Episode #45: A New Approach to Solving Thyroid Problems

On today's episode of the Health Fundamentals Podcast we cover Health Fundamental #2:  The power of simplicity & consistency.

One of the books that we reference on today's episode is The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy.  This is an EXCELLENT book that clearly demonstrates the power of simplicity & consistency.  You can check it out here.

On today's episode of the Health Fundamentals Podcast we share a proven framework for structuring your health goals for repeated success.  As we move further into the year it can be increasingly challenging for many of us to stick to our new year's resolutions or general health goals.  What we will share on this episode is a simple way to increase the likelihood of success with your goals.  

In this episode we reference a great book "Be Your Future Self Now", you can check it out here.

On this episode of The Health Fundamentals Podcast we discuss a new approach to helping people struggling with Thyroid problems.  Whether you've been through the common conventional approaches or perhaps some alternative approaches, you're definitely going to want to listen in to what we have to share.  To learn more about what we're doing you can go to:

https://www.alignmeridian.com/health-restore-program/

On today's episode we discuss a powerful program that we have used to help patients end their knee pain and avoid surgery.

Show Notes:

Speaker 1: (00:00)
Hey everybody, what's going on? Dr. Chad Woolner here and Dr. Buddy Allen. And this is episode 42 of the health fundamentals podcast. And on today's episode, we're going to be talking PRP and regenerative medicine with dr Robin devel. So let's get started.

Speaker 2: (00:15)
You're listening to the health fundamentals podcast. I'm Dr Chad Woolner and I'm dr buddy Allen. And this show was about giving you the simple but powerful cutting edge tools you need to change your health and your life. So sit back and enjoy the show as we show you the path to your best life down to a science.

Speaker 1: (00:34)
So on today's episode we have our special guest, none other than dr Robin devel. Dr Robin devel is amazing for a number of reasons, but first and foremost, she is our medical director and nurse practitioner at align integrated medical. And so I'm quite frankly, I'm surprised it's taken us this long to have you on the podcast. So thanks for being here with us. Thanks for having me. Yeah. So, um, we're really excited to dive into this topic. You know, we, one of our first episodes of the podcast, we talked a little bit about STEM cell therapy. Um, but um, we're excited because now we can dive a little bit deeper into some of the other realms of regenerative medicine, some of the things we do with the clinic, but then also diving a little bit deeper into your experience. Um, dr Robin, I don't want to steal her thunder, I'll let her kind of go into it, but she's got a really diverse background, uh, in terms of her clinical experience. And uh, and so I guess a good maybe starting place for us is kind of maybe give them a kind of a quick snapshot of your, your whole experience, kind of what got you into where you're at today, what, what got you where you're at today?

Speaker 3: (01:39)
Sure. Well, I started out as a chiropractor and after a while I realized there's a lot more people I want to be able to reach with holistic medicine and lifestyle changes. And so after being in practice about five or six years, I decided to go back to be a nurse practitioner. And when I got out, I had this fantastic opportunity to work in a clinic for st Luke's. And so most recently I've been working in wound wound care and I've worked at, uh, acute care hospitals as well, working with really, really sick people. So I went from working with generally really, really healthy people to the S really other end of the spectrum. Yeah, exactly. And so, um, I've gotten to see a lot of, a lot of the spectrum of how people are in their healthcare.

Speaker 1: (02:28)
Right? So you've seen, you know, the best of the best, the worst of the worst and pretty much everything in between. Yeah. Um, and, and that's what's really interesting, you know, is that what Robin has brought to our team, uh, has been, uh, an incredible amount of experience. Um, because so much of what she sees and learns in her experience has direct application, if for no other reason than to help serve as a warning signal to people in terms of like, this is where things go when you don't take care of. Because, you know, we were talking just before the podcast, a significant number percentage of the people that you deal with are people where it's chronic conditions brought about as a result of lifestyle choices. You know?

Speaker 3: (03:11)
That's exactly right. As a matter of fact, I get people from time to time in my clinic who have literally 10 to 15 large significant comorbidities I've talking to heart disease and kidney disease and diabetes, and they've gotten so far down the spectrum and then they hear these commercials about, Oh, tumeric is a great thing and it'll help inflammation, right? And so they go off, they go to some store and they buy a bottle of American. They think that they're, everything's going to be cured and they can get off their medications. And you know, so there's this spectrum where we have to help people, but sometimes people go a little too far, the illness spectrum, and it's hard to get them back.

Speaker 1: (03:50)
Right. And it's interesting that you bring up that example, you know, because I think to a large extent, that's what's happened either intentionally or unintentionally with the world of regenerative medicine. You know, that that's, it's become this very popular, uh, concept and idea that I think a lot of people have, have clung to and have maybe, perhaps incorrectly viewed as this savior of, of this thing that will, uh, basically undo decades of self-abuse basically of, of poor lifestyle choices that I can just do that one magic bullet. And that's gonna undo all that and it's going to, it's going to fix everything. And I think that has been a huge disservice, uh, to people because I think it's, it's served as a very loud and clear wake up call to them, yet again that, that, that's, that's not what regenerative medicine is really all about.

Speaker 1: (04:43)
In spite of the fact that some clever marketers have, have positioned it that way, that it's this magic bullet that all you need to do is just get this one injection. And then regenerative medicine is amazing. But one of, I'll never forget a story and I'm pretty sure it was, it was in college that I had heard it. Um, you know, people have this, we have this crazy trust that if something goes wrong, my doc's gonna fix it. Right. And there was a, there was a, I believe it was an instructor, he was saying, my dad, he was talking about his own father. Um, he said he drank a ton, he smoked and, and here I am, uh, getting out of chiropractic school saying, you got to stop this, it's going to kill you. It's bad. Right. And his, his dad was like, whatever. He says, if I have a heart attack, he's like, I'll just, you know, have heart surgery and I'll be fine. And literally the exact thing happens, right. His dad, you know, 10 years down the road has this massive heart attack and his life is completely changed. Yeah. They did do heart surgery and they did fix it, but he was not even close. And he was, and he came back to his son and he's like, I can't even tell you how bad I wish I would have listened because here I thought that, yeah, they're just going to do surgery and fix it. You know? So what my back blows

Speaker 3: (05:58)
out. Yeah. They'll just do a surgery and fix it. Right. And, and, and again, I think there is this, um, incorrect, uh, belief that, you know, it's like, yeah, if something's wrong, I can go have surgery and my shoulder can get put back together. But guess what? You know what if we can, if you have a little bit of an injury and we do do regenerative medicine, we can fix those things before they ever become this horrible thing where now, Oh, the only option is we've got to replace your entire joint. And it's almost become cliche. The phrase, uh, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And I think it's even more than that. I think an ounce of prevention is probably worth 10 tons of cure. Um, right. But it's true. It is true. And I think when you look at somebody who does regenerative, uh, functional medicine, you really have to make sure they're not practicing exactly like a doctor would.

Speaker 3: (06:49)
But on the other end of the spectrum, because I've heard people and had people come to me that say, yeah, I went to this function medicine doctor and they told me I just need to be on this supplement for the rest of my life and I cure everything. Well, that's no different than a medical doctor prescribing something that's prescription. It's the same thing. So you really do, there is some personal responsibility that needs to happen. You really do have to start taking care of yourself as a patient and um, and look at the entire spectrum of your life, not just the, the supplement panacea or the prescription pill panacea. Right. And it's interesting you bring that up. I think that's a good segue into, when you look at from a mile up, let's just say, when you look at all the best evidence regarding regenerative medicine, whether we're talking STEM cell therapy, uh, PRP, platelet rich plasma or amniotic products or things like that, most all the research in general says these things work great, but they work the best when it, when part of a complete picture, instead of it being, you know, this just do this thing and it magically, it's just going to fix everything.

Speaker 3: (07:51)
But rather they say, and this is the way we've always tried to describe it to our patients, is, uh, you know, it's a catalyst. That's what it should be viewed as. This is an opportunity. It's, it, it provides a window of opportunity for us to then really begin kind of an unwinding, the, the, uh, the, the ball of thread, so to speak, over the years. So, uh, in terms of PRP, for those who are listening or watching, um, can you kind of describe maybe in layman's terms what's the, let's start with PRP and then maybe the difference between that and say STEM cell therapy and or amniotic therapies. So PRP is platelet rich plasma. And so what that means is they take a person's blood, they spin it down in a centrifuge, and that separates the red blood cells at the bottom and white blood cells with, from the plasma at the top.

Speaker 3: (08:43)
And the plasma at the top is rich in protein. And so you're just using that top portion of the protein. And when you use that in the body, it attracts your body's own STEM cells. It helps modulate inflammation. Um, it kind of acts as a, as, um, it will attract your body's own STEM cells and ability to heal, right? So it's a catalyst. When you look at amnionic products, that is something from outside your body that is derived from, uh, scheduled C-sections. It's processed down, and then it's made into a form that you can either inject or topically apply to a wound. And, and they refer to those again as STEM cell magnets, right? Where it's injected into the area. It attracts your body's own kind of, it kind of begins the healing cascade, you know, where all of a sudden the body starts to heal itself.

Speaker 3: (09:36)
And then lastly, STEM cells, STEM cells in this house, which are the actual STEM cells and they are used in the same way and they, they generate into whatever STEM cells your body needs. And that's based on all the different signaling molecules and growth factors that your, your body's cells produce. And it tells them what kind of salvation become. Yeah. And in terms of STEM cells, there's been kind of this ongoing debate for a while in terms of which is best, what they call autologous STEM cells, which is your body's own STEM cells. You extract them and then process them and then re-inject them in or STEM cells that are derived from, uh, uh, is it, is it, uh, um, umbilical cord STEM cells, cord STEM cells, cord blood, things like that. Right. Um, any updates on that in terms of the, the debate where that's at?

Speaker 3: (10:26)
Well you've heard, so I'm still hearing, well, if they're frozen or if they're alive, there's problems with counting them. So how do you know how many STEM cells are getting? Um, I, I S they're still super expensive. There's cord banks all over the place that are pitching their products as the best. And honestly, there's, I haven't done enough research to know exactly what's the best and whatever, but I just know there's so many competing companies out there that I would be super careful. You're not getting any of them. We, uh, I think we do a pretty good job at our clinic of trying to stay on top of the research and trying to sift through what's just really good marketing and looks and sounds good. Um, and so for us, you know, and that, and that's, I think something that I hope those watching or listening can kind of clean too, is that when you come into our clinic, we don't have a set agenda.

Speaker 3: (11:21)
You know, from a financial standpoint, it would make perfect sense for us that everybody coming through, we're just going to pitch STEM cell because that's the most expensive. And we're going to make the most money that way. But that's not what we do. Instead, I think to the contrary, typically we focus a little bit more on let, let's, let's start at the lowest end, see what that does, see if we can get, just get you better that way. The, the, uh, the most affordable option, you know, and then move from there. But, but again, it just depends on everybody's situation, you know? But I think also one of the important things that I like about working with you guys is that there is such an emphasis on we have to fix the core of the problem. Yes. So if the door hinges off and you're still creating that grinding on the floor, it doesn't matter how many times you replaced the floor, it's going to come back.

Speaker 3: (12:04)
You've got to fix the hinge, right? Yep. Or even put WD 40 on the hands, you know what I mean? At the end of the day. And that was the thing that was kind of the precursor to a lot of the um, uh, regenerative medicine products was, uh, the highly ironic acid products, which is basically a joint lubricant for lack of a better way of, of putting it. And that showed some pretty promising results at the beginning. And I think to a certain extent can be helpful in that it helps by some time. Um, but, but the, what you just brought up, there is such a critical piece of the puzzle that we try and help people understand. And that leads to a really good question that we can kind of talk about is one of the most common questions that people are going to ask with this is what can I expect in terms of how quickly will I see results?

Speaker 3: (12:47)
So let's talk about that. And then the second follow up question to that is how long is it going to last? You know, so let's start first with the first question. You know, if somebody comes into you tomorrow, we find that they're a good candidate. You say, yeah, you're going to be a good candidate for PRP or amniotic or whatever. What can I expect in terms of how soon can I see results? Well, that is partly individual. So it depends on how a person heals overall in general, what their general health picture is. Because even medications that they're on for other things may interfere or other health conditions like hyperthyroid or whatever may interfere. But in general, you've got to expect that your body has to produce these cells and that doesn't happen overnight. Right? So, you know, it may take a few weeks to even begin to notice anything and then maybe a month or more to start really feeling like there's a difference.

Speaker 3: (13:35)
And at first people may be actually be more sore than they, right? They feel sore first cause there's something happening and then they start to feel better. Um, how long it lasts depends on how well you fix the underlying problem and how much you work on it. So whenever you have a joint problem, you have an imbalance problem and all the muscles surrounding the joint. And, um, and maybe there's problems up there or down the spine. Um, so how well you address those and really balance out the muscles and do some physical therapy that's gonna determine how long the relief lasts. You know, our experience at our clinic has been pretty cool because we've seen, you know, I would say on average, uh, the cases that we've worked with within a few weeks, we see pretty significant changes. That was the case with one of our patients, Jim, who came in. He had a bilateral knee problems, pretty significant wear and tear on his knees. Um, he did, uh, the amniotic injections and did phenomenal on, well, he did wonderfully well, but, but his first week he was, he was in a world of hurt. You know, he was just like, man, it really flared up. But that was a good sign. That was, that was a sign that the body's beginning, that inflammatory process to begin that, the healing processes. So, uh, so he, he did, he did quite well with that within, uh, within a few short weeks.

