There is an expression that describes a moment in your life when the truth is very clear, a turning point in your life, a time of insight, an epiphany.  “Come to Jesus.”  It can be about anything, a relationship, school, work, addiction...anything.  Obviously it can mean just what it says, a time to come to Jesus.  But for the next page it is about health.  Have you ever had a “come to Jesus” moment?  I’ve had two that I will share.  The first was when I was 16 at the long-gone Melody-land Church in Anaheim.  I walked up to the front of this 70’s megachurch and became a Christian that day.  Come to Jesus in the most literal sense.  22 years later at the age of 39 I had another come to Jesus moment while driving my family to Lake Mead.  Many of you have heard this story, but it’s worth reliving.  Please read on…

            At 39 I had been a chiropractor for 13 years but had yet to personally and fully embrace my own teachings.  You might call me a hypocrite.  You would be correct.  I taught health but what I did could be called lazy and fat.  I also ignored my own growing spinal problems which significantly limited my ability to do anything physical, not that I did much.  So, I was driving my family that Memorial weekend when I felt a pain in my chest and dizziness in my head.  I managed to pull the car over to the side of the road and get it in park just before I passed out.  To keep a long story short, we went to the E.R. and subsequently to my medical doctor.  I did not have a heart attack.  No diagnosis was ever made.  I had a shot across the bow, a near miss.  Perhaps Jesus really did play a role in this second come to Jesus moment of my life.  I cannot say.  But it was at that moment that I committed to my personal health.  My life has since been transformed.

            When Christians literally come to Jesus they often comment how their lives are changed.  When I embraced Christianity at the age of 16 my outward life didn’t change much at all.  I was and still remain a very conservative person with a controlled life.  But when I embraced health at the age of 39 everything in my physical life changed.  15 years later I am thinner, more active, eat better, have more energy, greater mobility, and have less pain.  Although I am hardly the ultimate model of health and wellness, I consider myself a better than adequate example of how to live a healthy life.  As a general rule any time I recommend you to do something for your health I am already doing it.  Some examples are weekly adjustments, daily disc-pump exercises, periodic deep tissue, regular exercise, weight control, dietary restraint, supplementation, water consumption, stress management. 

            I give every patient in my office a detailed explanation of the subluxation, of how inflammation and scar tissue cause pain and spinal degeneration.  I teach my three-tool-method of treatment to restore spinal function and reduce inflammation and scar tissue, thereby moving you further from pain and slowing degeneration.  Some of you just want to feel better and move on.  And some of you want something longer lasting but life just gets in the way.  And then some of you have your own health come to Jesus moment and stay forever.  It took me 39 years to have my own so I will never criticize you for your own decisions.  But I have been here for you since 1991, and will continue to be for another 20+ years, Jesus willing.     

PAIN TOLERANCE is not the same thing as PAIN THRESHOLD.  Threshold is when we feel it.  Tolerance is how we react to it.  In the movie Lone Survivor, with Mark Wahlberg, we see the story of Marcus Luttrell, Navy Seal, and his team in Afghanistan.  If you have seen the movie or read the book this is the highest example of trained pain tolerance, continuing to fight, move, and function with multiple wounds and fractures.  It is unbelievable.   

            But pain threshold, our topic, is first and foremost genetically programmed in.  It is when your nervous system senses that something is wrong, or when your brain starts paying attention to it.  Even though it is programming, that programming is also highly influenced by things such as your emotional state, diet, activity level, medical conditions, sleep, even weather.  In other words your pain threshold varies over the course of a day, and certainly over a lifetime.  It is for this reason that pain is NOT a MEASUREMENT of your health status.  It is an INDICATOR .  This is why I can’t use it as a measurement of your health.  Let me give you an example.

            Jerry has chest pain that gets worse when he is emotionally stressed, when he exerts himself, when he has had a poor night’s sleep, and when he drinks too much coffee.  When he is calm he may have no pain at all.  These are his symptoms or subjective findings based upon his own personal pain thresholds.  His cardiologist discovers 90% occlusion of 2 arteries in Jerry’s heart.  His EKG is abnormal.  His cholesterol is high.  While chest pain is a bad indicator and no chest pain is a good indicator, it would be beyond stupid to use chest pain as a measurement of the status of the underlying cause of Jerry’s chest pain, which in this case is heart disease.

