Chiropractic Maintenance

CF 064: Chiropractic Wins Again, Push Ups Say A Lot, Low Iron & The Disc

Today we’re going to talk about how chiropractic and spinal manipulative therapy win again, we’ll talk about how push ups may tell us more than what you see on the surface, we’ll discuss some new information on low back discs and how they’re affected by low iron, and then we’ll gloss over a paper on physical therapy to toss you some thought nuggets. 

But first, jsut for my friend and collegue, Dr. Michael Henry down in Austin, here’s that ‘you know you love it’ bumper music. He’s a big fan. 

OK, we are back. Welcome to the podcast today, I’m Dr. Jeff Williams and I’m your host for the Chiropractic Forward podcast.  

You have shimmied all 60’s like into Episode #64

Introduction

We’re here to advocate for chiropractic and to give you some awesome information to make your life easier from day-to-day. We’re going to keep you from wasting time in your week and give you confidence in your recommendations and treatments. And I feel confident in guaranteeing that to you if you listen and stick to it here at the Chiropractic Forward Podcast.  

Store

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Just click the STORE link at the top right of the home page and you’ll be off and running. Just shoot me an email at dr.williams@chiropracticforward.com if somehting is out of sorts or isn’t working correctly. 

DACO

Let’s talk a bit about the Diplomate of the Academy of Chiropractic Orthopedists probgram also known as the DACO. I finished up all 50 of the required live hours this weekend down in Austin, TX during the Texas Chiropractic Association’s legislative seminar. 

Not only did I get all of the hours wrapped up but I also got to see a lot of colleagues I have been doing battle along side with for the last 8 years or so. You may or may not know that the Texas Medical Association is particularly aggressive and attacks at will for anything and everything. Which means we have to constantly raise funds to defend the attacks. 

It’s this cute thing we do with each other from year to year. It’s really a special relationship chiropractors have with the TMA. I keep thinking one day they’ll start listening to their own profession and leave us the hell alone but nope. Not so far. Not until they have full and complete control of chiropractic care in Texas. Which is not going to happen. Just so you know.. 

They sued us because 2 docs in texas who were Neuro Diplomates were doing VONT testing. I’d never even heard of VONT until this last time we got sued by TMA. IF you can give me a good reason why a neuro diplomate cannot do VONT testing, I’ll send you a candy bar or some chicklets or something like that. 

It’s enough to make a guy crazy. I got to meet a lot of bright new people ready to help the TCA fight and overcome. Andrea Ohmann recently moved to Texas from Minnesota. She is in a hospital setting if I understood correctly. She’s a bright star to keep an eye on. I also need to thank Dr. Jamie Marshall for listening to us down in Conroe, TX. I really appreciate it!

I got to see Staff Sergeant Shilo Harris speak. I mentioned him a couple of episodes ago but I have to tell you, this man is a hell of a speaker and he’s in our corner specifically. He gives chiropractic care all of the credit for helping him get through all of his injuries and surgeries. He was blown up by an IED in Iraq and has been through absolute hell to get to where he is now and chiropractic was key to getting him there. 

Very emotional and very impactful. I can’t imagine a legislator being confronted by him and his story and not being forced to see it our way. It’s powerful. Thanks to Shilo for eveything he’s doing for this profession. I hope you’ll go to http://shiloharris.com and see what he’s about. 

Beyond that our DACO hours were taught by Jeffrey Miller who is a chiropractor on staff at the University of Missouri medical school. He’s not as sharp as a tack. He’s actually sharper than a tack and told me he’d love to join us on the podcast so I’m going to do us all a favor and get that set up. We also have Dr. Christine Goertz’s episode coming up quickly so keep your eyes peeled for that one too. 

This get on with this deal here. 

Item #1

Our first item here is called “Manipulative Therapies: What Works” and is authored by Dr. Michael Smith, an MD, and his herd of collegues. It was published in American Family Physician on Febraury 15, 2019(Smith M 2019). I got this one from Dr. William Lawson in Austin, TX who is a DABCO and a swell dude on top of that. 

In case you missed it, this herd of authors are medical doctors. They start by saying that manipulative therapies include things like osteopathic manipulative treatment which is the same as chiropractic manipulative treatment. 

They say that, when you compare manipulative therapy to oral analgesics, cervcial manipulation and/or mobilization appears to provide better short-term pain relief and improved funciton in patietns with neck pain. 

They go on to say that manipulative therapy may be as effective as amitriptyline for treating migraine headaches and can reduce the frequency and intesity of pain. 

While there is some evidence showing that manipulative therapy can reduce length of hospital stays for preterm infants, there is ZERO research for some of the other reasons we see chiropractors treating infants. Things like otitis media, colic, allergies, and respiratory conditions. 

That was all in the abstract. That’s the medical world starting to take note. Can you hear it? When do the insurance companies start to take note as well?