Speaker 1: (14:52)
But, but then the other part of that that you talked about, you know, let's just use as just a hypothetical example. Let's say somebody who is significantly overweight, which is perhaps one of the single greatest risk factors for degeneration of the knees, right? They say that, you know, for every 10 pounds overweight, you aren't, it puts a significant, I don't remember the figures, do you remember what the numbers were? But I mean, it just puts a ton of ton of force on the knees, right? So let's say they come in and they do this, what can they expect in terms of the longterm results? Well, probably not that great if you're not willing to lose some of that weight or all of that weight, you know, um, because you're still gonna have the same stressors that brought you there in the first place, then I think that's the biggest thing.

Speaker 1: (15:33)
You know, we were talking about this before we even started is, you know, the problems that we see that, that are, um, that respond well to regenerative medicine are typically chronic degenerative problems in nature. And if that's the case, chronic degenerative problems don't just spontaneously happen. Um, they'd been, they'd been building over years and years and years. And so this, this idea that, that, and these are problems that need to be addressed. Like you said, you know, if we're, if we're going to really, really fix these issues and so we need to, we need to set correct and realistic expectations. Now that being said, it almost might feel like here amongst this conversation here that we're downplaying these things and that's not that anything but that we want people to understand. These are really powerful, powerful tools that we have available to us, um, at this day and age.

Speaker 1: (16:26)
But, uh, it would be a shame and we'd lose out on a huge opportunity there and maximize that opportunity if we didn't fully address, you know, those underlying issues. Well, you know, one of the things about regenerative medicine that is so beautiful is the fact that it's very natural. All right. You know, there are a lot of things that have been done in medicine for a long time. Different surgeries. I mean, uh, for, for instance, they used to bad sprains. They would cast your ankle for six weeks, you know, they would immobilize it or rice it or I would, there's different things that we thought at the time were the correct things to do or um, going in and cleaning up the, the arthritis in the knee, you know, there's tons of surgery or, uh, studies that say that, that's terrible. Like it, the results are worse by going in and cleaning it up.

Speaker 1: (17:15)
Then actually just leaving it alone so well and they used to just straight up remove the meniscus in the knee. It's just like, let's get rid of it. Let's look preemptively. These, these are like new opportunities to correct something in a very natural way without having to go to the, the extremes of surgery. Because the thing was surgery and the thing with a lot of these metal medications are, the dangerous thing about him is sometimes there's a point of no return. Like once you've cut into those tissues and created more scar tissue, there's no going back. If you fuse a joint, that joint is

Speaker 3: (17:50)
fused forever. But if we can, if we can get these regenerative therapies in soon enough and do the correct rehab and the correct strengthening and, and really kind of work this man, you could, you could really erase a lot of damage that you've done over the course of decades. Yeah, and I could just tell you from all my experience of treating people who've had surgeries and actually being in on some surgeries, there is no way I would ever have a surgery on my knee unless I literally, it was, I was dying and it absolutely had happened. I mean, there's, there's just no way. And um, certainly I would never do anything like that without having conservative therapy first because you're right, once you go the surgery route, um, and it's, sometimes that is the option, but once you go that route, when that's not the only option, you can't undo that.

Speaker 3: (18:43)
And so sometimes the best treatment for somebody, maybe it is a chronic problem that has been there for a years and you can't absolutely fix the underlying problem. You may at least be able to do a maintenance and keep it from getting worse or at least slow down the progression of some disease. Right. So, um, I think even if you can't 100% fix the underlying issue, a lot of times you can get people relief and um, and help them by just slowing down the process. No, that's huge. And the thing I would like maybe it kind of be in, in kind of closing here to, to really, uh, hone in on is the experience that you've had, uh, working with, uh, the, a lot of wound patients and things like that has really shown you, you know, kind of the, the dark side of it is the fact that this is what happens when you don't take care of, of, of things.

Speaker 3: (19:35)
But I would see the flip side that you've seen as well that can really, I think this will pull in on a positive note, is the miraculous nature of the body's ability to heal itself. You've seen some pretty miraculous things as well by a combination of using some of these regenerative technologies as well as some and as well as just the body's own innate capability of being able to, uh, be, be a regenerative in nature itself. Right. Even in some of these people that I've talked about that have multiple comorbidities that are very serious and they may have gone through a back surgery or may have been hospitalized for a long time and have deep, uh, pressure ulcers, I've seen pressure also is where I'm looking literally at the bone. I've seen back surgeries that have failed and I'm literally looking at the hardware attached to the bone in the spine and I will tell you it was bright blue and shiny metal and it looked just like a bicycle chain. I mean, that's how clearly I saw it. I could have read the knob because you had x-ray vision because the wounds were that deep and that open. I mean, just shocking. And the thing with the PRP that I saw is it works amazing. We, we do. Um, we have some research that

Speaker 1: (20:48)
we do in our clinic with PRP and we have a PRP available at the acute care hospital and placing that on wounds and watching them change from week to week. And sometimes, you know, every couple of days you're like, Oh my gosh, that has improved. Yeah. Massive improvement. Yeah. Powerful, powerful. And so I, I think the take home that, that I think would be the best way to end this particular episode is this idea that far too often people think that they're a lost cause and so they'll put off, uh, at least investigating or exploring the possibility. And sometimes people just resigned themselves because maybe they've tried certain things. Maybe they've even tried some of these things before. Uh, but I'm confident that you haven't tried what we do at our clinic because we do a very comprehensive approach in what we do. Again, we don't use these things as a, you know, a Hogwarts magic wand or magic bullet, you know, type things.

Speaker 1: (21:42)
We use this as part of a whole comprehensive approach to really helping you not only get relief, you know, in the short term, but in the longterm, helping you function at a higher level so that we can really address some of those root issues. Um, and, and so we're really grateful that we have a dr [inaudible] with us as part of our team. It's been phenomenal. She's, she's such a, uh, an incredible asset to our team. Uh, she's easy to work with. She's, she's got such a phenomenal bedside manner. Nurse practitioners tend to have a really solid reputation. Um, but even in that, amongst the peers, I think she, she's head and shoulders above in those terms. So she's phenomenal. So for those listening and considering, especially those people who, who are maybe local here and they're saying, I wonder if they can help me. Uh, we always say what we say to everybody and that is, we give a definite, maybe let me give a definite, maybe because we don't want to make those kinds of guarantees.

Speaker 1: (22:37)
Cause that would just be foolish to say those sorts of things. And so what we do guarantee though is that we can find out if we can help you when you come in. And so, uh, this is an open invitation to people to come in and sit down with dr devel, meet her face to face, knee to knee, whatever you want to call it. Uh, I think the thing that I can guarantee it is I can guarantee you that you will truly feel after speaking with her, that she's really listening to you, which is a great thing. I think most people want that, you know, from, from a doctor. Uh, she'll really listen to you. She'll hear, hear you out. And she'll really, us as a team, we'll go to work to find out if you're a candidate for, for what we do here with some of these regenerative, um, tools, uh, as well as the rest of what we do at our clinic.

Speaker 1: (23:21)
And then from there we can, uh, put together a plan that can help you. So, uh, any final thoughts? Dr. Allen, dr devel. You know, I think we kind of covered things, you know, these, these different, I don't know that the reject, the regenerative therapy to me is exciting because I mean, I've, I've actually experienced it myself on a few different areas. Yeah. Am I shoulder my shoulder? And every time I've a massive difference and a massive improvement. And then again, on the other, the flip side of that, having worked on people and treated people who have had to go the more drastic route of knee surgeries or shoulder surgeries, man, I, I mean, I feel fantastic and I'm like, ah, man, I wish I could have got ahold of you five years ago, right, one year ago. You know what I mean? Like, cause the potential is massive.

Speaker 1: (24:08)
So, um, it's one of those things don't, um, don't go the easy route. The easy route is letting, trying to let someone else do everything for you and to think that, Oh, surgery's just gonna make it better. Or the medicine's gonna make it better. It's Jen, Sharon's converse this. So I'll just do exactly like that is the path of least resistance. And unfortunately when it comes to your health, that is not the proven track record. It really is not. It's not the best way to go. And well the problem with those things, again and I know we're kind of to some extent beating a dead horse, but just understand that the bill will come due later. You bet. And in the longterm the cost is going to far outweigh any of what you thought was beneficial from that. So any other final thoughts there? I can only echo that.

Speaker 1: (24:56)
I have just seen it time and time again. And I guess that's why I said earlier, I so passionately said it would be my last resort because I have seen it and uh, you can't undo it and there is a longterm cost that comes to you. And so it, it just behooves anybody to just try the more conservative thing first. And if that doesn't work, then consider start exploring, start exploring other options. And I would say included in that is something as seemingly simple and easy as a cortisone injection. Uh, cause even with that, there's a huge price to be paid there. You know, the, the research has come back. It's definitive. People understand cortisone deteriorates tissue, it weakens the, the integrity and the structure of muscle tissue, of, of ligament, of cartilage, of all those different areas. And so it's, uh, it's not this simple, uh, you know, easy process seed.

Speaker 1: (25:50)
It'll, it'll come at a, at a very, very steep price. And that's not to say that you can't do it or that even you shouldn't do it, but you shouldn't do it lightly. Um, cause it's, it's pretty potent stuff. So, um, hopefully this has been really valuable for you guys. Hopefully we've given you some really good information regarding, uh, PRP and regenerative medicine. Some things to consider if you know, other people that could benefit from, uh, the information that we shared and for those local, if you know somebody, uh, you yourself or somebody that could benefit from a consultation with dr devel at our team, uh, just reach out to us, uh, at our website. Uh, we're on Facebook, we're just about everybody everywhere online and, uh, and we'd love to meet you in person. And I know dr Vel would love to be able to find out if we could help you. So, and Dr. Bell, again, thanks for being here with us. We appreciate you as always and uh, we'll talk to you guys on the next episode. Have a good one.

Speaker 2: (26:47)
Thanks for listening to the health fundamentals podcast. Be sure to subscribe so that you stay in the loop. And in the note with all of the cutting edge health information that we share, if you know other people that could benefit from this information, please share it with them as well. Also, be sure to give us a review. These really help us to ultimately help more people. Last but not least, if you have questions that you want answered live on the show, or if you have ideas for topics that you would like us to cover, please shoot us an email and let us know at info@thehealthfundamentals.com.

Show Notes:

Speaker 1: (00:00)
What's going on, everybody, Dr. Chad Woolner here, and Dr. Buddy Allen. And this is episode 41 of the health fundamentals podcast. And on today's episode, we're going to be talking about CrossFit. Is it bad for your health? So let's get started.

Speaker 2: (00:13)
You're listening to the health fundamentals podcast. I'm dr Chad Woolner and I'm dr buddy Allen. And this show is about giving you the simple but powerful and cutting edge tools you need to change your health and your life. So sit back and enjoy the show as we show you the path to your best life down to a science.

Speaker 1: (00:32)
So, Hey everybody, hope you guys are having an awesome day. We are here with our good friends, Brandon and Ashley. They are the proud owners of power seekers CrossFit here in Meridian. And uh, so we thought we would bring them on for this highly controversial episode. Not really, but uh, but anyhow, we're, we're going to be talking about CrossFit, uh, all things CrossFit. So thanks for being with us guys. Absolutely. Thanks for having to be here. Yeah. So, um, so let's first start with kind of a quick introduction of who you guys are, what got you guys into CrossFit in the first place, and then ultimately what got you guys to take the plunge of, of owning a CrossFit gym? Sure, go ahead. Go first. All right. So Brandon and I've been doing CrossFit for about four to five years. Um, got into it kind of by accident and got a Groupon and did it, loved it.

Speaker 1: (01:24)
Uh, found out I was pretty good at it and you know, fast forward a couple of years we went to power seeker or I went to power seeker, uh, my first year and a half. And, um, Brent owned it then and then, uh, we kind of left, went to different gyms and heard through the grapevine that there wasn't good things happening. And so we took the opportunity and reached out to Brenton, uh, talk to him about maybe taking it over and man, we just, we fell into a good thing at a good time. Good. It's really what happened. So fast forward two years, another opportunity came up and bam, we're loving life, man. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Brandon and nationally both torture me on a regular basis. That's right. When I get my rear end to the gym, um, they do a fine job. Yeah. That's a lot of fun. I learned this week that if buddy is rolling around, just leave him alone. Yeah. We, it was a about a million and a half toes, you know, reaching your legs up and touching the bar or so it felt like that. And then like I didn't want to waste any extra energy, so instead of sitting up to go do my next activity, I would roll to my stomach like a dead man and then get up and Ashley came over. She was like, are you okay? Do I need to call someone? Yeah.

