A Therapist, A Buddhist, and You
A Therapist, A Buddhist, and You
Rethinking Chiropractic Care: A Conversation with Dr. Eric Korzen
Prepare for an enlightening conversation with the renowned chiropractor Dr. Eric Korzen. Shattering the stereotype of chiropractors as 'back crackers,' he shares insights into the holistic perspective of functional medicine within chiropractic care. Let go of preconceived notions and discuss how these practitioners approach neuromuscular skeletal conditions, the significance of super specialists, and the enlightening mind-body connection to back pain.
Ready to take charge of your health journey? Dr. Korzen spotlights the significance of patient participation in their treatment plan, unveiling how diagnostic imaging can hinder or help the process. We also explore the transformative power of multidisciplinary approaches in addressing chronic pain. With Dr. Korzen at the helm, we delve into the realm of chiropractic adjustments, patient education, and the art of maintaining movement healthily and appropriately.
In this candid conversation, Dr. Korzen challenges some chiropractors' "technician" approach, addressing safety and X-Ray usage as a scare tactic! He daringly confronts the status quo, raising a critical question: Can the cookie-cutter approach truly serve patients' well-being? Our discourse expands to integrating acupuncture into the health equation and the awe-inspiring complexity of the human body. Buckle up, challenge the status quo, and redefine health and wellness with Dr. Eric Korzen.
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Welcome to A Therapist of Buddhists in you, brought to you by the Recovery Collective in Annapolis, maryland. Thanks for taking the time as we explore a collective solution to all things health and wellness. I'm Luke DeBoy, the therapist, and I'm joined by my co-host, zomo a Theravada Buddhist Meditation, life and Recovery Coach. Sub-zo hey Blake, it's happening. So we're back to the video. A lot of you guys are listening on your preferred podcast platform and, if you'd like, feel free to check us out on YouTube as well, and you can find that in the episode notes, as per usual. So together we'll navigate to the intersections of psychology, spirituality, health and wellness, like usual, offering practical insights along the way. So thanks for tuning in, connect with us and fellow listeners and social media platforms All of them, we got them. Our podcast thrives on a simple handshake agreement. We provide you with valuable tools and perspectives that can, we believe, transform your life and in return, we ask for your support Leave a like, a comment, subscribe and, most importantly, share a podcast with others who can benefit from our discussions. And just as all we say this like, comment, subscribe every week. I'm not vain enough to care about the likes and comments, but the platforms do for the algorithm. So it's just one way for people to have more access to this podcast. So if you really could spend a minute or two to comment and rate and like we'd really do appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Well, before we get going, I'll say two more things. If you're feeling particularly generous, listeners out there you can now appreciate. You can now show your appreciation through our donate button. Your contribution helps and continue our mission of uncovering solutions to all things related to health and wellness. Remember, it's through our collective efforts that we pave the way through a healthier and more meaningful life. So, as I'll ask you a question, have you ever wondered if there's a more to achieving holistic wellness than meets the eye? Huh, what if I told you there's a health professional whose approach might just challenge your perspective on one wellness? So we get ready to uncover a world of health and healing that might just challenge your preconceptions. So let's bring on our distinguished guests. How about that, saul Sounds?
Speaker 1:great, that's great Dr Eric Corzen, welcome. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2:Thank you for joining me.
Speaker 1:So let me toot your own horn for a second. He's a highly respected chiropractor with a wealth of expertise in chiropractic care, Dr Corzen. Am I saying it right, Corzen? Yep, yeah, that's right, that would be embarrassing. No, we wouldn't. Dr Corzen has dedicated his career to helping individuals achieve optimal health and well-being through holistic and integrative approaches. With a deep commitment to patient care and a passion for promoting overall wellness, dr Corzen brings a unique perspective to our discussion today. So once again, welcome, dr Corzen.
Speaker 3:Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:It's great.
Speaker 1:Thanks for joining us. Dr Corzen focuses on specializes and being a chiropractor. Is that correct?
Speaker 3:Yes, it is Specifically physical medicine. That's sort of the realm that I typically specialize and spend most of my time in.
Speaker 1:So talk a little bit about that. How does being a chiropractor in physical medicine, how does that differ from quote unquote traditional medical practices?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think chiropractors as a whole, Chiropractors can actually be a sort of a broader spectrum. When we use the term chiropractor you can really see a very diverse group of professionals. So it depends on who you end up seeing. But the way I practice tends to integrate more so into the allopathic field than some other chiropractors do.
Speaker 1:So I got to stop you there.
Speaker 3:What's that?
Speaker 1:Allo, allo.
Speaker 3:Allopathic.
Speaker 1:Tell us what does that mean Allopathic.