            And so it is with the spine.  Back and related pains such as neck pain, headaches, arm/leg pain are indicators, not measurements.  The thresholds for these pains will vary with the time of day, emotions, diet, sleep, exercise, too much coffee, not enough wine, weather, etc.  That is why we MUST use measurements, not indicators to know how your spine is doing.  Range of motion, inflammation levels(TSV), and complicating factors, as you know, are the three measurements I use to monitor the health of your spine.  I never use your pain to measure your spine, just as I never use my pain to measure my spine.  It is bad doctoring to ever use an indicator as a measurement tool.   

            Having said that, just like Jerry is certainly welcome to use his chest pain as a measurement and ignore his doctor, you too can use your back pain as a measurement and ignore your doctor.  The consequence for Jerry is his life.  The consequence for you is your mobility.  I can only speak for myself when I say that my future mobility as I move into my 60’s and beyond IS my life, and I plan to hold on to as much of it as I can.  What about you?      

 

             

How do we get sick?

Overwhelming Attack – This is when we get hit by an extremely virulent germ or such great quantity of germs that the healthiest of us is likely to get sick.  For example, if you are exposed to Ebola you are going to get sick.  If you have 10 people with a cold sneeze in your face you are probably going to get sick. 

Underwhelming Immune System – This is by far the more common pathway to illness.  We are all constantly exposed to low levels of flu viruses, cold viruses, and other pathogenic viruses and bacteria.  You have more bacteria in your mouth at this moment than the total number of all the humans who have lived on planet earth, many billions, and that’s just in your mouth.  99.9% of germs are not disease causing, and some are synergistic.  We need those in order to survive.  For example, humans cannot digest vitamin B12.  We require a bacterium to process it for us in our gut so that we can absorb it.  Without that bacteria, we would eventually die of pernicious anemia (the end result of vitamin B12 deficiency).

But there is that .1% hanging around, present all the time, just waiting for an opportunity.  They are called opportunistic infections.  This last week for me is the perfect example of the Underwhelming Immune System infection.  Last weekend my wife and I spent the weekend at her mother’s (Pat) in Nevada.  I have grown to love my Sleep Number bed but the negative effect is that I hate all other beds.  So, Friday night in Pat’s guest room bed was a horrible experience, leaving me with only 3 hours sleep.  That’s just not enough for an old guy like me.  In the morning I went for a hike and then began 6 straight hours of labor in her garage reorganizing the entire thing.  In the afternoon, the hot Nevada sun was streaming through the door and by the end of the afternoon I was completely spent. 

Perhaps Saturday night could have rejuvenated me, but I was only able to finagle 5 hours sleep that night making it 8 hours over 2 nights.  By Sunday morning I was done.  Whatever virus that has attached my throat (pharynx) and my voice box (larynx), was likely already hanging around waiting for the right opportunity.  And I provided it.  I did not catch this from anyone and it is unlikely that I would give it to anyone either, being an opportunistic germ.  But since you might not be at tiptop form right now, like me over the weekend, I will wear a mask.

Preventing illness starts with rest, time for your body to recover from each day, and continues with exercise, proper diet, and plenty of water.  These are the most important basics that we should all be working on every day.  

               

             

I’m sure you have heard the saying, “A failure to plan is a plan to fail.”  I guess the maker of this aphorism is telling us to plan stuff or stuff won’t get done.  Perhaps he could have said, “Plan stuff or stuff won’t get done.”  Not as eloquent I suppose, but let’s talk about some health stuff.  If you’re in your 20’s, or if you remember when you were in your 20’s, you probably didn’t give a lot of thought to your health, right?  Well, let me tell you a story.  My nearly 80 year old mother-in-law spent the summer with us and at that age, her health is almost the only thing she thinks about, or should I say her lack of health is nearly the only thing she thinks about.  She talks about it constantly.  She repeats the same thought about her lack of health over and over.  My wife sometimes will put a handful of bobby pins in one pocket and transfer them to the other pocket, one at a time with each comment her mom makes about her health.  At the end of the day the first pocket will be empty and there may be more than 20 or 30 bobby pins in the second pocket.  Conclusion: Something seems to happen between the age of 20 and the age of 80 where health goes from a non-issue to the overriding issue.  Does it really need to be that way?