Speaker 1: (02:47)
All right. That's a, that's just called economy of motion. Yes. That's exactly it. We're going on a different process of how to get up. There you go. So, uh, and, and Ashley, your story with the CrossFit. So for me, I was a collegiate soccer player and then I transferred to Boise state. And I, long story short, I thought I wanted to go to law school and that didn't end up happening because I spent all my time at the gym instead of in glass. Okay. So I was a drop in and power seeker and Mike my first day there, Brent was like, Hey, do you want to coach for me? So that ended up happening and Brandon and I actually met at power seekers. So it was a great outlet for me to go from being a collegiate athlete, still needing like that competitive atmosphere. So needing something to keep myself active.

Speaker 1: (03:35)
Um, Lee's were seeking other opportunities, other like communities within the treasure Valley. And then we ended up back at power seekers. So, Oh, you forgot though. We started dating there as well. Yeah. That's where we met. I kind of figured as much. Yeah, I kind of figured that's kind of how things evolved. So it's been a, it's been a very, uh, interesting circle. Yeah. You know, it's crazy. Yeah. I, I, you know, CrossFits uh, an interesting culture to say the least. Um, you know, you said you kind of jumped into it by mistake. Uh, I first started doing CrossFit, uh, about four, four. You probably about the same time as you. A friend of mine, like literally begged me, just come try it. He's like, just try it for 30 days. And in my head I had like this image of like, uh, people in a garage like throwing rocks and jumping over garbage cans and stuff like that. Just like this very like we're trying to be as primitive as possible, you know? And, and when I got there, I was pleasantly surprised. Like my experience with CrossFit, at least with, with him wasn't anything like that. It was like, what I loved about it was that it took a lot of the thinking out of the equation for me. You know, I would, I would find myself prior to going to CrossFit, going to the gym and like walking around aimlessly. Like, Oh, that machine looks good. I'll try that.

Speaker 1: (04:58)
You know, I'm sure there's some video footage of me floating around out there somewhere of like that guy who's doing the machine completely wrong or he's like doing, you know, like the, the head, the head twister or whatever. And it's like not meant for that at all. And so, uh, anyways, but, but, uh, my experience with CrossFit was really positive and it changed a lot of my perceptions from what I had heard. Cause there's a lot of, a lot of, uh, you know, misconceptions and stigmas associated with CrossFit. And so I guess we can kind of dive right into the question. Is CrossFit bad for your health? Yes. No, maybe so. I think a hundred percent. No, I mean, I agreed. Yeah. So, so then the other question then, if it's not bad for your health, where do we hear like all these or where and, or why do we hear a lot of these classic misconceptions about it that it, that it's going to hurt you, that you're going to get injured if you do CrossFit?

Speaker 1: (05:51)
Uh, there are some doctors that we've had experiences with that, that, uh, dissuade or even tell their patients don't do CrossFit. You know, some chiropractors even say that to their patient, friends of ours don't do CrossFit. It's, it's bad for you. You know, you're just asking to get injured. I've had doctors say, Oh, CrossFit CrossFits great for business, ya know, they keep sending me, right, right. Like, come on. Couches are great for business one. I think a lot of that, you know, uh, depending on where you go and how often you go and the coaches that are there, you know, everybody can have an awful experience. Go into Chevron. You know, everybody can have a great experience going to Sheva I think. I think the mentality that you get from places is, you know, I can do, I can do a setup. Cool. Okay, well if somebody teaches you how to do a proper setup, then that's what it is.

Speaker 1: (06:37)
But if they teach you how to do an incorrect set up, of course you're going to get hurt. You're going to strike something. And then there's where CrossFit is not the issue. The coaching is the issue, right. We are all in. And the interesting thing, I saw an interview with Greg Glassman for those who don't know who Greg Glassman is, he's the founder of CrossFit and he's a very kind of outspoken, fairly polarizing individual, uh, you know, no, yeah, yeah. He's, he just, he, he's, he's definitely a very charismatic individual, but I thought it was really cool, his response because to that end of the coaching that a lot of people criticize, uh, in the interview anyways, they were kind of saying, people are kind of critical that you could get certified to be a CrossFit coach in a weekend. And they were like, that's kind of, and he's like, yeah, isn't that great?

Speaker 1: (07:21)
And they're like, what do you mean? He's like, well, at least we have standards. Oh no. He's like, he's like, there are some standards that are there that you have to abide by, you know, that the, you know, it's like, at least that's the case, you know? And uh, and so it was just that, that, that perspective he had on it was, was really good. And I would, I would wholeheartedly echo what you just said there in the sense that my experience has been, it's not CrossFit as a whole, it's the coaching and or the, the, the, the gym that you go to in terms of what happens there is really going to determine the, the experience that you have. I think the benefit of, of having that weekend to get potentially get certified, cause you have to take an exam and if you fail the exam and you don't get to be a coach, right.

Speaker 1: (08:04)
So, but I think the benefit of that weekend is you're going in there and you're actually applying what you're learning. So it's very hands on. Yeah. You're not just taking the test online or reading a bunch of books. It's very hands on. And then you're actually learning how to apply it in class where yeah, if you maybe take like the ACE test or if you take a personal training class online, it's not giving a tool as of like this is how you apply it and this is how you see and correct a flaw. This is what, this is the criteria. Now you figure out how to apply it. That's not what CrossFit is about. And I think that's the benefit of those two days of being with the best coaches in the world. And there they're giving you their tools, they're giving you their secrets. Yeah.

Speaker 1: (08:47)
You know the, the other interesting thing that I think we were, Dr. Allen and I were talking about this just a couple of days ago in preparation for today's interview is the thing that I think that's really interesting about CrossFit is that it's a sport, right? You, you have the, the fitness side of it, but then you also have the competition side of it. Um, and the thing that I find funny is, is that in the competition side, injuries are, we'll just say a common occurrence. People at that, at that level of, of competition and people like they, they like almost thumb their thumb. Their nose is to the right. Like they, they, they look down on it like, Oh, that's so stupid. Why would you do that and get yourself injured? And the thing I find interesting is no one says that about football or any other, any other sport where injuries are just an inevitable part of the game.

Speaker 1: (09:36)
You know, soccer, football, you know, baseball, any of these places, injuries are just an inevitable fact of competition that anytime you push yourself to a higher level, there's always running. You're always running some level of risk. Like you said, motor cross motorcross how many motorcross uh, patients have you seen over the years? I've seen tons of them busted. One of the very first I ever saw it was a 22 year old kid. And I'm like, how many bones have you broken? And my first question, how many bones have you broken? Cause he competed, right? And he's like, Oh, probably 20. At least. Here's a 20 year old, 22 year old kid that's broken. 20 bones. Don't kid yourself, you know, so, so I mean, yeah. What were you gonna say? I mean, CrossFit really has been around 10, 15, 20 years, right? The idea that, or it actually getting out for just your general public to see it is pretty new.

Speaker 1: (10:29)
Um, football, soccer, all of these big sports have been around for ever. And so I mean it's more common to just see that football injury and then be like, Hey, they're just going to go back in the chair and they're going to get a shot and then they come back out on the field. Right. That doesn't really happen in the CrossFit world. And I mean those competitive athletes who are showing at the CrossFit games, that's less than 1% of our community, right? So it's not a matter of if they're going to get to hurt, it's a matter of when they go into that profession, like they make CrossFit a career, knowing that that's part of the game. Any competitive level athlete of any kind, you're going to have those types of injuries right here. And that's what I would say too, is for your guys' experience.

Speaker 1: (11:11)
You know, the average CrossFit goer, which would be like me, which even then, I don't even think I'm to that level yet, but what's my risk of injury? High, low, low. I think for us, I mean, and I would like to hope that every CrossFit gym is like this, but unfortunately it's not for us. We're not trying to make you come into the gym to be a CrossFit games athlete, right? Trying to make you functional to apply it to your life outside of the gym. Right? We're trying to make sure you're picking up the dog food the right way. Right. I think everyday life movements mimic everything that you do inside the gym. It's just can we teach you a better way to do it? Right. That's, yeah, that's a great point that you bring up there too, because I heard, uh, I can't remember who it was.

Speaker 1: (11:58)
It meant it might even been that same Greg Glassman interview that I saw, where they talked about, well, you're having old ladies do dead lifts, which for those who aren't familiar with dead lifts, it's lifting the bar belt, obviously using proper mechanics, uh, straight from the floor, you know, and, and when people see that, that image of an older woman or an older man like doing that, like very like, uh, you know, uh, you know, heavy lift for the, and, and we, and we shouldn't even say heavy because you're obviously gonna modify the weight accordingly. Um, but his response to that was, well, yeah, is that old lady ever gonna pick something up off the ground? Grandkids, you know, groceries. Right, right. And so that's the thing is these are very practical and very functional things that you guys are doing with people. So, so yeah, very, very practical from a day to day standpoint, even for people that wouldn't consider themselves like athletes or competitors or anything like that.

Speaker 1: (12:55)
And that was the thing for me that I noticed when I was doing CrossFit regularly. So my quick story real quick, cause I did it for, like I said, it was about four years ago, but I haven't been doing it for four years. I did it for about two or three years pretty consistently. And then I started, uh, converting my garage into my own little personal kind of CrossFit ESC setup, which yeah, tight time-saver for sure. And I know I'm not getting nearly the same level of workouts that I would be getting. Uh, if I had like professionals like you guys actually preparing those workouts for me because it's a lot easier to, uh, to, to make the workouts easier on yourself than to have them, uh, designed by you guys. But uh, but that's the, anyways, th th th the point being is when I was doing those workouts in CrossFit, I noticed that they were very practical in terms of, you know, strengthening your core and strengthening your, just your overall frame and making sure that you could do a lot of that.

Speaker 1: (13:47)
Just regular things that you do on a date it day in, day out basis. So any help. So what do you guys love most about being CrossFit coaches? Oh man, go ahead. I got too much to say about that. For me it's the people like yeah, I could really care less about the business side of it. I just, I love coming in and getting to know every single person and knowing them, like knowing them outside of the gym. Yeah. So I don't want to, I obviously need to know and I want to know your injuries and your limitations and all of that stuff inside of the gym. But I want to know was work crap today cause that's going to affect your workout inside of the gym. But I also want to know how are your kids, how's your wife? Yeah. What are you eating outside of the gym?

Speaker 1: (14:34)
Like I, I love the relationship side of CrossFit. Perfect. That's awesome. I would say I would totally coming from someone from the outside, you know, attending your gym before CrossFit. I was just like Chad, I mean I and I worked out pretty regularly at the gym and um, I remember yeah, it was w for at least four days a week consistent. I thought I worked out hard. I remember my first week of CrossFit workouts and I was like, Holy crap, have I ever worked out a day in my life? You know, like it was a different kind of training and then it was, it really was the, um, like if, if it's left up to me, I'm never going to push myself as hard as, um, as I, as I should or as I actually even think I could the workouts and CrossFit, I would never, you know, there are certain workouts that I'm like, I would have, first of all, whoever thought this up cause they're insane.

Speaker 1: (15:23)
But what's crazier is when you actually do them and you're like, I finished it, you know, like it's, that's awesome. So that, that community part of working out for me is, uh, is just massive. So being held accountable and like not cutting that squat short and going just low enough to feel that burn. Like are you still getting below parallel? You still hitting that target with that wall ball every time or you go on a few, are you cheating yourself? Yeah. Yeah. [inaudible] box at the top. Yeah. I think for me like what, what I enjoy the most is, is seeing that expression on somebody's face after you convinced them that putting those two and a halves on each side are going up five pounds heavier. The expression on their face after they do it and they're just, I mean, just amazed and the happiness that you see in them.

Speaker 1: (16:16)
Sure. I mean it just, I mean I could just float away. I mean it made sure so good seeing people break through either physical and or mental barriers that they will, 90% of it is mental. Like nobody's ever convinced me to do that or nobody's ever told me that I should turn the box over to a 24 instead of a 20 or you know, like that Oh shit factor. So yeah, but you're good. That is, that's it's a huge show and and no, and the critical thing is knowing just how much to push that person to where they can do it and not hurt themselves, not hurt themselves. Right? That is, that is such a fine line of am I doing it correctly, am I doing it properly? And then that expression in that gratitude that person has is man, right? It's believing in our members when they can't believe in themselves.

Speaker 1: (17:08)
Truly believe in. If you can just, if you can have that confidence for them through that and then just help them, help them reach that goal, you believed in them and then at the end of the day they believe in themselves. So awesome. I think what you guys are saying are all elements are at the heart of, of what good coaching is all about. It's really finding what you said, that kind of fine line of of stretching somebody to the point where you know they're going to break through some of those barriers. But then also knowing where that, where that limit is in terms of, you know, cause you can run that risk of injury and or whatever. But but knowing that is again, that's going to come from years of experience of knowing that those kinds of, and just like any other profession, I mean you guys, you guys go to school and you get your certificate or your degree, it's not like you just stopped there.

Speaker 1: (17:57)
Right. You continue to learn, you continue to drive and you continue to make yourself better. It's the same for us. It's not like we go to that one week and then we get our level one and then we just go, okay well now we can own a gym at the top. Yeah. I mean how often do you guys, that being said, how often do you guys do continuing education? I mean, I mean it will say we'll say a formal continuing education cause obviously every day in the gym, like just like everyday in practice, you know you're learning. But in terms of like how, how often do you guys go to conferences and things like that. So I don't, I don't go to any conferences. I have another business that I go to 100% of the time too. And so my learning, my learning is more visual and physical, like being on on spot.