Speaker 3:So allopathic are our MD and DO colleagues. So they are our quote unquote traditional medical doctors and DOs, which are the doctors of osteopaths. They are the ones that are doing the traditional medical training, medical residencies and surgeries and all of those subspecialties. So those are from the chiropractic standpoint. We refer to them as allopaths, but chiropractic, I think again as a whole, tends to have a more holistic view on health than the allopaths do. The allopaths tend to have a little bit more of a narrow-minded perspective, partly because of their specialty and at this point, this very super specialist thing that we're now creating. Right, we've gotten past just having an oncologist. Now you've got an oncologist that is a pediatric oncologist, an oncologist that does only renal cancers and things. So we've gone past having these specialties and gone to these super specialists.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you have an opinion on that, but keep going.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I do. But yeah, chiropractors tend to have a more holistic view. Not that we can't have our specialties as well, but we tend to view things from a broader perspective, if that makes sense, more of a bird's eye view, when we evaluate and treat patients.
Speaker 1:So continue to break stereotypes. Well, yeah, often we think of a chiropractor and spinal adjustments. Absolutely Collaborate more on what you feel you do as a chiropractor and the kind of doctor that you are.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I think chiropractors a lot of times get pigeonholed into being a back cracker, right, for lack of better words. We crack people's backs, right, we crack spines. I look at what I do as if there is any neuromuscular skeletal condition any I can play a role in either evaluating or treating that condition. So we can look at things like carpal tunnel, we can look at things like tension headaches. We can look at things peripheral neuropathies, osteoarthritis, ra literally name something that impacts muscles, joints, nerves, all of that, and I can play a part in that. So I think that's probably one of the bigger differences between just, oh, all I do is crack backs all day. No, that's not what I do. I can dive deeper into a more again holistic sort of evaluation and truly figure out the root cause of what's happening.
Speaker 1:So I've got questions, but take us where you want to go. Piece on what you're saying.
Speaker 3:Well, no, I'd love, let's go with your questions. I love it.
Speaker 1:Because, where my mind goes is okay, you're more than a backcracker. You have the ability to help in not just a subspecialty, very specific, hyper-focused way. So I'm sure you often see people that come to you for back pain and then you wind up helping them in other fashions and other ways. Give us an example and we do that at the recovery collective. Someone might see me for anxiety and then they're seeing the classical Chinese medicine, acupuncturists and orazole for mindfulness, the holistic approach. So say, someone sees you for back pain and I'll be curious how you help with back pain. But let's go to this bigger perspective.
Speaker 2:Yeah, also to piggyback on that question too, a couple of the questions. That's along those lines. But to be more specific too, from the point of view of wellness, I do want to hear about your background, how you, what drew you to this field, and also that question about holistic. The way I understand is that when and why I should go see a particular practitioner. But the thing with holistic is that I don't need to wait for a problem to go see one, but when I go, it's already like something is properly placed which builds a whole picture. So I wanted to know more about that too. Nothing should be preventing me from or I don't need to wait for a particular moment to go see a chiropractor. So I wanted to add those two questions too, which are along the same lines.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. So I'll address yours first, then Zao, just to give some background. So I've been in practice a little over 10 years. I have been a professor for about the same time as well. My sort of like passion for teaching comes from trying to help build up our profession and really advance and progress it forward. I want to teach the next generation and really move forward.
Speaker 3:One of the topics I love to teach on is anatomy, though, and I spent a lot of time dissecting cadavers and teaching from both a lecture and a lab standpoint, and I really love incorporating clinical aspects into. How do we draw just basic anatomy into the actual clinical application of seeing patients right? And it's so crucial for what we do, for what I do, especially as a chiropractor in the biomechanical, physical medicine realm neuromuscular, skeletal I love getting into that, I dive into that stuff. So that's kind of a background on me. But yes, so from a holistic standpoint, you don't need to wait for you know to have a flare up of something or have an issue pop up to come see a chiropractor. You can see a chiropractor be evaluated and make sure that, essentially, joints and muscles are functioning in optimal ways. We know how to look at that. At least good quality chiropractors know how to look at that and can help you process that, and then can also not only do things hands on with you in the office, but good quality chiropractors should then also be able to give you exercises or educate you on self-care techniques that you can then use at home or on your own to reinforce things that we can do in the office too.
Speaker 3:Does that? Does that help answer that question? Yeah, okay, cool. And then, luke, you were asking about back pain. Right, as an example, you know a patient comes in with back pain. How else do I help them? Right, that was your question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm glad it's all slowed me down because this is good for the listener. Yeah, what? What sparked you to do this field? What? That's a great question.
Speaker 3:I actually went to college thinking I was going to become a physical therapist and, at the time, to be totally like, transparent, at the time the state I was practicing and did not allow physical therapist direct access to patients, and I really struggle with having the autonomy to think for myself and be able to Act on my own rather than just via a script from an orthopedist or pain management doc or whoever.