THAT’S REALLY when our lives start changing. Oh happy day….I have a dream. A dream where we are no longer pursecuted for being right all the damn time. A dream that chiropractors don’t go around saying crazy crap and making the rest of us look bad. I have a dream people. I’m not going to pretend to be as good of an orator as Martin Luther King Jr. but you get the point. 

You know that the more of these articles that come out, the more they have to start gathering steam. Turn on a light bulb at night in South Texas and see what happens. The bugs start swarming. Turn on this kind of light and you’ll see these articles begin catching more and more attention until we finally have a consensus in the medical field. A consensus that says, “Hell, looks like they’ve been onto something this whole time. We better take another look at it.”

This is an excellent paper. And we need to keep seeing this more and more. Even if they’re talking specifically about osteopathic manipulative therapy, we know that chiropractors do it too and, in fact, chiropractors do almost all of it these days. DO’s have moved almost completely to medicine. We are the ones moving joints. Make no mistake about it. 

Item #2

Pushups…what can they tell us? Well, it appears they can tell us quite a lot from an article in StudyFinds called “Men Who Can Do More Than 40 Push-ups Far Less Likely To Develop Heart Disease.(Finds 2019)”

This article covers a new study that showed that men posessing the ability to perform 40 push-ups in one attempt are much less likely to suffer from heart disease wihtin the next 10 years. 

They showed where middle-aged men who can put in more than 40 in a single try have a 96% less chance of having heart disease when compared to those who could complete no more than 10 push-ups. 

So, it appears, to me…..that it’s time to start doing some push-ups muy pronto. 

Item #3

This one comes to us from the American Journal of Translational Research and is called “Iron defficiency accelerates intervertebral disc degeneration through affectring the stability of DNA polymerase epsilon complex(Zhang C 2015).” 

It was published in November of 2015 and appears to be mostly Chinese researchers. Could be Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese but the name of the lead author is Chungiang Zhang and whole host of names that appear to be just as difficult to pronounce. 

We will not get deep into the details here because I’m not too proud to admit that the information here goes far above my head in many ways. I’ve said it before, I’m no guru. I’m like Alex Trebec on Jeopardy. He delivers the info but I promise he’s no expert on every question coming across his lips. Lol. 

But, when we stick with the basics, we see that iron serves as an important cofactor of iron-containging proteins that play critical roles in the maintenance of DNA stability and cell cycle progression. They say that disturbed iron homeostasis gives rise to things like cancer and anemia. 

In addition, they say that they found clear correlation between iron deficiency and intervertebral disc degeneration. 

They wrapped up their paper by saying, “In summary, our study suggests that iron deficiency is an important factor in the aggravation of IDD. Proper iron supplementation may be an effective strategy to alleviate the symptoms of patients with intervertebral disc degeneration.”

Item #4

Our last on the list, it has to do with PTs and is called “Minimal physical therapy utilization compared with higher physical therapy utilization for patients with low back pain: a systematic review,” authored by Heidi Ojha and a gaggle of others and published in Physiotherapy Theory and Practice in February 2019(Ojha H 2019).

This was a systematic review to compare the effects of minimal physical therapy utilization (two visits or less) vs. typical physical therapy utilization consisting of 3 or more visits on patient-important outcomes for patients with low back pain. 

They say this research is needed because there is such variation in physical therapy use for those with low back pain. 

Interestingly, they found that, when compared with minimal utilization, higher utilization demonstrated no significant differences on pain, disability, or quality of life at the 1-year follow-up.

Even more interesting was that the conclusion of the paper said the following, “While higher utilization may not result in significant improvements in patient-important outcomes, it may be more cost-effective for patients with chronic or complex LBP conditions when compared to minimal utilization.”

So, what the hell is that? It’s not going to make you any difference to see us a lot but the price point is agreeable so, by all means, we’d like to see you a crap load. Which isn’t as much as a crap ton. By the way. But I think you see what I mean. 

I have noticed so many papers that basically cast a lot of doubt on PT in general while all we seem to find in regards to manipulative therapy are positive reaffirmation of the chiropractic profession. 

It just makes me wonder where the tipping point is to be honest. When does the medical industry start to look at chiropractic as being more effective for these conditions that PT and making those referrals accordingly? I had some insight on a PT private group on Facebook a couple of weeks ago. 

The PTs were piling on a chiropractor’s advertisement techniques. Let’s be fair, the DC was a knucklehead and wasn’t being honest and identifying himself as a chiropractor in his marketing but, for discussion purposes here, that’s beside the point. 

They were bashing not only on that chiropractor but our profession as a whole. I bash on aspects of my profession as well but, where the rubber hits the road, we average better patient outcomes, we are safe, we are effective, and we average higher patient satisfaction. Even if some in our profession would win a county craziness competition. 

Don’t believe me? Go listen to Episode #49 of this podcast where we go over the Parker-Gallup poll. Very interesting episode and there are some valuable marketing nuggets in that one for you as well. Definitely worth the listen. 

Also Episode #26 talks about PTs and DCs. The age old grudge match. Go check them out and see what you think. 