Speaker 1: (18:40)
Like I learned from people every day. Okay, that cue worked for this guy, but it doesn't work for that guy. So how am I going to make up something that I can say the same thing but in different ways? Sure, sure. I think for me, for me having, um, a dictionary of cues that mean the same thing, you know, is, is a huge learning experience for me. And I think I get a lot of that every single day, every class. And even when I'm on the other side of coaching as an athlete. Sure. Hearing people talk to one another, sharing their personal cues. And then I just absorb that because it was awesome. Sure. And so I learned a different way. I learned from the athletes themselves and yeah, no, that makes sense to me. And how about you saying no. For me, I think you could have all the credentials in the world and I honestly don't think that they mean anything if you're not providing results.

Speaker 1: (19:34)
Right. Yeah. I have my level one and I have my level two and I would potentially love to get to level four. I think being seminar staff would be an incredible, incredible opportunity. But, um, every day, like I'm watching videos, I'm trying to read books, I'm listening to podcasts. Last week she just bought some a anatomy book for my favorite anatomy books. There you go. You've got her. Netters there we go. I mean, there are tons of opportunities. Um, they don't all come to the treasure Valley area. So if you want to get that CrossFit oper offers a ton of online certifications that you can get. But if you want the hands on one, a lot of times you're going to have to travel for them, which is fine. We traveled for my level two and that was awesome. Um, I mean we have a lot of certifications and stuff, but like she said, you know, if you don't, if you don't practice that are in the trenches doing it.

Speaker 1: (20:30)
Yeah. It doesn't make sense. Yeah. Cool. I got 900 certifications. Cool. Yeah. But I haven't taught anybody anything. Right. Yeah. Right. That's for me. I don't, I don't want somebody to come into the gym be like, Hey, um, today's my first day. Like what can you guys offer? I got my level two you're going to be, you're in great hands cause I got my level two, no, I'm going to make sure that I provide a result for you and then I don't care about any of the certificate and all that. Makes sense. Um, so for those who are listening who are local, uh, what would be the best way for people to get in touch with you guys? Go ahead. Okay. So we just updated our website. If you had ever been on our old website, it was, boy, I mean when we took over a power secret, there was no website.

Speaker 1: (21:18)
It was literally you typed in power to your crossfit.com and it was like, do you want to buy this bill? So we had a, um, one of our coaches, her husband put our website together and all we said was like, we need a phone number, our address and our class times. That's all we need on it. But then now with this new transition, I was like, okay, okay, we got to get a website, legitimate website. We have to have something. And so you can go to our website power. So your crossfit.com, it's our seeker, crossfit.com. We'll make sure in the show notes we have the link there. Powerless on Facebook or Facebook, Instagram. Um, we have emails, phone numbers. I don't know if we want to put all of that stuff in there. Yeah, we can put, we can put whatever. Yeah. And we'll put links to everything.

Speaker 1: (22:02)
So, um, for those who, yeah, for those who are here locally, um, that's how you get ahold of them. Uh, what would somebody locally, so let's say we've got people who are like, I want to check this out. What can we expect, uh, coming in for the first visit at power seeker CrossFit? So, um, we don't offer an OnRamp class. We just, we invite all new people to just jump into class. Okay. Um, if, if you're super intimidated or you haven't worked out for a really long time, I would say don't come to the five or 6:00 AM cause those really big classes. Sure. Okay. But Oscar levels all abilities, it doesn't matter. Sure. Size, age. And I guess for those people who are maybe intimidated, is it an intimidating experience coming? So I, I love, I love the fact when somebody comes in and they're, you know, have their arms crossed and they're kind of standing by the front door and you go up and you're like, Hey, how's it going?

Speaker 1: (22:58)
You know, what can I do for you? And they're like, well, I've heard about this and I want to try it. And then you're just pumped and you're excited and you tell them about it and they're like, Oh, so it's not that bad. Right. Getting in the car, driving to the gym, that's the hardest part. Driving down, knowing that you're scared out of your mind and then you get there and then you see everybody, all walks of life in, they're working out, sweating and cheering everybody on. You know, I think, I think that helps out a lot too because everybody from a to Z in our gym, you know, and it, they all love it. Yeah. That was the thing, I think that really did actually surprise me quite a bit when I came into CrossFit for the first time, was seeing a very diverse, uh, you know, clientele in terms of that, you know, that there was people from, like you said, a to Z in of levels of ability.

Speaker 1: (23:46)
And so that made it far less intimidating to me, you know, in terms of getting started where I'm like, these other people are doing it so you know, you, and we naturally think some sometimes identify where we fit in the line. You know, like, I'm like, that guy's probably a little bit stronger than I am and a little bit more fit than me. But I definitely know I'm probably better than him. So, and in my case I had to like, look at the women. I'm like, I'm, I'm better, I've gotta be better than her. She's like 80 and then I wasn't in a classic statement as well. I need to get in shape to go into CrossFit. Right? No you don't. You just need, yeah, I need to get, you know, I need to go run or get some workouts in and then I'll come to CrossFit.

Speaker 1: (24:25)
Yeah. And it's not like if we program a handstand pushup or a muscle up, if you can't do that, you can't show up today. Right. Show up and we're going to give you something and modify it for you. That's still gonna well, if you came in, if you came in ranger motion, yeah. If you came in to any class, anytime we're open 11 hours a day and if you came into any one of the classes, I guarantee you half of those people are doing a different movement. Excuse me. The same movement, but in a different way. Yes. Modification are doing the same. Weighted motion. Different poundage, right? Yeah. So everybody's doing the same workout so they don't feel isolated or you know, Oh, well why is that person doing that when I'm doing this? Yeah. You know, everybody has the same workout. It's just modified to their ability and everybody finishes roughly in the same timeframe and it's awesome.

Speaker 1: (25:14)
That is awesome. Yeah, we'll, uh, we appreciate you guys taking time out of your schedule. Again, I'm sure you guys probably have classes today and tomorrow going on, so thanks for, uh, thanks for being here with us and taking time to share this with us. Uh, for those who are interested, uh, power seekers CrossFit, um, hope this has been valuable for you guys. If you know other people that could benefit from what we've shared, uh, share this with them. Uh, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and we'll share more with you guys on the next episode. Awesome. Thanks. Appreciate it.

Speaker 2: (25:42)
Thanks for listening to the health fundamentals podcast. Be sure to subscribe so that you stay in the loop. And in the note with all of the cutting edge health information that we share, if you know other people that could benefit from this information, please share it with them as well. Also, be sure to give us a review. These really help us to ultimately help more people. Last but not least, if you have questions that you want answered live on the show, or if you have ideas for topics that you would like us to cover, please shoot us an email and let us know at info@thehealthfundamentals.com.

Show Notes:

Speaker 1: (00:00)
Hey everybody, what's going on? Dr. Chad Woolner here. And I'm Dr. buddy Allen. And this is episode 40 of the health fundamentals podcast. And on today's episode, we're here with our good friend, Dr. Scott Lewis, and we're going to be talking about how to help kids heal from concussions. So let's get started.

Speaker 2: (00:13)
You're listening to the health fundamentals podcast. I'm Dr. Chad Woolner and I'm dr buddy Allen. And this show was about giving you the simple but powerful and cutting edge tools you need to change your health and your life. So sit back and enjoy the show as we show you the path to your best life down to a science.

Speaker 1: (00:33)
Alright everybody. So we're here with our good friend, Dr. Scott Lewis. Uh, he's actually just down the road from us, which is really cool, really exciting. Uh, we've known Scott for quite a while here and, uh, he does some really, really cool stuff. And so rather than me do a poor job of giving a synopsis of what it is that he does, uh, well the first question we'll start with kind of tell everybody a little bit about, uh, who you are, kind of what got you into the field that you're in. All right, great.

Speaker 3: (00:58)
So I'm what's called a developmental optometrist. And I went to optometry school thinking I was going to sell glasses and contacts like every other optometrists. But what I didn't realize is when I started optometry school, my eyes weren't teaming together. So I got through high school and college reading with one eye covered and leaning over because if I tried to look with both eyes the words, then it makes sense to me. They kind of moved on the page and I'd get a lot of headaches. And it wasn't till I was in optometry school that said, Hey, or somebody said, your eyes aren't working. And I'm like, what do you mean? I see 2020. When I cover one eye? They're like, who cares? Your eyes aren't lining up. And so I did therapy in school and I got my eyes lining up and it made it so I could track.

Speaker 3: (01:43)
Um, my grades went to a 4.0 life was good after I did therapy. And that's what I made the decision. I've got to figure this out. And then my wife and I were thinking I had a concussion when I was 12. And at that point I had been in gifted classes all the way through elementary school and in the beginning of middle school. And then once I had that head injury, I was getting a 1.9 GPA, 2.0 GPA, headaches every day. Life was not fun. Um, and I just had to cope because I'd go to the eye doctor and I saw 20, 20 because everybody checks with one eye than the other eye, but nobody looks to see how well, how well are the eyes lining up? How well are you tracking? Do you process the information you see? And so it was that revelation. And after being going through therapy myself and life was so much easier. That's when I decided I've got to practice this way.

Speaker 1: (02:38)
So you finished optometry school, which is what, four years after? Uh, it's a graduate level program. Right. Doctorate level program. Uh, and then after that, what did you S cause cause you weren't specialized at that point in time, right? No, I I really like vision therapy,

Speaker 3: (02:52)
but I did a three year fellowship, um, with the college of optometrist envisioned development and I worked a doctor in DC for 18 months who only did vision therapy before I moved to Idaho for my practice. And what sorts of cases, I mean obviously you talked about a concussion. What, what sorts of cases do you typically see at your clinic? All right, so the majority of my patients are, um, kids that don't learn to use their eyes correctly. I see a lot of kids with eye turns, lazy eyes. And then about second, third, fourth grade, there's a lot of kids that are falling behind in school because they're struggling learning how to read and, and comply in the classroom because their eyes are playing tricks on them. And so they're really smart kids, but they're now falling behind because of the mechanics of reading haven't developed.

Speaker 3: (03:41)
Um, then I see a lot of patients with, um, post ABI post TBI, so strokes, um, head injuries, concussions, we see a lot of patients, um, to do that rehab side. But we also have a lot of athletes that come in that want us to take their visual system and make them better. So I'm the eye doctor that works the visual system, so eyeballs back. Okay. So I don't do the front of the eyes, I don't do glasses contacts. I make sure that the brain's processing the information and using what we see and understanding it and interpreting it correctly and then that the brain's controlling the eyes so that they move correctly. You know, a lot of it sounds to me like you're a very neurologic based optometrist or a neurology type optometrist. Is that a fair thing to say in terms of description? That's a really fair, some of my colleagues are now using the term neuro optometrist.

Speaker 3: (04:34)
Okay. Yeah. So, um, that's interesting. So I mean in two broad categories you could say that that your patients either fall into a camp of they've got a problem and they want to help get your help solving the problem. Uh, which is I think what most doctors typically think of. But then there's another where it's kind of more of a performance based kind of a group of individuals that you're working with where things are working. Okay. There's no real clear pathology or problem, but rather you've got these people who want to, who want to improve that area. Uh, in terms of their sports performance, baseball players flip, I mean, people absolutely coordination. Uh, this morning we had a basketball player and a baseball player in the office. I'm on the coaching staff for Boise state. I'm on the baseball team. Um, we see all the players every week and if there is a deficit, we definitely take care of it. But then we take them and we make them take them to the next level. If we can make that fast ball look 20 miles an hour slower, if we can develop reaction time depth, the focus speed of focus, if we can improve that, it makes a world of difference when you're on the field. Yeah. Um, what would you say in terms of do how many people like cause cause for me, uh, prior to even meeting you, I didn't even know there was such a thing as, as what you do. Is that a pretty common

Speaker 1: (05:57)
thing? Do most people not know that this is even in existence? Like

Speaker 3: (06:01)
no, I get that everyday patients come in and go, I was referred here but you're an eye doctor, how can you help my brain injury?

Speaker 1: (06:08)
Right. Well how about the symptoms? I mean you kind of said some of them for young kids, you know, like, and even for yourself, like you were doing great and then all of a sudden things, you know, like things stopped matching up or things stopped working correctly. Like, what are some of the symptoms that both children and then maybe even adults would be like, wait a second, that might be me. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah.