Speaker 3:So I started exploring options like how do I, how do I use the knowledge that I'm gonna develop and not have to just function underneath someone's Authority and oversight all the time? So that sort of lead me down different Explorations and I landed on chiropractic, actually thanks to, unfortunately, a Late friend of mine who's become my mentor, aaron Wolfe. He actually passed away this this Memorial weekend, but he was the first chiropractor I ever shadowed. I decided to go to the same school he went to because I just loved, again, his sort of like holistic viewpoint of how do we, how do we just help people? And and that's that was his whole thing like it doesn't matter if you're a high school athlete or if you're a stay-at-home mom, like how do I help you?
Speaker 1:So so that's where that came from. Yeah, so you and body, the holistic approach. But let's find out more about that. Someone comes to you for back pain and then how do you help them find Explorer all parts of health and wellness for them? Yeah, I mean, obviously the first thing is a especially as a chiropractor.
Speaker 3:People Typically are expecting to come to you and leave better than they felt walking in, right. So I have to then go through the process of evaluating, figuring out what's actually happening, what caused the back pain, what makes it better, what makes it worse, etc. Right, and then do something in the office to help them and then again reinforce that outside the office. But through that process, a lot of times I can figure out okay, well, if you were, if you've got six kids, that you're, you know, shuttling around all these different activities and your stress levels are super high. And there's other things maybe happening on, you know, in the background or whatever. There's different avenues that we can start to explore with like, hey, I want you to go talk to a therapist, I want you to go do acupuncture and I need you to get a big one. That I talked about.
Speaker 3:A lot of sleep Patients a lot of times lack quality sleep and there are times like, hey, what position should I sleep in, or what should I do? And there's times I just tell patients I don't care, I just want you to get good sleep, for right now we can talk about sleep positions, we can talk about, you know Different stressors and things, but for right now I just want you to get good quality sleep. So those are different avenues as sort of like a generic that I typically talk about with a lot of patients. What do you think, zoe?
Speaker 2:Yeah, lower back pain you know that that spoke to me and you from the point of view of holistic to. I have limited experience with chiropractors as a client, but I did have recurring theme in my life when lower back pain comes along with stress, you know, when there is like financial related, emotional related, and so it got me thinking about that. I wanted to ask you to where how common I feel like it's a common problem for many people lower back pain. Also, what's your take on that mind-body connection that, like when there is a back pain it's like a manifestation of some kind of a stress or emotional related, mental, you know, well-being related? Has that been your experience as well? Absolutely, as you're talking one of a patient from this week actually comes to mind.
Speaker 3:So there's a patient that was actually having some back pain after a car accident and I saw her and you know pain scales were.
Speaker 3:You know she was a seven to eight out of ten on the pain scale, which is pretty darn high, especially because it was weeks after the incident, right, and so I saw her and then she, she felt better after I saw her and then she came in a week later and she comes in and she's like you know what I had no pain after I saw you until I drove past the intersection where that, where that accident occurred. So, as you're talking about, that's all that that was one of the one of the patients this week actually that you know pops up Of. She literally has that mind-body connection of her pain literally started the minute she drove to the intersection and she told me she made a turn around the corner and then her pain went away. So she has that you know traumatic experience that now triggers it every single time. So she has told me she shared with me last time I saw her. She actually tries to avoid that route so that way she doesn't trigger this because she's not really a patient.
Speaker 3:That's not really a patient. That's not really a patient. That's not really a patient Because when she was in the office recently to see me, she felt great, she was totally fine.
Speaker 3:The only she gets that.
Speaker 1:Pain is what that as a therapistśmy, 백 demek bales, are going off read and you use the word yeah, yeah, it's, the mind-body connection is huge.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I Absolutely agree with those are all that. There's a huge mind-body and we we see it all the time, especially Especially you know this is the person I'm talking about right now more of an acute situation because of the car accident but when we start to get into patients that deal with chronic pain. Chronic pain is such a huge topic when it comes to the biopsychosocial experiences that people bring to the table when you're treating them. So chronic pain is just so complicated.
Speaker 2:Along with that, too, are there also characteristics of a client who, either in terms of mindset whether or not they can make the process more efficient and speedy or characteristics that can slow down the process, based on whether or not they're at and how resistant or how willing they are, in a way.
Speaker 3:Absolutely yeah, and one of the big things is does a patient want to get better? That is honestly one of the things and that's one of the factors when I evaluate a patient that I can almost I don't want to say instantly, but on most patients I have a fairly good read on in that first session of do they actually want to get better or do they want me to just fix them? Right. Because a lot of people come to practitioners with the mentality of, well, you're the doctor, you're the one with the experience, the training, all of that, you fix me, versus the concept of how do I take ownership for my own health? And, yeah, I'm here, I'm the doctor, I can guide you along that process. But really, ultimately, this is on you. I can provide you steps to take, all of the guidelines that you may need to kind of get to the point where you would like to go, but it's not on me, it's on you, right? So, and that that is a difficult sort of conversation, depending on the patient, you have to, you know, read that situation carefully.
