um, maybe the society is starting to evolve and become a little smarter that, uh, some of these things that, um, give us the kick or the, I mean then again, Hey, if you see it on television, there it is. You know, my joke, you never see broccoli on television, right? No. So if they're selling you something, probably not the best thing for you
Speaker 1 00:23:57 Maybe, or you and I are missing an opportunity where we could start a broccoli business, put it on TV. There's no competition
Speaker 2 00:24:05 Patenting. That might that. Now that,
Speaker 1 00:24:08 Yeah, we'll,
Speaker 2 00:24:09 We'll talk about that. And that, of course you want to GMO it and then you can just, you know, put that right in there with the other toxins. And, uh, we wouldn't be able to sell that. We wouldn't want to sell that. That's for
Speaker 1 00:24:18 Sure. There's a girl. I know that married into my family. She married my second cousin and they came over for Christmas a couple of years ago. And I started talking to her mom and she told me that her father is the person who brought the baby carrot to market because the baby, carrot's not an actual, you know, it's not grown. They shaved the baby carrots down from a full sized carrot, but he was the person who popularized it in America. Well,
Speaker 2 00:24:43 See, I would've thought that happened a hundred years ago, so I know that's
Speaker 1 00:24:46 Interesting. Well, it, it was, it was quite some time ago, but so I was asking you, so do you guys get like a royalty on every carrot sold and, and it it's a no, I don't think they even get a discount.
Speaker 2 00:24:56 I gotta know more about this now, the baby carrot. I mean, what did they boil it? I mean, what's what that be. They cross breed this thing with the midget, uh, how, you know, how, how did that come about?
Speaker 1 00:25:07 I'll get all these details for you.
Speaker 2 00:25:08 Oh, teaser a teaser. Okay.
Speaker 1 00:25:11 We'll, we'll touch, we'll touch back on this. Well,
Speaker 2 00:25:13 I'll need more facts before I can buy into that. You know, that he, that he discovered that, you know, um,
Speaker 1 00:25:19 We'll get those independent Facebook fact checkers on it, then we'll get the real scoop, right?
Speaker 2 00:25:24 Yeah. I'm I think it was with my, my ex-girlfriend from, uh, junior high school. Her dad supposedly, uh, invented the corn dog and I'm still, jury's still out on that one
Speaker 1 00:25:33 Too. The corn dog,
Speaker 2 00:25:34 The corn dog would I even want to call, take claim to that. Yeah. Anyway, but like I said, you know, I'm still looking for the, for the proof there on that one.
Speaker 1 00:25:42 Look, something can be very bad for you and still be very delicious. I'm not hating on corn
Speaker 2 00:25:48 Dogs. No, you can't hate on a corn dog. I, you know, when you put mustard on just about anything and you really can't hate on that's my opinion, too.
Speaker 1 00:25:56 Subscribe to the podcast so you can get updates when the next one is released and look out for us next Monday,
Speaker 2 00:26:01 Dylan have a great week.