            Good health is not an accident.  It requires an investment of time and energy about which I have written 139 previous articles discussing.  Health topics include things such as diet, exercise, nutrition, supplementation, chiropractic, massage therapy, homeopathy, acupuncture, relaxation, meditation, flexibility, strength, aerobics, core, endurance, etc. etc.  But to make it super simple I am going to boil it down to just two things, “Just One More Thing” and “The Rule of Ones.”  The first is the plan to succeed, and the second, the plan to not fail.  If you employ these simple two concepts as early in your life as possible you may get to your 80’s with enough health such that you can think about something else other than your lack of it.  And you’ll keep the bobby pins in the first pocket.

            JUST ONE MORE THING – This concept is so simple.  Pick just one thing to add to your health/wellness regimen.  It could be something easy or something hard.  And then do it until it becomes a routine part of your day/week.  It could be drinking more water or taking a new vitamin or exercising or adjustments or disc pump exercises or anything.  You pick.  And once it has become a routine part of your day/week, add one more thing.  This way you are never biting off more than you can chew and increasing your chance of success.  You set the pace.

            THE RULE OF ONES – This goes hand in hand with the above rule.  It says that whatever the “just one more thing” is that you are doing, that you will not let “ONE” week go by without doing that thing “ONE” time…the rule of ones.  Taking a vitamin or engaging in an exercise one time during a week is not success, but the rule acts as a stop gap to avoid failure.  If you miss one week you are likely to miss a second week and if you miss 2 weeks you have almost certainly failed.

So, two sides of the same coin.  Just One More Thing to layer health activities on top of each other over a lifetime to be healthy for a lifetime.  The Rule of Ones to prevent failure.  A plan to succeed and a plan to not fail.  This is how you make resolutions.

Perhaps you might remember the original Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory’s Veruca Salt, and her exclamation, “but I want it nowwwww!”  If you are even a little bit like Veruca, prepare yourself because you are not going to like to read about me and my spine.  I am going to use my own story to show you what being a patient patient means. 

            I became a chiropractor at the age of 26.  Many chiropractors go into our profession because they were helped by one.  I was not, but my wife’s daily relentless headaches were.  I was impressed, so here I am.  Although I did get adjusted in my 20’s and 30’s I did not become serious about my own spine until I was disabled by it at the age of 39.  It was Memorial Day 2000 when it all came to a head.  There is much more to this story than we have the space for, but at that time I could not take a step on my right leg without a severe sharp pain in my right hip, along with constant aching pain in my right leg and foot.  My family at the time was playing a fair amount of tennis, which I could not do.  I could barely walk, let alone run.  At the time I feared this was forever.  Finally, after 13 years of giving advice to patients, I began to take my own advice.  I started Initial Intensive Care with frequent adjustments and deep tissue therapy. 

            It would take months of attention before the pain slowly faded from a 3-4 on my 1-4 scale to a 1-2.  I continued with my weekly adjustments and intermittent deep tissue therapy.  I began a, now, 14 year long commitment to weight loss and weight management, aerobic exercise, supplementation, and hydration.  I changed every aspect of my health behavior slowly incorporating one change after another.  Despite years of continuous care my right leg would vary from a 0 to a 2.  I was happy for the 0’s, accepting of the 1’s, and frustrated when a 2 came around.  No 3’s thankfully.

            For reasons and circumstances beyond the space here I began a running program.  In March 2009 while out for my morning run I felt what I can only describe as a tapping at my L5 vertebra with every step.  When I walked it stopped.  When I ran it tapped.  So I walked home and within 2 hours my back was frozen and so weak I could literally not stand without holding myself up with a large walking stick.  Three more months of intensive care.  More deep tissue therapy.  Recovery from this injury came over the spring and summer.  I only missed one day of work by sheer force of will, not because I was ready to adjust patients.

            As much for myself as for you, I developed what I now call my Disc Pump Exercises.  I have been doing these for 3-4 years now and as a result of my positive experience, have incorporated them into what I call my Three Tool Model of treatment.  I attribute my newly-found stabilization to the combination of ALL THREE tools, weekly adjustments, daily disc pump exercises, and deep tissue therapy every month or two (it should be monthly but I’m working on that). 

            In all it has taken me 14 years, perhaps 1,000 adjustments, scores of hours of deep tissue therapy, and 3-4 years of near daily disc pump exercises to achieve the greatest stability my spine has experienced since this mess all started while driving through Victorville in 2000.  My last aggravation was a minor one just before last Christmas. 