Speaker 3:One of the big one of the probably one of the biggest problems that I see with a lot of the patients that I have is diagnostic imaging. So I'll expand on that. Diagnostic imaging in the sense of X-rays, mri, ct scans you name it right Ultrasounds, whatever. A lot of times patients will get these procedures done and they'll cling to a diagnosis. They will then identify themselves as a diagnosis right, so they will no longer be a patient with low back pain. They'll be oh, I have an L4L5 disc herniation, and that is just, mentally, that is what they associate themselves with and that's how they identify themselves. And then they thus define all of these episodes of back pain based on well, I have a disc, and they just write it off as I have a disc, I have a disc, I have a disc. And that can be really problematic, because then we go through these episodic flare ups and they've never really learned how to deal with it beyond just identifying as that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the way I explain it and we have the same philosophy it's the difference between treatment and recovery. You can treat someone, you can treat a diagnosis, but where is the insight, where is the action, where's the change? Where's the responsibility and empowering them to, whether it's get to the underlying causes and conditions or to make these changes that are necessary for an actual change. Pass the diagnosis?
Speaker 1:Yeah so talk more about chronic pain for us, will you? There's therapists that specialize in it. There's chiropractors that see a lot of people with chronic pain, so tell us more about that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, chronic pain is a really difficult group of patients to treat Not in the sense that I don't enjoy treating them, because I do, but it's difficult sometimes to get a handle on what we just talked about.
Speaker 3:Can we truly make a difference and impact them, versus doing what they've seen with potentially 10 other providers in the past, where it's just like they see them and they kind of just get pushed through the mill, if you will?
Speaker 3:So I think one of the things with chronic pain again, if I see patients with chronic pain situations, I typically prefer to have them treated in a multidisciplinary approach as well. I will 100% not claim that I can handle and manage all of their comorbidities. There's just there's too much happening there, right, whether it's a biomechanical thing or if it's a psychological or emotional situation. I simply cannot handle all of that. And I think that's one of the cool things about healthcare, though, too, at this point right, that we have the ability for me to do what I do really well and do physical medicine, but also recognize my limitations and know that there's other folks out there that are really good at what they do. Right, and then I develop that network to go okay, this is I'm not a therapist right and a counselor or psychologist, anything along those lines, but I can connect with you and then get you to the people that you need to.
Speaker 1:Part of the reason is why you're on today After we've had a handful of conversations. It's a collective solution to health and wellness. It's the example of the primary care doctor and someone has blood pressure through the roof and, yes, you could give a medication to fix the diagnosis momentarily. But there's other things that could have a positive effect on decreasing the blood pressure. Anxiety, stress, physical health, nutrition, body connection all those things can have just a multidisciplinary approach. Absolutely. Yeah, I imagine it's the same thing for me dealing with, maybe potentially a chronic pain client. If they saw you and I at the same time, that might help the individual multidisciplinary approach. Absolutely, you're not a subspecialist in just chronic back pain. That would probably be really bad in your situation.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it would. What about all those rotator cuffs? I need to see Exactly, yeah, planar fasciitis and all of that. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. But the ability to go oh, you can still look at this in different realms and perspectives to help the healing process and change the change, it Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, is there also any aspect of for lack of a better word like education or educating the client? Since you mentioned about anatomy how passionate you are, and I've been thinking about that too that our body is so complex and there are just so many parts that I wasn't aware of. But only if my liver is feeling I need to learn about liver kind of situation. It doesn't have to be that way. So I started doing yoga recently and I'm just learning more about where things are and how things are aligned and stuff like that. There's so much freedom in that awareness when we become aware of it. So other in your experience too, where people learn more about their own anatomy by seeing a chiropractor and then benefiting from that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they do. Actually, that's one of my favorite things is when I see that light bulb go on for patients, whether it's from me, you know, palpating or showing them. Honestly, that that's probably my favorite thing to do is when I can actually demonstrate and show them. So one of the things I like to do, I like to assess something, treat it and then reassess it. So that way, not only for myself from like a clinical standpoint is that really valuable information, obviously, to know if what I'm doing is actually making impact but also from a patient standpoint. There's that education, or that buy-in piece, if you will, of like, oh shoot, this is actually changing or doing something different, right? So, for example, I might watch somebody do like an overhead squat, where they put their arms overhead and they squat right, and then I may pick up on some deficits or dysfunction, maybe even some pain that they're dealing with. I'll go and treat them, do something, have them do an overhead squat again, and most often they see something almost immediately change, whether it's pain or like oh wow, my hip has more free range of motion, whatever it is. So there's a huge educational component to actually showing patients how this applies to whatever they're dealing with you know. So yeah, to your point. I take patients through yoga exercises all the time and honestly, what I like to do with those is I like to put them on the floor and say show me what you're doing, and I don't critique them, I don't do anything. I literally just start out initially with okay, you say you know how to do even something. You know how to do child's pose something really basic. Right, show me how you're doing child's pose. And probably six out of 10 times they're doing something that, for them specifically, might not be the most ideal position or movement for themselves. It's not bad. But for whatever condition I might be treating or walking them through, they may need a tweak or a modification that I might be able to identify, because no one's actually taking the time to sit there and go like, hey, that for your condition isn't great, so let's modify this or tweak this, or maybe not sink into it as deep, right, like there's some things that we can do. So I love doing that part of yeah, show me what you're doing right now and how can we tweak that?