Speaker 3: (06:31)
Um, it's interesting because children sometimes don't understand their symptoms because that's their normal. And so symptoms are a little different in kids. You have to ask lots of questions. Um, and then they go, Oh, you mean that's not right? And so the thing I look for in kids, especially if the eyes aren't lining up, I always ask about double vision words moving on the page. If they lose their place, if they get done reading a page and forget what they read, um, we look at me, I know, right? Big time. And I also talked about headaches. Vision, headaches happen in two places. They happen frontally right here. And then they'll happen at the back of the neck. And people always go, well, how can a vision headache happen at the top of your neck? Well, if you're holding your head in a funny posture, trying to figure out a place where your eyes will line up or make it clear, well then your neck is sore because it's holding this huge head of yours of funky. And you guys

Speaker 1: (07:29)
absolutely. Um, you know the thing that when you, when you talked about that as far as like kids doing well at a certain age and then all of a sudden there's this decline. I'm curious if, you know, any statistics of kids who just get lumped into this category of, you know, special education, right? Where they just, they need a special plan and curriculum for them because they're just not at that normal level in terms of reading and testing and all that stuff. What percentage would you save if you were to guess or maybe, you know, this fall into the category as a direct or indirect result of some of these things? So it's [inaudible]

Speaker 3: (08:04)
interesting. They actually say that, um, every child that's in special ed should have a good, thorough visual examination and not a quick 10, 15 minute I check, can you see the letters far away? But to find out, they actually say it's as high as about 60%. Um, it's interesting because like my mentor practiced in San Diego and the San Diego school district will actually pay for vision therapy because they've found it so much cheaper to fix a kid in third grade than to keep them in special ed for the next nine years of their Scholastic career. Oh wow. Right. That makes a huge difference there. Yeah, it actually does. It's, it's fascinating. Um, they, the national PTA put out a statistic years ago that said one in four kids has a vision issue that affects their ability to read and learn. And if you think about 25% and you know you that there's not a lot of developmental optometrists out there. I'm the only board certified developmental optometrist in the state

Speaker 1: (09:02)
and the entire state of Idaho. It's crazy. That is crazy. Wow. You know, it's funny you say that, cause you know my, I didn't even know this until probably five, 10 years ago. My dad, he said, he says, I had an instance when I was in grade school. He says, my teacher said I was the dumbest kid she had ever met and he didn't find out until after getting made. Hey, you made it all the way through high school, managed to, you know, just eke it out. You know? And it was, the whole thing was a struggle. He found out after he graduated that he had processing issues with reading and an issue. And so it was like, here he was, he thought he was stupid, you know? And it was just because of a teacher saying, you're a dummy, you know, and you know, that's a horrible thing. So doubt. Well, obviously you focus a lot of attention on concussions. Um, what would you say for parents, um, are some things that you do to help with that area? And I, I guess maybe a better question is what's kind of the general accepted kind of standard of care right now in terms of concussion recovery? You know,

Speaker 3: (10:07)
well, the best tests that you can do for a concussion, and let's talk about testing because we have to diagnose a concussion. Self-reporting of a concussion is the worst diagnostic criteria pay. How do you feel you fill in? Okay, yeah, coach put me back in. And then they go back in and they get a second hit. And now we're dealing with second hit syndrome, which is a whole other topic, right? Um, one of the best things you can do for a concussion, especially for yourself, for your children, is to have a processing speed check. Because if your brain is under some sort of duress, your information processing is going to be reduced. There's a test we run in our office called the Dem or the development time movement test. There's another one called the King [inaudible] and the King DVBIC. Recently I'm joined forces with the impact test.

Speaker 3: (10:54)
Um, all it does is it looks at eye tracking and it measures how long it takes you to track your eyes process information. There's the ran, which is the random random automaticity of number naming correlated with eye tracking. And if you're in the middle of a sporting event, um, it's a perfect sideline test. So when you're in the middle of a sporting event and they run that test with your adrenaline up and if you're pumped for the game, your speed should be faster than sitting in my office. But if it's slower at all, we've got to pull you from the game. We've got to figure out what happened, what's going on. Because what we don't want is that second hit syndrome. Right. You know, with the typical concussion, um, and well I assume everybody knows it typically takes about two weeks to recover. A concussion is normal. So when we talk about concussion, let's, do you mind if we talk about the pathophysiology that happens with the kids?

Speaker 1: (11:49)
Sure. No, that, that, that's totally fine. I think the thing, just back one quick before, no, no, no, no, no. I was just going to say, you know, in terms of looking at it from a mile up, the problem with the current state of things that you're saying that you just said is subjective tests. Don't give us an accurate picture because there's, there's a hidden agenda or not a hidden agenda, but there's a clear bias in terms of the individual. They're not going to want to be sidelined from the game. And so subjectively, when you ask them, you know, and a lot of these questionnaires are purely just that, is these subjective assessments? Do you have headache? Do you have blurred vision? Do you have [inaudible]? Are you experiencing these things? And they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, not really. You know, I'm, I'm good.

Speaker 1: (12:30)
You know, like, get me back in the game. Whereas what you're talking about here is objective performance to base measures that give us a clear and very accurate, unbiased picture of what's really happening. And so parents need to be aware of that so that they can know that, you know, if, if, if the doctor or whoever is assessing your child or you, if it's you, um, you know, the, that just asking subjective questions is not going to get to the heart of the matter. So, so dig in further then in terms of the pathophysiology of concussion. Right. I'm glad he's here to clarify what I say.

Speaker 3: (13:04)
And one thing I thought of when he was talking is these two tests I'm talking about, they're eye tracking tests, but looking at information processing while you're moving your eyes. So it's a divided attention type test, right? And so the pathophysiology that happens when you have a concussion, if you think about your skull, it's about the consistency of concrete. And then the brains the consistency of jello. If something hits that, that skull, the school's gonna move and the brain stationary, so the brain hits against the wall, or the head's moving and a hit against another object and the brain moves and runs into the wall of the brain or the of the skull. Well, everybody thinks about the actual impact site as where the damage happens. What we don't think about is the tension on all the neurons coming up through from the spinal cord up into the head.

Speaker 3: (13:55)
And if that brain gets twisted and turned, there's all that tension that happens. If you have a very severe head injury, sure you're going to have bleeding on the brain, you're going to have some ripping, tearing of the tissue. But what if you just have a single nerve who gets twisted or bent and now it can't send the signal because the microtubules are broken? Well, now you lost a pathway that will never be picked up on an MRI. It will never be picked up. We have to look at function, right? So if we can look at objective functioning, we can find out, Hey, there's some deficits. Now let's figure out what it is and let's figure out how to rehab them. Um, they're now saying that concussions don't have to necessarily be a head hit, but any hit on your body that causes that pressure to change, kind of like whiplash or even a bad football hit, the head's stationary body starts moving and now you get that torsion or that polling on all these neurons.

Speaker 1: (14:56)
Right? And that's, that's really surprised. I think that's surprising to hear. You know, that, that it does. Most people equate concussion and that would make total sense. You either knock heads with somebody else, you get your head knocked into something, you fall, you know, that sort of thing. But you're exactly right. You know, any sort of force that's going to take the body one way and the head and neck, you know, I mean it's, I keep thinking of that, uh, what's that movie? So she married an ax murder where he's talking about his son with a massive head, like an orange on a toothpick is, you know, uh, that's what our heads are though, right? They, they weigh a a significant amount and so there's, there's this weight and so, uh, you know, you're vulnerable to a lot of those issues. You know, a lot of people, especially when they come in after accidents, they don't hit their head on anything, but they have this brain fog, that cloudiness, which is that, that first symptom, I think this easy to be.

Speaker 1: (15:48)
It's just like, you can't, you can't carry on, uh, you lose your train of thought easily. You know what I mean? Like just, yeah, you're like, man, I just don't feel like I can, you know, you know, roll like I normally would. So the standard of care right now currently is such where it's just kind of a wait it out and hope everything heals and then looking at again, symptoms or absence of symptoms. If there's no more headaches, if there's uh, no more pain, no more fatigue, et cetera, et cetera, you're good to go as typically kind of a the standard approach.

Speaker 3: (16:20)
Well that's typically what you hear about is Hey, stay in a dark room for a couple of days. No TV, no cell phone, no reading. Um, what we found is if a concussion is going to heal on its own, usually takes about two weeks. First couple of days. You do want to avoid tasks that cause increased pressure, headaches, increased brain fog. But then after a couple of days you want to slowly start introducing things back in, especially for kids at about two weeks. They're back at school, they're back doing homework. It's the patients that it takes longer than two weeks. Those are the patients we really want to talk about because they're the ones that aren't self healing and they're the ones that usually fall through the cracks. A lot of my patients, they've been dealing with their post-concussion issues for five, six years. By the time they come in to see me, I am definitely the last box they're checking,

Speaker 1: (17:16)
right. They've gone through all the other different people. Chances are they probably seen medical doctors, chiropractors, physical therapists, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, you name it.

Speaker 3: (17:26)
And it's interesting because people don't usually think about the eye doctor as fixing a concussion cause we think of glasses and contacts. But if you think about the visual system and the visual pathway, it traverses from the eyeball back to the primary visual cortex and then it comes back forward to process all the information. And so when we start looking at that, then my job, it takes me about two, two and a half hours to do a thorough evaluation, which I have to do on multiple days because these patients don't have the stamina before it get fatigued. Sure. Yeah. Um, then we could start to figure out, Hey, where are the deficits? What do we have to put back together? Um, what can you do? 70% of all sensory information comes in through our visual system. And so there's not a part of the brain that's not primarily or secondarily involved in vision.

Speaker 3: (18:14)
Vision is pervasive in the brain. And so when we start looking at that, we can start to figure out what's going on. A lot of my patients have trouble teaming their eyes, tracking their eyes, focusing. Um, a lot of times they're, their filters are, are broken. So all the sensory information comes in and they don't know what's good information and what's bad. So sometimes they filter out things that they need to pay attention to and they pay attention to noise. It's kinda like, okay, right now, do you feel your feet inside your shoes? Can you feel your shoes right? But did you three minutes ago, right? Because you weren't paying attention to it, you filtered it out. Well, sometimes after a concussion, sometimes the brain fog, the way I relate it is you don't know what to pay attention to. One, not to say you're paying attention to all this background noise that needs to be ignored.

Speaker 3: (19:06)
And so a lot of it is even knowing what information to process or pay attention to. That sounds exhausting. Very much so. Um, a lot of my patients are at their wit's end, let's be honest. Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah. They're frustrated with life and so what we have to do is we have to make them feel comfortable. Um, if you think about the typical symptoms of what you'd imagined PTSD to be, I don't feel like myself, I can't do what I used to be able to do. Or a spouse might go, they just act different. I used to be able to rely on them if I said, Hey, I need you to run to the store after work and do this. They come home without doing that because they can't remember. They're so overwhelmed and exhausted just doing their activities of daily life. Right. It's like the brain is in survival mode.

Speaker 3: (19:53)
Just trying to do what it can to cope with anything. So. So w in a general sense, I mean obviously we could be here for hours talking about it, but what are some of the things that you typically will do to help, um, kids and or adults for that matter, uh, recover from concussions at your office? Great question. So the first thing we do is we do what's called awareness of process. We show them how it feels to line up their eyes to focus, to track. We want them to start to fill it, all the things that we take for granted so that they can learn how to control everything. Again, we teach them how to process information. We do a lot of puzzles, we do transpositions, Hey, how would this look flipped upside down, side to side. We start to get their brain processing information and we give them feedback loops because I need to teach a patient how to self monitor and self correct. Because if they're at work and that brain fog comes on, Hey, what do you do? Okay, okay. When this happens, I've got to get up. I've got to go get a drink. I've got to disconnect from the activity that's causing the symptom reset myself. Now I can come back and work for another half an hour. Does that make [inaudible]?

Speaker 1: (20:59)
Sure. Yeah. It almost sounds very similar to like what an occupational therapist would do for, for like a stroke victim or whatever in the physical realm, in terms of manual [inaudible] teach, teaching them how to use those motor skills. Again, you know, you're basically doing that for the eyes is what it sounds like a very similar process. It's very similar. Yeah, that's powerful. So kind of moving away from the clinical side, I would assume I know kind of what you love about what you do based on what you're saying. I mean that sounds like pretty rewarding, but I'll let you kind of answer that question. You know, what is it that you love most about what you do?

Speaker 3: (21:36)
I like being able to fix patients. The other professionals have said, this is all we can do. I like being able to take a person and make them so that they can function life again. I want to give them their life back and day in, day out when we see that happen, I go home well and sleep well. That's awesome. Um,

Speaker 1: (21:55)
we had an episode, uh, not, not too long ago where we talked about, you know, one of the greatest disservices that doctors can do for their patients is putting these very, um, stringent kind of caps on, you know, you'll never be able to do this again. You'll never be able to go to the gym or to play football, whatever. You know what I mean? Things that you used to do that you enjoyed there, they'd be like, Oh, because of this injury, you can't do this. We had a, we had a patient, uh, uh, who came in, um, about six months ago and he, he had some lower back issues he's had, he had on his x-rays, some degeneration and some other things like that. Uh, he younger guy, I think in his late thirties, um, but he was told by a doctor that he would never be able to play sports again, that he was going to be virtually crippled by the age he was by the time he was like in his forties is pretty much what the doctor told him.