            And what have I learned?  1) Patience.  2) It takes complete devotion to all three treatment tools to get maximum results.  3) I should have taken my own advice long before I was 39.  4) You can never fix the spine, or any joint, just improve and manage it, but you can do so very successfully with the right treatment, enough time, and, again, patience, my patients.      

I never really liked kids…until I had one.  My daughter was born in 1984.  By then I had been married for 4 years.  I was in my second year of chiropractic college.  I had my B.S. degree in Biology from UC Irvine.  My wife and I had many friends in similar stages of life.  Some had children.  Some didn’t.  I just didn’t see the magic.  I didn’t want to play with their kids.  I wasn’t really sure I wanted one.  I knew it was an inevitability that we would have one someday.  It wasn’t that I didn’t want one, it was just that I wasn’t sure that I did want one… very different.  Truth be told before we were even married, my wife and I had picked out a name for a girl, Kira, from a really bad movie with Gene Kelly and Olivia Newton John, Xanadu.  No boy’s name. 

            February 1984.  We found out my wife, Diana, was pregnant.  How did that happen?!  Fast forward to October 12, 1984.  Kira is born…and…BAM!!  I am completely smitten by her.  It’s like falling in love in a different way than I have ever fallen in love before.  This has happened 4 times in my life.  The first was Grad Night 1978.  Within a month of that fateful date I’m asking Diana, “What would you think if I asked you to marry me?”  Perhaps not the most romantic proposal, but at 17 years of age, who knows what romance is?!  The second was when Kira was born.  The third was my son, Ricky.  And the fourth, as most of you know, was when my grandson, Jackjack, came to life. 

            But that first child changed everything.  I got to know just how precious children are.  I got to know just how much of a responsibility it is to care for them, to love them, to treasure them, to protect them.  I got to know what a truly full heart feels like.  And along the way I discovered that every baby I hold, every child I tease, every kid I quiz about his or her school or favorite video game, every wonderful hug I get fills my heart just a little.  And every time it fills up, more room is added to ladle in more love. 

            In 1987 I earned my license to practice chiropractic in the state of California.  The great thing about what I do is that I can make my practice look like anything I want.  I wanted to incorporate children in it.  But to do so I needed to learn alot more, and so I did.  The Peter Pan Potential is a series of pediatrics training courses for chiropractors.  The Pediatrics Council of the International Chiropractors Association offers a chiropractic diplomate program in pediatrics.  I underwent a year of that particular training. 

            And right after that training patient zero happened, my son, Ricky.  This is 1991 now, and Ricky the 2 year old has a raging left sided ear infection.  Otoscopic evaluation of the right side is completely normal.  Left side is red, bulging, angry.  He’s crying.  Fever.  I had learned from Dr. Joan Fallon how to handle this, so I did just what she trained me to do, I adjusted the joint between the base of Ricky’s skull and his neck.  No exaggeration, his left ear was completely clear and normal the next morning. 

            And from there it has gone on and on and on.  Hundreds of kids, many on my wall, all a little or a perhaps alot healthier.  They are fun to play with, fun to work with, and just a joy to be a part of their life.

            But what always will mean the most to me is the moment when a parent hands over their greatest treasure, their child, to my hands, and demonstrates the ultimate trust in me to do what I think is best for their child.  Each of these moments is the greatest honor of my life.  Thank you.

WHY SHOULD I DO THE DISC PUMP EXERCISES?

In a word…EFFICIENCY.

Everything has its value.  Imagine that everything that touches your life has a sticky note attached to it with a number from 1 to 10, connoting its value.  Your grandchild is a 10.  The neighbor’s yapping dog in the middle of the night a 0.  What about your car?  Your favorite Christmas ornament?  Your cell phone?  Your spouse?  Your chiropractor?  All 10’s right?  What about your health?  10.  What about your time? 10.

I’m the same as you, so as I have been refining The Lindwall Method over the years I have always looked to balance my time and my health.  I say “my” time and “my” health because I am my first patient.  I am the Guiney pig.  I only pass on to you, my second but vastly more important patient, what I have first approved for myself, my own spine, my own health.  If I need it so do you.  If I don’t need it neither do you.  Why would I give you something that I don’t need?  That would be a waste of your time.  I don’t like to waste my time so I won’t waste yours.  It’s about EFFICIENCY… and NECESSITY.  What’s necessary for your spine?  Adjustments.  Disc Pump Exercises.  Deep tissue therapy.  