Speaker 3:Because I'm a big proponent of movement. I don't want patients. I very rarely tell patients to rest, very rarely right. There's an acute ankle sprain, okay, fine, we got to rest a little bit, right, that's one thing. But for the most part, I tell patients, motion is lotion. We got to get your joints moving, we got to get the muscles moving. Everything needs to move in conjunction, but we need to do it in the right way, in an appropriate, directed, guided way, and that's again where I come into play as far as, like, how do I educate you on the movements you need to be doing, in which directions, how frequently? All of those things right. So I'm a big proponent of let's keep you moving, but let's do it the right way.
Speaker 1:When you actually tweak or modify something. What is the belief system when you do that?
Speaker 3:Initially. Most often it's to help mitigate pain, most often so. An example I like to use is someone with Lumbar disc herniation. People with Lumbar disc herniations tend to and this is just literally based on statistics it's like over 80% of patients with Lumbar disc herniations feel more symptoms when they flex or when they bend forward than they do when they extend.
Speaker 3:So, based on that concept and of course there's other ways to test this based on that concept, what I'll do is I'll have someone show me how they're doing a child's pose, how they're doing Cobra, and I will tweak and modify that, mainly for pain initially, but I also use that later on to get them through the fear avoidance stage, because once we get out of this acute pain or whatever situation they're feeling, a lot of times patients are like well, you know, I have a disc so I can't ever bend forward. Well, no, a healthy spine, a healthy body, you should be able to bend at some point. I'm not saying you can't ever bend, right? So we need to work towards like, let's tweak it initially and then let's test it later on down the road and make sure that you can flex and make sure child's pose does feel okay, that you can move into there, because once your tissues are healthier, you should be able to push them in certain directions and not cause flare ups.
Speaker 1:And in that case are you literally moving the vertebrae? What are you doing to make the pain alleviate in that example, lower back, l4, l5?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so like a lumbar disc herniation. You know that example when you go into extension, the pressure that gets put on the disc posteriorly actually forces the herniation anteriorly, away from the nerve roots that it's potentially impacting, Whereas if you flex, it forces it posteriorly and you end up hitting the nerve roots again. So initially with a you know, disc herniation or disc bulge, as a lot of people refer to them disc bulges they typically again respond better to extension. So initially I'll put them into extension and I'll press, I'll have them do cobra moves while I'm pressing. There's various techniques. Sometimes I adjust them, sometimes I don't, and that's again, you know, patient dependent.
Speaker 1:So you're adjusting the spine, you're adjusting the vertebrae. In that circumstance, potentially, yeah, helping the joints move better right. Gotcha.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's a couple schools of thoughts there, luke, about, about chiropractic.
Speaker 1:Give it to us, give it to us, give it to us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's a couple schools of thought there on chiropractors and what we actually do. So the, the oh, this is. So the two ends of the spectrum right are the, what they're called the straights. Okay, and the straights refer to nothing other than they come straight from the philosophy of chiropractic, which is we adjust the vertebrae, we move the vertebrae, and there is a whole host of potential benefits that we may be able to see. The difficult part with that is some of it is well documented and some of it is not. And you know, for myself, being very science oriented, evidence based right, I want to be able to see some evidence and some like research behind what we're doing. So you've got the straights on one side that have a lot of, I would say, anecdotal evidence that what they do is beneficial and I'm not taking that away because there are there's a lot out there on that but then you have what's called the mixers on the other side, and the mixers combine the concept of the holistic chiropractic philosophy and evidence or research and science into that.
Speaker 3:So that's where we start to look at and what I talk about with patients is when I perform an adjustment, I'm not putting bones back into place, I'm helping joints move better. And by helping the joints move better, there's three things I focus on Reduction and pain, increased range of motion and reduced muscle hypertenicity, reducing muscle spasms locally in the area. And those are three things that I feel totally comfortable saying because they are backed up by research. We know that when an adjustment is performed, those three things can happen, at least in the short term. And again, that's where, like, I can do something in the office, I can adjust you. That's a short term effect. How do I teach you to do something outside of the office to reinforce what I just did in the office? That's where the education component exercise, etc.