Speaker 1: (22:51)
And so he was in this state of like constant fear of like his life was just this ticking time bomb that once he got to, you know what I mean? He was resigned to the fact that in his forties, he was going to be disabled, you know? Yeah. Just disabled, you know? And so it's, it's powerful when you can get doctors who are willing to help people break through those kind of mental and emotional barriers. And it sounds like a lot of your job is doing that with patients, really helping, um, exceed expectations, you know, that they might have fixing the unfixable. Yeah. That's awesome. Amazing. Um, so for those who are watching, who are local here, um, and that say they or someone they love a child or whatever, they're like, man, a lot of the things that he's talking about sounds like our situation or, or they just know, yeah, my son sustained a concussion or daughter sustained concussion. Um, how would be the best way for them to reach out,

Speaker 3: (23:48)
do you? Um, the easiest way is to go to our website. It's focused idaho.com and all of our office information's there. If they're not local, the best website to go to is cob D. dot org and that's the college of optometrists and vision development. Okay. And you say find a doctor and that has a nationwide search worldwide. Actually they will find a doctor that's closest to you. How many are there worldwide would you say? There's about 550 of us that are board certified. Okay. So basically like

Speaker 1: (24:23)
a handful in every state pretty much is what that is. So. Wow. That's crazy. Um, wow. So, uh, and, and we've been, I've, I've been to, uh, Dr. Lewis, his office. It's a state of the art facility, brand new facility. Amazing. Um, you've got a full basketball court in there for athletes to be able to train on and do specific drills there. Some other cool equipment that I didn't even recognize or know what it did, but it was awesome looking. Um, yeah, it's, it's amazing. It really is an amazing facility. And so, uh, Dr. Lewis has, is able to help a lot of, uh, patients that a lot of other doctors quite frankly, aren't able to help. And so, um, you know, hopefully if nothing else from this episode, what happens is you become less of the last resort and now more of a, Oh, you know, I'm just gonna put this away in the back of my head that if I notice this, we'll call Dr. Lewis in his office sooner or a, a, a vision development. A optometrist is, did I say that right? Vision. Developmental developmental optometrist. Right. So, um, any other final thoughts on this? Anything you want to share? Dr. Lewis? No, just thanks for your time and thanks for letting me come on. Yeah, no, awesome. It was awesome having you, man. Uh, yeah. If you guys know, uh, somebody that could benefit from this, share it with them. Subscribe to the podcast, uh, holler at Dr. Lewis. Uh, if you or someone you know, needs help and we'll talk to you guys on the next episode. Have a good one.

Speaker 2: (25:49)
Thanks for listening to the health fundamentals podcast. Be sure to subscribe so that you stay in the loop and in the note with all of the cutting edge health information that we share, if you know other people that could benefit from this information, please share it with them as well. Also, be sure to give us a review. These really help us to ultimately help more people. Last but not least, if you have questions that you want answered live on the show, or if you have ideas for topics that you would like us to cover, please shoot us an email and let us know at info@thehealthfundamentals.com.

Show Notes:

Speaker 1: (00:00)
Hey everybody, what's going on? Dr. Chad Woolner here. I'm Dr. Buddy Allen and this is episode 39 of the health fundamentals podcast. And on today's episode, we have our good friend and special guest, Brett Hughes with us. He's going to be talking with us about goals, transformation and modeling success. So let's get started.

Speaker 2: (00:16)
You're listening to the health fundamentals podcast. I'm Dr. Chad Woolner and I'm Dr. Buddy Allen. And this show is about giving you the simple but powerful and cutting edge tools you need to change your health and your life. So sit back and enjoy the show as we show you the path to your best life down to a science.

Speaker 1: (00:35)
All right, everybody. So we're super excited about today's episode. Um, we're not actually talking about modeling in terms of Brett as a model, although I'm sure you could be. No. Um, we're actually going to be talking with Brett here, uh, about a recent experience that he had, uh, with, uh, a really a significant transformation. But, uh, we wanted to kind of extrapolate that a little bit bigger in terms of, uh, not just physical health, but other areas of health as well and other areas of life. Um, because we were talking about this, uh, Brett, Brett and I actually go way, way back. We've known each other for golly, over a decade, haven't we? Yeah, it's been awhile. I think we met at Russell's. We did. We did like 10 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Well this was back in the day. Uh, so, so, so Brett is, we were saying just before the interview, Brett is an actual serial entrepreneur.

Speaker 1: (01:25)
Um, sometimes people like to use that term serial entrepreneur when they're just people that like to start things and not finish things. But bread actually starts things and finishes things. In fact, he's had a handful of extremely successful businesses right now. Uh, one of your businesses is Boise premiere real estate. Um, people who live here in the treasure Valley. You'd be blind not to know or hear about, uh, Boise premiere. You guys are one of the fastest growing brokerage firms, is that correct? Yeah, that's right. You might notice the lion signs. Yes. That's kind of like the distinguishing factor. Yeah, I know it's a great logo. So, uh, I guess to get started with, uh, maybe just give those who are listening or watching a little bit of a background, who you are, kind of what your story is. So, Oh man, it's one of those things like you, you don't know where it started, right? Like even when I was a little kid, I would wake up early and rake leaves if it was fall or I would, you know, deal with shovel walks or whatever if it was winter. So I was always just like an opportunistic kid. Sure. And I'd try to drag my friends or my brother who typically didn't want to be a part of it, right. Because even we were little kids, I would make him be the secretary.

Speaker 1: (02:30)
But that was the kind of the idea is like, I've just always been like financially motivated. And so I think even when I was attending Boise state, I started flipping some houses and I really liked real estate and I was cognizant that so many people had made so much money in real estate. So I really want to be a part of it. What'd you go to school for in Boise state business management. Okay. Okay. I started out in accounting because I was like, it's the ultimate language of business. I'm like, I've got to do it. But really quickly, I remember teachers like, Hey, Brett, stay after class today. I'm like, all right, cool. She's like, you're not an accountant. I'm like, all right, I appreciate that. Thank you. She's like, that was the intervention you needed. It really was asking some question like why would we keep track of this? And she's like, see me after class.

Speaker 1: (03:14)
You're not cut out for this. No. And I knew it wasn't. I just wanted to learn. Sure. No, no, no. That's good. Um, so fast forward now, uh, you had a really successful carpet cleaning business. That's kind of when we met. Right? Um, is that still an existence? He had told us still in existence. I sold it to my brother and he just, he runs that. But real estate has always been my thing. I actually went to that course cause I had to think of like one business in particular, which was challenging. And so I chose carpet cleaning, but it's never been my focus development, real estate brokerage and, and even like new construction has always been my big focus. And so in terms of, uh, w we'll just use this as a, a feather in your cap bragging moment. That's okay. We can kind of give you the [inaudible].

Speaker 1: (03:55)
What are some cool things, accomplishments and or accolades, things that Boise premier has done. It's one of the fastest growing, isn't it? Not. Yeah. Well, okay. So in real estate it's really challenging to start your own independent brokerage. But I was so dumb or naive that I didn't realize that would be such a challenge. So even in my business, sometimes ignorance can be a good thing in that regard. Right. You know, you don't have your own limiting beliefs getting in the way. 100 per seriously. Yeah. So I worked for a small brokerage downtown, an amazing broker, but it was one of those places where you just show up, you call her when you need a question and that's it. And so I thought brokerage looks like that, right? Cause that's, she had a bunch of agents all very similar to me. So when I started my own, I'm like, Whoa, these guys are needy.

Speaker 1: (04:36)
They need a lot of stuff. But, um, but I loved it and I really liked the, um, I love the agents. I love their entrepreneurial mindset. And so, you know, my first goal was 50 agents and then a certain number of transactions, and then it turned to a hundred and then it was 150 and now it's 200 and we're right at two a hundred right now. Wow. So, yeah, it's like, let's see, 10 years then it's like 10 years. But it was like, it's a lot like this transformation. It was the physical transformation. It was fun and it wasn't like dreadful in the, in the moment. But we're looking back on it. It would, I wouldn't want to do it again. Right. That's, that's how I look at Moe school. That's how I look at starting the practice. That's how I look at a lot of things.

Speaker 1: (05:14)
That's so true. So, so tell us kind of a little bit about your experience recently. You had a really cool experience with, uh, you know, uh, physical transfer, bicycle transportation, health, transportation, w tell us about kind of what sparked that in the first place and kind of the journey and the story. Okay. So my wife has done a couple of these. Okay. And she is extremely driven. Like when she sets out to do something, she does it. Okay. And so I was like watching what she was eating and her and her, um, exercise. And I was like, wow, this looks really hard. I wonder if I'm paused, if, if, if I could do it. So I just kind of put that in the back of my mind. And then we're in Hawaii. We go there each winter at a certain time. Like in January. Don't blame you.

Speaker 1: (05:52)
Yeah. Boise's cold. Yeah. Kind of January. And I remember we were at this beautiful waterfall. Okay. And there's this rope swing and I was doing these backflips and so I wanted to see the picture and the video. Okay. So the very first video I look at, I'm like, huh, that's a bad angle. I look kind of chubby and then I looked at this camera's doing weird things. Yeah. Is doing weird things. Cause as guys, we look in the mirror straight on, we don't look at the sides. Right? Right. And so I look at another picture and I'm like, wait a second. And then I asked my wife, I'm like, do I look like this? And she's like, yeah, why? And I'm like, Oh my gosh, I'm chubby. I didn't even know this. And I remember distinctly thinking like I'm a Boise state football fan, right?

Speaker 1: (06:30)
Yeah. I'm like, I'm six two, 205 pounds. That's like that's what an athlete it looks like. No, not exactly. My formation was much different than a rock solid, you know? And so it kind of like that was a spur where I'm like, okay, like you're getting older, this stuff, age is not going to like, you know, it takes everybody so you have to do something, otherwise you're going to be that guy. Right. And so that was kind of the catalyst for you? That was like the defining moment that, yes. And so what did you do at that point then? What did you decide? What did you, so I do the same thing every time. I'm trying to figure anything out, right? I want to find out who's done it successfully, who has been the smartest at it and who can actually help me. Okay. So for this one it was easy because I saw the transformation my wife made.

Speaker 1: (07:15)
Now she's always been in good shape, but she went to exceptional shape and so on. And I remember thinking like Eric at Mecca, he had a really good approach to it. So you could, you would track your macros, which is proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. And you wasn't like you to have the same thing every single day. You had some flexibility. Right. And Megan was drinking water the whole time. Like it wasn't like she was dehydrated or like unhealthy in any way. And then even after the competition he brought her back out slowly, like you reverse diet back out. And I thought it was like a really careful, thoughtful, um, approach. So I started working with him and when I first went there I was just kind of working out and getting stronger and getting better and then find that decided let's just do it. Let's just turn up the heat and see if we can, you know, if I can actually do one of these competitions.

Speaker 1: (07:59)
Right. So couple of things cause I want to talk about that competition. Um, you said something at the beginning of there that I think we need to kind of back up just a little bit so people can kind of pull some, some value out of this. Not just in terms of the physical value or physical transformation, but the, your first inclination was to find someone who already had a proven track record or a proven method. And that's what we mean by modeling. We were joking at the beginning about modeling, you know, yeah. As he let her style. Um, but, but, but this idea of modeling is a common denominator that you will find amongst the most successful people in just about any endeavor, whether it be physical health transformation, whether it be a mental or emotional health transformation, whether that be, uh, you know, improvements that they want to make in business or any other goals that people want to set and achieve.

Speaker 1: (08:54)
Um, you've got basically in general two choices. You can either forge that path and be a pioneer, good luck to you and more power to you. That's, that's amazing. Or the other approach that you took, which I think most people would find a wiser approach and a better expenditure and use of energy would be to find a proven method and just model that and do things more over. Um, when you really look at this, so many people actually look at themselves or think of themselves as I, you know, like I fit outside of this box of, um, it worked for him, but it probably won't work for me. Right. So I'm an exception. Yes. I'm the exception, not the rule when, what your saying is, it's absolutely the rule. Every time you've ever been successful, it's been, when you've found someone to model that was already successful, you do what they do and you get similar results.

Speaker 1: (09:46)
And just thinking about like how many years they've put in to their craft, there's no way I can catch up, right? Nope. So why don't I just pay them and get the result? Like it just seems so much easier. You know what's funny about that is, is that's my secret to success with fishing. Is that, uh, Albertson's, no, no, no. That's a really cut in the middle man. Now I'm not that bad up Noah. I've got a good buddy of mine out in Washington that, that buddy and I go, Dr. Allen and I go fishing with every year and he is a pro. I mean he is just, he is a seasoned pro. He's been doing it for, uh, two decades plus and you name it. He's, he knows how to catch it. And so we just go with him. And every time we go, we, we catch fish.

Speaker 1: (10:32)
It accelerates the learning process and makes it really easy for us. Instead. It's a lot more fun. So yeah. And it's a lot more fun. Instead of spending your time not catching anything, you actually go and catch stuff. So, uh, you know, at the end of the day, I think we're, we're, again, we're talking about this idea of, you know, how do you want to expend that energy and you could expend that energy in learning process and there's no Downing that for people if that's what they're want to do. You know, they want to really devote themselves to that process and uh, and, and do that, that there's, there's no shame in that or no problem in that. But for people who want to accelerate that, uh, whatever transformation you're looking for, um, a far more efficient, that's the word I would use as efficient approach is exactly what you did in what are the chances that you're going to be equally motivated as that guy to get the learning.