Some in our profession are simply imbeciles. That sounds harsh but for a time after graduating, I held no interest in furthering my education. I wanted to coast. I’d done the hard work, right? I was so smart already after all those years of college. Well, you don’t know what you don’t know. And, I can admit that for a few years there, I was an imbecile. 

They learned enough to pass but that doesn’t make them smart or ethical and that’s sad. But again, when said and done, our profession consistently proves itself and is proven by insurance companies, governments, polls, surveys, and universities. 

From what I’ve seen recently, I can’t say the same for them and I just can’t see where they feel they have some moral high ground or platform to stand on and spout a bunch of denigrating thoughts at us. 

I thought it’d be a good idea once to refer to a PT. I had a car wreck patient and thought they could use PT and at that time, I wasn’t equipped to do much rehab. So onto the PT they went. In two damn weeks, the PT ran up a bill that would have literally taken me 4 months to run up. I was astounded. And, in that two week period, there was little to no improvement for the patient. 

On a separate occasion, I had a disc patient finally settled down and doing great. She was very active and very much into working out. I had her disc settled down to a point that she thought she’d go get PT on top of what I was doing. She did not talk to me about it. She just did it. Her thought process was that it would just be that much better to combine the two. Chiropractic and PT. Honestly, that’s not bad thinking in theory. 

She came back after one visit almost unable to walk or function. We tried and tried to get it to settle back down but she ended up taking herself to a surgeon to get our of pain. Sorry PTs. Quit talking smack and work with us instead of against us.

Ideally, PTs and chiropractors work hand in hand and complement each other. Many offices can and should operate in this manner. In reality though, I see PTs as great for post-operative rehab and rehab after certain types of injury. When it comes to joints and spines in general though, they can’t touch us. They talk bad about us, they steal services from us, they think they have the moral ground on us, but they can’t touch us.

Those of us practicing in an evidence-informed manner anyway. Those not practicing evidence-informed actually continue to provide them with whatever moral ground they believe they have. 

I for one would like to move on from the beginnings and progress our profession much like the MDs have done over the last 150 years. They went from blood-letting, leeches, and labotomies to what they can do now. Yet, there’s still a part of our profession wanting to hold on dearly to our originations of 100+ years ago. 

Chiropractors, let go. Progress. Practice current, in the current day and age. Practice evidence-informed. It’ll help you and it’ll help the profession in general. 

That’s my opinion anyway. Take it or leave it. 

This week, I want you to go forward with

1. Chiropractic wins and wins and wins again. We made the right decision. We just need to only use our powers for the good. 
2. Push-ups….let’s get to doing them!
3. Iron deficiency for disc degeneration is something worth looking at. 
4. When we are practicing evidence-informed chiropractic care, PTs only wish they could get the results we can get.

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The Message

I want you to know with absolute certainty that when Chiropractic is at its best, you can’t beat the risk vs reward ratio because spinal pain is primarily a movement-related pain and typically responds better to movement-related treatment instead of chemical treatments like pills and shots.

When compared to the traditional medical model, research and clinical experience show that many patients get good or excellent results through chiropractic for headaches, neck pain, back pain, joint pain, to name just a few.

Chiropractic care is safe and cost-effective. It can decrease instances of surgery & disability. Chiropractors normally do this through conservative, non-surgical means with minimal time requirements or hassle to the patient. 

And, if the patient develops a “preventative” mindset going forward from initial recovery, chiropractors can likely keep it that way while raising the general, overall level of health of the patient!

Key Point:

Patients should have the guarantee of having the best treatment offering the least harm.

That’s Chiropractic!

Contact

Send us an email at dr dot williams at chiropracticforward.com and let us know what you think of our show or tell us your suggestions for future episodes. Feedback and constructive criticism is a blessing and so are subscribes and excellent reviews on iTunes and other podcast services. Y’all know how this works by now so help if you don’t mind taking a few seconds to do so.

Help us get to the top of podcasts in our industry. That’s how we get the message out. 

Connect

We can’t wait to connect with you again next week. From the Chiropractic Forward Podcast flight deck, this is Dr. Jeff Williams saying upward, onward, and forward.

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About the Author & Host

Dr. Jeff Williams – Chiropractor in Amarillo, TX, Chiropractic Advocate, Author, Entrepreneur, Educator, Businessman, Marketer, and Healthcare Blogger & Vlogger

Bibliography

Finds, S. (2019) “Men Who Can Do More Than 40 Push-Ups Far Less Likely To Develop Heart Disease.” StudyFinds.

Ojha H, M. M., Johnston M, (2019). “Minimal physical therapy utilization compared with higher physical therapy utilization for patients with low back pain: a systematic review.” Physio Theory Practice.

Smith M (2019). “Manipulative Therapies: What Works.” AMerican Family Physician 99(4): 248-252.

Zhang C (2015). “Iron deficiency accelerates intervertebral disc degeneration through affecting the stability of DNA polymerase epsilon complex.” Am J Transl Res 10(11): 3430-3442.