Speaker 1:So often, I think often people get frustrated because you call them the straighters. Yeah, it's funny that, hey, you come in, you put on a heat pad. I'm going to treat you like a number, yeah. Crack your back, Okay, go, that's it Okay. And not have the teaching education? Well, how long is this going to happen for? Or what the art of a teacher, right, I mean, that's to me the difference where I think some people get frustrated with.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and, honestly, for a patient or a consumer that doesn't know anything about chiropractic, they'd have no clue Again, that's kind of what I talked about initially when we opened this conversation was you could go into any number of chiropractic offices and have a very different experience because you don't know what you're walking into, right, and that, yeah, that part is just so crucial. It's funny because, being in the chiropractic world now both being a student myself and now being a professor I've seen like this whole sort of like spectrum of chiropractors. But in our field we have something called the flying seven, which, like Luke, what you're talking about is a patient being treated like they're running through the mill, and this is the flying seven. So chiropractors call it the flying seven because it's a cervical adjustment, so a neck adjustment on the left, on the right, which is two. You get three thoracic adjustments and then a low back adjustment left and right, and you end up with seven, and they literally do the same exact thing for every single patient. This is not how I practice, I know.
Speaker 1:The cookie cutter, it's the it is a very, very common.
Speaker 3:I mean you will literally see it in thousands of chiropractic offices around this country. I mean there's there's no question about it. But it's funny because, again, unless I had told you about that, you'd never no one knows about that. So we start getting it out there that this is something that is actually like fairly common practice.
Speaker 2:So in terms of, you know, making the problem go away or reducing the pain, but also like maintenance, other things that you suggest, or is there like a particular frequency after, afterwards or exercise that they can do, or some kind of dietary suggestions as well, in terms of like holistic, how yeah, how expand, how much does it expand?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I mean, you know, from a holistic standpoint, I feel like the sky's the limit. Right, like we can, we can get into so much. From my standpoint though from a chiropractic, you know, viewpoint that that focuses on on this biomechanical and pain management and physical medicine realm. Typically, once I see patients get through pain and we get through episodes, I will usually give them essentially like a two week trial run where they don't see me and they are supposed to be doing the things that I taught them, and after two weeks they come back in, they see me and we do a check in.
Speaker 3:I may adjust them at that point, may tweak some exercises again and teach them how to do different things, and then I typically, as long as things, as long as their presentation is moving in a positive direction, I will then give them a month where they had don't have an interaction with me, unless they have a flare up and of course I talked to them about that. But I like to have patients live their lives without me intervening, because if they're dependent on me all the time, it's not helpful for their overall health, right? I need them again. This goes back to that ownership piece of like. They need to take ownership of their health. I can guide them through that process, but I want them to take ownership of that.
Speaker 1:So is an example of the biomechanical and physical medicine that you would get to a point where it would be appropriate to teach them how to strengthen muscle and balances. What would be some examples? Absolutely Okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, absolutely so quickly. I start off with more of what I would call stretching or mobility exercises. Right, how do we lengthen muscles, how do we make sure joints are moving better, and then from there we focus exercises on more stability and strengthening exercises. So there's sort of this pyramid that we build upon, right, like we lay the foundation that joints can move and the correct planes and then in with their right amount of degrees that they need, and then we build upon that, and then we build upon that, and then we build upon that and really the ultimate sort of like oh my gosh we got there is more complicated multi joint, multi planar movements. Right, like, if somebody can do, you know, an overhead squat with like a press overhead and then do like a trunk rotation of some kind, like they literally just hit every joint in their body and that's awesome, like, so it's that kind of like. How do I take them? You know baby steps through this process.
Speaker 1:So I know there's at least one or two or a handful of listeners that are going okay, how long and it's not cookie cutter how long does it quote unquote typically take to get to that point for the individual that isn't just being treated, that is doing functionality, that is taking action in their recovery, to get to that point of strengthening the muscles and taking responsibility for their part?
Speaker 3:Yeah, usually I would say. And again, you know, this varies depending on the condition and the patient.
Speaker 1:Probably huge variance.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, huge variance, right. I mean their age, their you know their functionality prior to whatever they're having you know. A lot of things factor into this. I would say probably with me 10 sessions or less is usually.
Speaker 1:I think I surprised a lot of people there, to be honest with you.
Speaker 3:And honestly it probably does, because, again, a lot of your quote unquote traditional chiropractors will see patients for, you know, 10 times that amount. So it's a very different viewpoint as to how we can actually practice.
Speaker 1:What are you thinking, Joe?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm thinking about what was well. I'm thinking about this cheesy statement which got me thinking about the Chinese proverb, or one of the proverb about you know, if you want, the difference between giving somebody a fish and then teaching them how to fish, kind of thing. I feel like that's very important. That's also the education part that you mentioned. That's also how we help client at recovery collective as well. You know we come in, which is also what you like. What I like about what you said about the willingness has to come from the patient that do you really want to get better? You know, if that's the case, we'll give you tools, but long term, you need to take ownership for your own health instead of being dependent. So that's also what I'm hearing from you about educating them, giving them exercises. You can come back when you need, but essentially, you're on the track now. You know you found a new pad or you're back on track to get better.