Speaker 1: (11:20)
Right. And I remember when I started wasting premiere, we, my business partner at the time, we basically split up five or six people that we would call and we would talk to them about their model and we made sure they're outside of our state so they didn't have any, they didn't care if we succeeded or failed. Right. And then we took the top two and visit him. So we actually went to Denver and Utah and we visited them and we looked at their location, what their office staff looked like, how they did it. And it was like, okay, just do what they did. Right. And so far so good. Yeah. I mean and making minor changes, but for the most part you're not reinventing the wheel. Right, right. That's huge. So tell us a little bit about the actual contest that you entered, kind of that experience.

Speaker 1: (11:57)
What was that like? What did you do to prepare for it? A little bit more detail there. Yeah, so it was interesting, like the actual working out is not that much different on a daily basis of what I did before. Okay. So it might be like 45 minutes to an hour or something like that. So not crazy. The diet was a little bit more challenging because I had a couple of really bad habits. One, I didn't have enough protein in my diet. So before I actually was cognizant of this has probably happened like 60 70 grams of protein a day. And for like, uh, you know, a male, you've got to have like at least our body weight and when you're trying to do something like this or trying to keep around 200 grams of protein. So that was a quick adjustment to, I love dr pepper.

Speaker 1: (12:35)
Well, one of those little cans is 42 carbs. Okay. So if you're only getting 150 carbs a day, what are the chances of you drink one by the way? Right? Pretty low. So you're wasting your energy and your, your carbs on these drinks. So it was kind of nice because something I didn't think I'd ever be able to kick the habit of. And I actually listened to one of your guys's podcasts on the addiction one and I was like thinking about some of the, just the things you do daily, daily, you know, so those were two big pieces. But the nice thing about the workouts is that they were programmed and so they're on like eight week or 16 week blocks. And so you don't think about that either. Like I don't know if it's going to be like three sets of two today or if it's going to be five sets of 50.

Speaker 1: (13:16)
I mean not that you would do that, but do you know what I mean? Like a program for you? Right. So that took some of the mental energy away from the whole process. You didn't have to expend that. You know, when, when I did CrossFit, that was one of the nice things that I liked about CrossFit was I would joke with people and say, I liked doing CrossFit cause I'm lazy. And that sounds paradoxical, but the thing that's nice about it is when you have somebody do the programming for you, um, that's just one. And, and, and you wouldn't think that that portion of, of the process is, is a big deal, but mental energy is a huge part of it. And you actually hit a really solid point is I think more people are way more capable of achieving these types of goals. But the problem is because they don't have a plan that's already laid out.

Speaker 1: (14:01)
Yes. What happens is, uh, they, they're great all day long. All right? They make good choices in the morning, all day long during work. And then by the time that the end of the day comes, they're beat down, they're tired, then maybe they're a little stressed. And at that point that there's actually a physical thing called decision fatigue where you start making poor decisions because you're just tired. And so if the decisions already made, if the plan is already there, it makes it infinitely more likely that you're going to achieve that goal because you don't even have to think about it. It's already there. It's kind of like a presetting up, the bumpers in bowling, you know, before you start bowling, you know you don't have the gutter that you're going to go into. It's just kinda like, yeah, you've got that, you know, plan in place to kind of keep you in that lane in that path.

Speaker 1: (14:48)
And it's fascinating too, cause you, you seeing food in a different way. It's more of like a fuel. You can still have fun with it and it's still good and everything. But I realized at night I would grab like a bowl of ice cream. Okay. Right. So, and it wasn't terrible. Ice cream wasn't like high fat. It was like actually like three and a half grams of fat. Not bad, but it's 30 cars. Right. We'll even a bowl of cereal. One cup of, of cereal is like 35 carbs. So if you're done for the day, like if you've had your 200 grams of protein, you've had your 150 carbs and you're at 60 grams of fat, well you can't have 30 more. Right. And you've logged it all in your phone, you know, you like, there's a bunch of like free apps for that. And it was just, it just took the decision making away, which was nice.

Speaker 1: (15:30)
Yeah, it was just one last thing you had to expend energy on and thinking about. Right. So what was the name of the competition that you enrolled in it? Was it a, was it a, it wasn't a bodybuilding competition was, what was it? So there is bodybuilding there. So it's like, it's called, those is called the Idaho cap. Okay. And so there's like serious bodybuilders and then there's like classic bodybuilders and then there's men's physique. So this is men's physique. So it's like, you know, it's like the lowest of that group, but you're going for a different look. Right. It's more of like the athletic lean look as opposed to like a big and writing. Yeah. You're not trying to put on a massive amount of size. Yeah. So, um, what are some other lessons that you learned from this whole experience and so many lessons for one.

Speaker 1: (16:13)
I know that's kind of an open ended broad question. I guess the biggest one, like specifically to this. Okay. Two things. One, it's another, um, it's another good experience of like success leading to more success. Right? So you've done something, you followed it, you could do it, right. Yeah. So that was nice. It's just, you're just compounding it now it's like, okay, what else could I do? Right. Which is great also for this particular piece as far as the physical, your relationship with food is very fascinating. Yeah, no doubt. Eat out of boredom. You eat out of debt. It's their stress stress in the way that the modern house is set up. The kitchen is usually a center point of any house, right? I mean, great rooms in particular. And so like you're like walking by the pantry and you're just like, Oh, what's in there.

Speaker 1: (17:01)
So it's just fascinating. Like even like our modern lifestyle. Yeah. You said something there that I want to touch on that I thought was really important. I'm a good friend of mine. Uh, he has a saying and I've loved, this is like stuck with me ever since I heard it. I just heard it. On a month ago. Um, he said, how you do one thing is how you do everything. And I think that's such an important point that you touched on there, that you know that again, you're using this as [inaudible]. And the term that I use a lot of times is personal legitimacy. You know, I'd say for a lot of us, that's something I think most people can relate to and struggle with is that our work, it's far easier to, for most people, to break their word to themselves than it is to another person.

Speaker 1: (17:40)
If I promised you something, it's gonna happen, you know, because that's my integrity that's on the line. That's my word on the line that, you know, but I can promise things to myself and no one's gonna know, you know, I can, I can, I can break those promises all day long. And so the, the point that you talk about, they're, they, how you do one thing is how you do everything. Meaning, you know, that you, you, you're going to use that success in other domains of your life as well as, uh, as fuel, as a catalyst, as evidence, uh, to really strengthen what we, what I call personal legitimacy, that, that when you say you're going to do something, it means something. There's, there's, there's teeth to that, you know, and this seriousness level stepped up once you signed up. Right, right. So it was like three months before and the three months is the hardest part because you're starting to like now you're lowering your carbs and it starting to become more challenging and, but there was like this not, it wasn't a carrot, it was like embarrassment.

Speaker 1: (18:35)
Right, right. And it's like, Oh I do not want to show up and be that guy. You know what I mean? So like the embarrassment level popped in cause you, you made a commitment and I made a, Kim came into my, to my friend who challenged me to do it, but then at the same time it was like, okay, now it's real. Right, right. Making things real. That's a huge part of it too. You know, cause I think for a lot of people to uh, you know, the, the saying easy come easy go, comes to mind, you know, that if you don't put some skin in the game, it's a lot easier to kind of back out of it, you know? Whereas when you, like you said it got real when you signed up, you know, so I know that it's been your, your experience with running Roby.

Speaker 1: (19:12)
Right. I despise running and I've always known I've tried it and I've done it lots of times and everyone always would say, Oh, once you do it enough, you're going to love it. I never ever found that love. Okay. That point. But I knew I needed to get better lungs and better kind of like you said, I'm getting older, I want to be able to keep up with my kids. And uh, it was one day I was like, I heard an advertisement or saw an advertisement. It's like Roby Creek signup is today. And I'm like, and it was like 10 minutes away. I'm like, Oh, well if I'm going to get better at running, I better sign up. I mean I need some, I need some motivation. And what's funny about that is you didn't have any clue at that time how difficult it is to actually get into it.

Speaker 1: (19:49)
And you're like, I've never, never run a race in my life. Anytime sells out in like seven minutes. And part of me saying I'm going to sign up for it. I was thinking, I'm not going to get in. Cause everyone said it was so hard and when I hit enter and it says, Oh, congratulations. I'm like, Oh crap. What? Like a real, real quick. Yeah, no, no, no. So yeah, I could feel your pain there. Yeah. So, um, you know, I know you're a busy guy, Brett, and so we appreciate you being here with us today. Uh, I think you've shared, you know, it's, it's, it's interesting when we first invited you on the podcast, you know, this is this being the health fundamentals podcast. I think for people, if they knew who you were, they'd be like, well yeah, he's a real estate broker.

Speaker 1: (20:28)
What does that have to do with health? You know? But I think there's a lot that we can draw from, not just this experience, but other business experiences that you've had in terms of, uh, some powerful life lessons that I think people can take and utilize. And so I'm hoping that for those either watching or listening, they gleaned some nuggets that I think are here for them to take. You know, you shared some really profound wisdom, uh, that I think could really change a lot of people's lives. And so we hope that that's, you know, for those listening, for that one person, that, that hears just that one thing that they need just to make that, that little shift or big shift in their life, whatever it is, um, for a dramatic difference for them. I think you've, you've, you've shared a lot of great stuff.

Speaker 1: (21:06)
Um, any closing thoughts, Dr. Allen bread? Anything you want to include? Any, any favorite sayings for life? Any words of wisdom and partying? Tom, man, I should've thought about this. I love reading. I mean, I really liked the compound effect. Oh man. The whole idea of like, I mean, there's so many good books. I can think of, but as far as a parting gift is just like when I think of the compound effect, it's like remember the spot where they have the three people? Yes. The one who makes the slight improvement, the one who does nothing. And the one who makes a negative improvement, right? Or negative, whatever you said, some sort of negative thing. And it's like you can't tell anything after a year. You can barely tell anything after two years, but it was three years where they all separate. Right. And I just think about that.

Speaker 1: (21:45)
Like that's, that's the whole fundamental, but I'm trying to do, like, I'm not going to beat anyone being the fastest or strongest whatever, but I've been really consistent throughout the years and that's where I can win, you know? And I think that's where anyone can win is just by being consistent. You know, it's, it's, it's powerful that you end on that because our mantra, uh, on the health fundamentals podcast, this whole podcast is based around what we call five fundamentals of health. The first being that health comes from the inside. The second being what you just said there, that we're going to be, we're going to be most likely to achieve whatever it is we want with our health. When our approach is one of simplicity and consistency, it's huge. You know, and then it goes on from there. But that, but that's really it. You know, what you're talking about here is so in harmony and we and you didn't even know that. So that was like perfect. So, um, anyways, uh, hope this has been valuable for you guys and if you know other people that could benefit from this or other episodes, obviously subscribe to the podcast, share it with them and we look forward to sharing with you more. Great information moving forward on the next episode and even more to come. So thanks again, uh, to Brett here for being with us. We'll talk to you guys later.

Speaker 2: (22:49)
Thanks for listening to the health fundamentals podcast. Be sure to subscribe so that you stay in the loop. And in the note with all of the cutting edge health information that we share, if you know other people that could benefit from this information, please share it with them as well. Also, be sure to give us a review. These really help us to ultimately help more people. Last but not least, if you have questions that you want answered live on the show, or if you have ideas for topics that you would like us to cover, please shoot us an email and let us know at info@thehealthfundamentals.com.

Show Notes:

Speaker 1: (00:00)
Hey everybody, what's going on? Dr. Chad Woolner here. I'm Dr. Buddy Allen and this is episode 38 of the health fundamentals podcast. And on today's episode, we are here with our good friend and special guests, Dr. Chuck riddle. And he's going to be talking with us about balance and the vestibular system. So let's get started.

Speaker 2: (00:15)
You're listening to the health fundamentals podcast. I'm Dr. Chad Woolner and I'm Dr. Buddy Allen. And this show was about giving you the simple but powerful and cutting edge tools you need to change your health and your life. So sit back and enjoy the show as we show you the path to your best life down to a science.

Speaker 1: (00:35)
So, Hey everybody, uh, we want to welcome our good friend, dr Chuck riddle here with us. Thanks for being here with us, Dr. Riddle. Thanks. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Yeah. Um, so we go back quite a ways. In fact, it's been a while since we last chatted. Uh, a lot has changed over the years. Um, but, uh, Dr. Riddle and I, um, Kelly hasn't been nearly 10 years ago, almost 10 years, almost a decade. Um, we started working together, uh, collaborating with patients. Uh, it was a lot of fun to be able to, uh, to refer patients over to him and get referrals back. And, um, there was definitely some overlap in terms of what he did and what we did, but obviously his expertise and experience in physical therapy, uh, came in handy for a lot of the more challenging cases in those realms where we just needed some, uh, some help and maybe even another set of eyes to look at those things. But, uh, so we kind of go way, way, way back. But, um, obviously your story starts even further back from there. So for those watching, uh, I guess the first question maybe tell us a little bit about your story in terms of what got you into physical therapy in the first place. Obviously your physical therapist, um, over at I can, uh, I can be is that I can physical therapy. Um, so kind of give us a synopsis of, of where your story begins.