SO, AGAIN, WHY SHOULD I DO THE DISC PUMP EXERCISES?

1)     HYDRATION – The discs in your spine have no blood supply, no blood vessels feeding them food, water, and oxygen.  They rely completely upon the vertebrae above and below to feed them passively through diffusion, through a process called imbibition, or what I call the Disc Pump.  When the joint moves, nutrients are pumped from the bone to the disc, keeping the disc healthy and hydrated, full of water.  It works like pumping water from a well.  You have to pump the well handle all the way up and all the way down, over and over again, to get the water flowing. 

2)     KEEP WHAT YOU GOT – If you already have a disc or two degenerating, you know what it looks like on x-ray.  You know how serious it is.  If you don’t have one yet, you likely will someday, especially if you don’t take care of them.  Discs are made of cartilage and adult humans don’t make cartilage.  So the amount of cartilage that you have right now while you are reading this is the most you will ever have.  When you lose it you will never get what you lost back, no matter what supplements you take.

3)     MOTION – When I make an adjustment, I am slowly, one adjustment at a time, restoring motion to a fixated joint in your spine.  That’s my job.  Your job is to reinforce my job.  By doing the exercises you help to make my job last longer.

4)     INFLAMMATION – When the bones move better, the inflammation goes away faster, stays away longer, feels better.

5)     SCAR TISSUE – You help to keep the all-damaging scar tissue from returning to your spinal joints.

All in all, you get through Intensive Care faster, through Reconstructive Care faster, and into the least expensive Wellness Care fastest.  You save time, health, and money.  That’s why.    

The #1 cause of death in the United States is heart disease.  The #2 cause is cancer.  You wouldn’t believe the #3 cause, but that is for another article.  The #4 cause is probably diabetes.  But the #1 cause of disability is none of the above.  The #1 cause of treatment money spent is none of the above.  The cold fact is that more people are disabled by their spine and more money is spent on the treatment of back pain.  And let me tell you that the vast amount of money spent is not at the chiropractor, but in the orthopedists’ offices for injections and surgery.  In fact, studies clearly demonstrate that for every dollar spent on chiropractic, much more money is saved that is not spent at the medical doctor’s office and hospital.  In a very direct way, chiropractors do not cost, they save.  I know that may be hard to believe when you write a check to me, but statistically this is very true.  I am saving you gobs of money later.  You’re welcome.  But the money spent is not the important thing, it’s the disability.  

            Disability is the inability to do the things that you want to do.  Permanent disability is this inability for the rest of your life.  Look around you and every day you will see people who are in various levels of disability due to their spine.  This can happen to infants, children, and young adults, even though we mostly associate it with the elderly.  Why does this happen to the elderly?  It’s very simple, cartilage.  Nearly every joint in your body is made of two bones separated by a very hard tissue called cartilage.  Your cartilage has no blood supply and even if it did, the cells that originally built your cartilage have been essentially shut down in adulthood.  You don’t make cartilage anymore!  But you do continually wear it down every day.  When you hear or read the terms herniated disc, bulging disc, degenerated disc, osteoarthritis, arthritis, bone on bone, bone spur, wear and tear, you are reading about cartilage that is wearing out and will not ever be replaced.  It will never grow again.  And if someone tells you that you can take a supplement or change your diet and grow cartilage, you cannot.  There is no evidence of that.  Your cells simply just don’t do the work anymore, no matter how much good stuff you feed them. 

            You have to keep what you have, because once it’s gone it’s gone for good.  And it can happen at literally any age.  So how do we keep what we have?  How do we avoid disability?  Or in other words, how do we maintain our mobility?  It is in the word mobility that we find the key.  Mobility, “the ability to move or be moved freely and easily.”  For your body to have mobility for a lifetime, each joint has to have mobility for a lifetime.  And since it is your spine that is the set of joints that is most likely to result in your immobility, logic dictates that the way to keep your body mobile throughout your lifetime is to keep your spinal joints mobile throughout your lifetime.  It is so simple, isn’t it?  And how do we accomplish this?  Adjustments, disc pump exercises, and a regular aerobic workout, exactly the tools that I spoke with you about on day one, the tools that I use daily and weekly, and the tools that I hope you will use from now for the rest of your life.

            And of course the tools that I will hope you will tell others about!!