Speaker 3:That's a school? Yeah, exactly, and I feel like I want patients to know that I am here for them. Like you know, once we get you back on track and things are going great and you've tested things and you know you can let's say, your goal is to run a marathon and you've run six of them Great, that's awesome. But I want you to know that if something does come up in the future, that I am the person that you can come back to, that you can trust, that you know that we can then move forward again if we need to restart care or do something right, like I want patients to have that level of trust and comfort with me, that they know that I will take care of them and I'll guide them through this process again, you know.
Speaker 1:You know, speaking of trust and comfort, safety is obviously paramount, in the form of health care.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:What are some contraindications or some red flags where you would go? Not right now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a great question, Luke, because I think, unfortunately, the media has done somewhat of a disservice or some damage to the chiropractic profession when it talks about some of these very rare instances of serious complications from chiropractic care, probably most notably our stroke. Right, that's probably the most common thing that folks are afraid of and, like any medical procedure, I don't care if you're going to your primary care doctor and getting prescribed a medication or if you're going to an acupuncturist and getting needling done or seeing a chiropractor there is inherent risk in anything. So when you look at the research and the studies on these risks for complications from chiropractors, they're extremely, extremely low. The most recent study that was out there showed that patients that are having, or are likely going to have, a stroke have as much chance of having that stroke sitting in their primary care office as they do sitting with me in my office as a chiropractor, and that is mainly because the stroke is already occurring. Yeah, so a chiropractor.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to see how effecting the spine can be an adverse effect for a stroke.
Speaker 3:Help me out here, yeah so forceful manipulation to the spine can impact the arteries that run through the neck and into the skull. So if there is a stroke that's occurring sometimes due to what's called an arterial dissection meaning the arterial walls are separating you can have that separation occur. A blood clot will form. You can have the adjustment occur from a chiropractor which will sort of finish off the dissection of the artery and that can then send the clot further into the brain. Causing a stroke Makes sense. But again, when you look at that research, there's really no difference between sitting in my office or sitting in a primary care office, because most often it's gonna happen regardless.
Speaker 1:How could you pinpoint it to that? Yeah, as being the cause? Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:And that's the problem is that how do we actually label that as a causative event or factor? And for the most part, you can't. For the most part you can't. Now, these are things that I talk about with patients, right Like there's again, there's inherent risk in any medical procedure. I don't care what it is, there's risk in everything. Infection with acupuncture it's a risk Like super minimal, very, very low, but it's a potential right Like it could happen.
Speaker 3:So there's conversations that you need to have with patients, but I think when it comes to a good evaluation, for the most part I won't adjust somebody just to adjust to them. I will more often than not be very cautious with my care, versus the opposite in being overly aggressive with my care. And there's certain screening methods we can use, right. But for the most part we need to do a good physical evaluation, take a good history and then we can make some determination of whether or not I've sent patients out for ultrasounds on their carotid arteries to make sure they're they don't have plaque building up, cause I've caught some of those where I'm glad I did, because now they're on medications at their primary care doc and now we're managing that together, but I'm a hundred percent not adjusting their neck, because I could take one of those plaques and send it upward, and that's not what I want to do, right?
Speaker 3:So I do other things with them. I do stretches, I teach them how to do stretches, I do some soft tissue work. We can do other things. We don't have to just again, that goes back to what we talked about. Right, chiropractors are not just back crackers. I can do a lot more than just that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so sometimes doctors with pain or chronic pain can get a little trigger happy with X-rays and things like that. What is your philosophy on doing X-rays?
Speaker 3:So my philosophy on X-rays is unless there is a red flag, immediately, you know and red flags can be depending on what you look at patients age, recent trauma, infection you know, a past medical history of cancer or some other like conditions or diseases that they've been diagnosed with in the past. Right, there are situations I send people off for x-rays almost immediately. For the most part I would say 80% of the time, if not more. For the most part I treat patients for two weeks conservatively before I consider imaging.
Speaker 1:So what would you? That's pretty typical. You've got some listeners going well, not my chiropractor. What would you tell the consumer that you know now they'd be more open to seeing a chiropractor that goes to someone and says, all right, well, let's do x-rays. What would be some good questions that you would recommend that they?
Speaker 3:ask or yeah, from a patient standpoint, I would ask the question of why? How is this going to impact the treatment plan that you're going to provide for me? That's what I would want to know, because it's the same conversation I have when I send patients out for x-rays. If I send you out for an x-ray or an MRI or something, I'm expecting to find something. I'm not just going to x-ray you, to x-ray you to see structurally what's happening. I'm expecting to find something that is going to change our treatment plan, and that's not a fun conversation to have, but there's a reason and a necessity for it. Right, versus this, it's not used as a screening method, I guess is the best way I can put that right.