Speaker 3: (01:49)
Um, it goes way back to when I was in high school and junior high. I was very active. Um, I had some health issues at the time, specifically with running and, uh, saw a few physicians that really made, made my life kind of difficult. Um, I was hoping to go to med school and that was my plan. And, uh, in the end, um, had a couple of bad experiences that drove me towards physical therapy instead. And, uh, so went to high school, college under that same guys and ended up going all the way through and finishing a doctoral degree in physical therapy.

Speaker 1: (02:19)
You know, it's funny because it, it, uh, sounds very reminiscent of so many chiropractic stories that we, you know, uh, some pivotal experience or a set of experiences that people have either in high school or in college that really shape, uh, you know, in a very powerful way that future for them. And so you could literally insert, had an experience with a chiropractor and you, you know, it sounds so similar to so many other stories that we hear. So, uh, you know, one of the reasons why we've always loved working with Chuck over the years is that, um, and, and I know, uh, people paint chiropractors with broad brushes as well, but, but sometimes we paint physical with the broad brush of, you know, so often one of the primary complaints that we hear, uh, about physical therapists is, is that it's nothing more than like a glorified gym experience where you've got a babysitter who hands you a sheet of exercises, they go off in the corner. They do that. I'm sure you hear this too from people who didn't like their previous physical therapist. Um, Chuck obviously takes a far more hands on approach with his patients and does things maybe for those watching. Uh, what would you say are some of the key differences between your approach, uh, versus that kind of unfortunately stereotypical approach?

Speaker 3: (03:36)
Yeah, I, yeah. Unfortunately, a lot of physical therapists do have a bad name because they set people up on timers. Do this thing for a couple minutes and I'll come back to you. People get lost in the mix. And even people that I know, here's your sheet, go to it and get it done and, and we'll see you in 30 minutes. That's not our approach. It never has been my personal approach. Want to be there every minute with every patient talking with them through the process. Uh, it's very important when you're doing the things the way we do it. Um, and making sure that every posture, every exercise, every repetition is completed properly so that it's not just another exercise at the gym.

Speaker 1: (04:09)
Yeah, it's funny you say that cause I've had a patients that they'll say, I can do that at home. You know, someone you can hand me something, I can do that at home. I can go and do that to the gym. Uh, but to have someone sitting there saying, well, maybe you could, but I'm going to make sure you're doing it correctly or make sure you're activating the right muscles. Stretching the right area, whatever it might be. So that's a, that's kind of a, a major part of why you would need to see a professional is, am I doing it correctly in the first place? Right. And, and that's the key, right? What you said there is, it's not just the what of what's being done, it's the how. And that's why you're paying a professional, like a doctor of physical therapy is not for the what necessarily, but more so for the how important.

Speaker 1: (04:53)
We've all seen the funny videos on YouTube of people doing crazy exercises using equipment completely wrong. Right? So, uh, yeah, so people say, I know what I'm doing. And then you watch them at the gym and you're like, mm, maybe not. Exactly. Maybe not. Yeah. So one kind of key area, uh, that you really specialize in or focus on, uh, is balance and stability or the vestibular system. So, uh, let's first kind of maybe for those watching put in plain English, what we mean by the vestibular system and then talk kind of the importance of balance and how you focus on that.

Speaker 3: (05:28)
So the vestibular system is made up of a couple of different parts in your brain, obviously eyes, ears, and then your body and all of these parts communicate together. And if you imagine that there's kind of a traffic cop in your head telling you what is and isn't appropriate, um, it has to bring in your eyes and say, okay, what do I see? What do I, what, what's on the horizon for me? The ears tell me about movement. And then your body tells you about whether or not you're positioned or planted in space. And when those three parts correctly, you get upright balance. You get the ability to stand, walk, sit, comfortably tolerate movement patterns. If not, then you're tipping over and people wake up. You know, occasionally with that, that old spinning thing going on. If there's something that confuses your brain, like alcohol for example, you get the spins, you've heard of that before. And that's because there's some kind of confusion in that system. So your vestibular system gives you all of that information together and organizes it, analyzes it, and allows you to progress and function.

Speaker 1: (06:29)
What are some of the most common, uh, vestibular disturbance issues that you see in your practice? We see a lot of [inaudible]

Speaker 3: (06:37)
of, um, BPPV which has benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. Um, we're pretty close to a couple of primary care clinics I should say. And um, so people come in, they wake up with the spins. Like I said, they wake up just completely dizzy for a variety of reasons. And with a few simple maneuvers, we're able to get them back on track. Um, also as people age, they tend to lose balance. They tend to lose the ability to be active for whatever reason, health function or physical maladies. And so we help those individuals also restore normal balance, uh, to be more active.

Speaker 1: (07:11)
Yeah. But, you know, balance is such a, I think unsung or underlooked or over under overlooked. I'm not sure which, uh, uh, keys to overall health and function. You know, I, I don't know if you had heard of that, uh, Brazilian study that was published, uh, Kelly five, 10 years ago, something like that. The sitting, rising test, um, where basically what this test predicted was your mortality in the next five years. Basically what they did, the abbreviated version of the test, it's far more sophisticated than that what I'm saying here. But they basically assessed, could you stand and then go from a standing position to a sitting position and then a sitting position to a standing position without significant assistance or help, significant shaking, faltering, uh, balance problems or whatever. And what he found was those who scored in the lowest tier, it was a score out of 10 basically is how they scored it.

Speaker 1: (08:02)
And you're familiar with what I'm talking about, obviously. Um, and what they found was those who scored in lowest, the likelihood of them dying within the next five years was like way high. It was frightening. I mean it was scary. And, and, and the point was, without getting into the minutia or the specifics of it is the point is balance is such a huge part of our overall health and function. And, uh, and, and what we've, what we've said in our practice, cause we look at balance in a pretty simple way, um, is, is balanced, is one of the most simple windows into looking at how the brain is communicating with the body and the body with the brain. And so assessing balance and helping people restore balance to you know, full function or as close to full function as possible, um, is such a, again, I think overlooked thing that that sometimes happens, you know, with health and with well, and moreover when you look at a lot of people will look at their balance.

Speaker 1: (09:00)
Um, as they get older they're like, Oh, I've always had bad balance or my balance is getting worse or I've never been able to touch my toes. And, and it's kind of funny to be able to show people and you very much like us, we get to say, just because you haven't been able to do it doesn't mean you can't do it. They act like it's like this one, a road they've or a door they've gone through that they can't turn around and walk back through. Right. Life is just this inevitable decline, you know, cause so often we get sold that, right? Yeah. Bye bye. Bye. [inaudible] doctors, they tell us, you know, like you're just getting old either. Exactly. It's just, it's just part of aging and it just kind of like, that's like the catchall excuse for things that we don't, we're too late on the stand or lazy or too lazy to take the time to dig in further and figure those things out, you know, sink into the recliner. Right, right. Exactly. So, so what are some things, I mean in general, obviously we could talk for hours and hours, but what are some things that you do specifically to help people address balance issues? Obviously you talked a little bit about BPPV, you talked about some maneuvers and things like that, but other areas for balance. What are some, some general or specific things that you guys do to help?

Speaker 3: (10:06)
Uh, we do, we do a whole series of exercises including gait analysis to make sure that the, the patients we see are functioning as high as they can. Um, the research you're alluding to research, a lot of the research suggests that as our current baby boomers age, um, the number one predictor of, of mortality as you described is going to be a fall. And so we, we assess falls. There's about a dozen different tools that we use. Um, the timed up and go, um, turnaround tests, uh, standing tests as you said, the sit to stand test, um, that give us an idea about how your balance is. And then with eye exercises, standing exercises, even some sitting exercises, we can help them restore balance. Um, there's, there's some great stuff out there that we use. So we took a class, like I said a little bit ago and, um, we, we've been really successful with a lot of the aging population that we see. Um, we, we hope to make a change for them because that's going to be kind of the wave of the future is making sure everybody has decent balance.

Speaker 1: (11:01)
Yeah. And, and, and, and you think about such a fundamental component of function that would allow people to enjoy those years. You know, that's the irony that I see so often is that people delay and put off and make so many sacrifices for this period of time in life, you know, retirement, you know, the golden years or whatever. And we wind up seeing far too often that those are anything but golden for people that unfortunately, uh, those years are, are again, that slow and steady decline for people. And so that's got to feel or be extremely rewarding for you to see, uh, the impact that you're making in terms of helping people enjoy that time in their life. You know, at least for that population. I haven't seen, no, that's not the only population that you see with, with balance issues too. I'm, I'm assuming you probably see athletes as well and things like that

Speaker 3: (11:51)
as though young people that when they can't jump, all of a sudden they can, they're like, yeah, I can jump again. The, you know, the aging population, when they can do something they haven't done for five years, it makes a huge difference to them. They're very thankful for that.

Speaker 1: (12:02)
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, that's important. So anyways, uh, what, let's kind of wrap up with, with one last question for you. What's one thing about what you do that's maybe a huge misnomer that would surprise people about physical therapy or at least your approach with physical therapy?

Speaker 3: (12:21)
I think the biggest, the biggest thing I see is that people come into physical therapy with the concept of I'm going to hurt. And I'm literally the biggest side effect that we can report as a physical therapist. A profession is pain, however, it's intentional pain and it's like peeling off a bandaid. You know, you've got an injury, it's got to heal, we have to cover it and keep it clean. But at some point you got to peel that bandaid off and essentially we're peeling the bandaid off to let you heal and go and do. So it may hurt a little bit, but we're going to make it fun. We're gonna make it enjoyable. We're going to probably feed you while you're at, uh, at our office. Um, and, uh, we're gonna, we're going to keep this thing really lively for you so you're not going to notice it. Like go into the gym and sweating it out at 5:00 AM this is a, this is a different experience,

Speaker 1: (13:04)
right? No, and that's good. And we've seen, we've seen what Chuck does. He makes sure that the environment there is a really inviting and friendly environment. So it's a lot of fun. And it's interesting on that note, you know, talking about pain, uh, we have such a different concept when it comes to pain. A very, I would say very unhealthy relationship obviously with pain here, uh, in, in the Western hemisphere and the Western hemisphere. You know, obviously as evidenced by the opioid epidemic that we see. Um, I, I had a friend of mine who lived quite some time in Taiwan and he said over in Taiwan, there was like this philosophy that they had where a small amount of pain on a daily basis, they equated to good health is what they, you know, if you didn't feel some sort of pain in, and especially with like therapeutic interventions, like the more painful the process was, the better it was for you is what they truly, I mean that's, they equate that like that's a sign that you're alive.

Speaker 1: (13:59)
You know what I mean? And that's something that that Dr. Allen has said a lot, you know, with, with patients that he sees too, is it's like, look, if you're not feeling some sort of pain, your dad, you know, T T to live life is to feel a, a, a wide palette of sensations, pain being one of them, you know? And so I think that's a misnomer. I think that we see too sometimes that I go and I see the chiropractor or the physical therapist for that matter. Therefore I should never feel any pain the rest of my life. Oh, what Dr. Riddle did, didn't work. I'm feeling pain again. It's like that's part of life to a certain extent, you know,

Speaker 3: (14:35)
but some point I can get a whole bunch of rash on the front of me from laying on the beach cause that would be

Speaker 1: (14:40)
yeah, that's right. I know, right. Ain't no brain. I like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So anyhow, well, uh, dr [inaudible], we know you're a busy guy and we appreciate you taking time out of your schedule to be here with us. Um, uh, for those who want to be able to get ahold of you, maybe they've got further questions about balance or vestibular system or anything else for that matter of physical therapy related, what would be the best way for people to reach out to you?

Speaker 3: (15:02)
Yup. I can t.com I can check us out on Facebook and um, and go check out our website. We do offer free consultations. Uh, they're quick, but we'll make sure you get at least some information. So

Speaker 1: (15:12)
cool. Awesome. And we'll make sure in the show notes that we get, uh, everybody your contact information there. So just a quick link that they can click on if they have any questions for you or anything. And he's not too far from us for those who are watching. We're a local, um, he's just down the road, uh, Eagle and Overland and, uh, so yeah, so again, thanks a ton for being here with us. Has been a ton of fun kind of reconnecting. We haven't chatted in quite some time, so it's been good. Good getting to see you again and uh, anyways, uh, yeah, we're looking forward to sharing more with you guys. Hopefully this has been valuable. Share this with others who you think could benefit. If you know, friends who maybe have some balance issues that they may be, are looking for answers towards or uh, or maybe they're just looking for a really awesome physical therapist. Uh, dr Chuck has our endorsement, uh, hands-down. So, uh, thanks again guys, uh, for watching or listening and we'll talk to you on the next episode.

Speaker 2: (16:01)
Thanks for listening to the health fundamentals podcast. Be sure to subscribe so that you stay in the loop and in the note with all of the cutting edge health information that we share, if you know other people that could benefit from this information, please share it with them as well. Also, be sure to give us a review. These really help us to ultimately help more people. Last but not least, if you have questions that you want answered live on the show, or if you have ideas for topics that you would like us to cover, please shoot us an email and let us know at info@thehealthfundamentals.com.