Speaker 1:I'm going to use a car analogy and I don't know cars.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 1:My wife's Prius is a very old Prius so we have to see if it's worth it. So when we took the car in and they wanted to do x amount of dollars and I said, okay, why? Well, I know I don't know why. So what are you trying to find out by doing this synopsis? I know you don't know what it's going to be, but I want to know why you're thinking and what could you potentially find that goes. This is worth checking into Because if not for my car, I don't want to spend thousands of dollars and it's not worth that. It's an older Prius. I think that can be with any type of diagnoses when it comes to x-rays, mris and especially with chronic pain and, we see, with a lot of doctor's offices.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, is that?
Speaker 1:a fair analogy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, it is, it totally is. Yeah, I mean, let's use cars, why not? No, no, it's a fair analogy. And again, I think that's where let's not use x-rays as a screening tool, but rather as a diagnostic.
Speaker 1:That's a better way of saying it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if I need to find a diagnostic reason to do x-rays, and let's do that. But a lot of times chiropractors will do x-rays as a screening tool and it sounds bad. They almost use it as a scare tactic as well. They throw a film up and nowadays we don't have film. Back when I graduated, we actually process things in dark rooms, but now it's all digital right. So they throw films up and they show you oh my gosh, you have this curvature that you're lacking in your neck and you should really have this curvature. Well, is that inaccurate? No, but is that the cause of your problem? Is that what's actually contributing to the situation that you're coming in with?
Speaker 3:And at the same time, again, nothing against imaging or diagnosis with MRIs or CTEs or x-rays, but they are static images of moving body parts, so it is a piece of the puzzle. It is not everything. So even when patients come into me with an MRI and they're like well, clearly I have a lumbar disc herniation, you can see it on the MRI. That doesn't mean that's your generator of pain. We found something on an image that doesn't mean that's a pain generator for you. You could have pain coming from elsewhere and you are just locked into the fact that that's on the imaging report or whatever. So that's something I tell patients like we need to be cautious with. I'm all for getting diagnostics done if we need to, but it's a piece of the puzzle. It's not everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I really value this conversation. I'm a firm believer about this concept of inner knowing or intuitive awareness in a way, like our body is always giving us signals when something's not right, but then we also have a tendency to either ignore it or get busy. So there's something very powerful about because I've experienced it myself too that how much I'm missing out on life because of a pain.
Speaker 2:But then our brain acclimates to it, which is sad because but then, once that pain is relieved, you enjoy life so much. So many doors open up. It's also as a result of me not giving attention to what my body is signaling, and I can just go as far as that, but if I get too attached to a diagnostic, I'm not listening to my body but I'm listening to the image, where it's all about knowing and listening to our body and then taking appropriate action.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And I mean you bring up a really great point there too, zoll is that there are some patients that are really, really good at listening to their bodies and there are some patients that have no clue what their bodies are telling them. It's really funny, especially from my standpoint of I'll tell a patient, like, okay, well, show me this exercise like a bent over row or whatever. And I see it and I'm like what are you doing? And then I'm like, okay, you need to drop your shoulder, make sure you're not doing this, tucking your up, whatever it is. And then I tell them to do those things, I demonstrate it for them. And then they do it again and it's the same. And I'm like you have no clue what your body's doing in space. Like you're such there's such a disconnect here between your body and what you said. Like that intuition you have with your own body is a huge component.
Speaker 1:And that's true with physical, that's true with emotions, that's true Absolutely. And tears, I mean, that's something that holds true, yeah absolutely Across all disciplines. Yeah, that's right. Where would you like chiropractic care to fit in the broader landscape of healthcare? Where would you like it to be?
Speaker 3:That's such a loaded question we dive deep, I know.
Speaker 3:No, it's good. It's good, I think, one of the biggest things for me. Again, I would love to dispel the myth or the connotation that chiropractors just crackbacks. I would love to have the chiropractic profession be a respected profession versus what I. So I differentiate chiropractors a couple of different ways, One of them being like if you just adjust backs, in my opinion you're not really a doctor, You're a technician.
Speaker 3:I can teach my wife to adjust somebody's back right. She will not, however, have the diagnostic skills and the physician qualities that I have, which is when to adjust, when not to adjust, how to adjust all those red flags of diagnosis and referring out and tweaking things right. She doesn't have any of that. So there's a difference there in being a technician and just being able to do a flying seven. I could teach you to do that tomorrow. It's not that big a deal, right? Yeah, there's a whole other clinical component to that. I would love to see that our profession as a whole move towards something beyond just a backcracker move towards a more holistic minded but still bringing that evidence component into how we practice and being able to fit in with all of the other providers that are out there too.
Speaker 1:You got me thinking. It sounds like there can be. I don't know how deep in philosophy we're gonna go here or what the science says. Yeah, it sounds like your form of chiropractic care can be proactive. What does that look like? How many people see you? I don't have any pain, but I think that, whether it's spinal alignment or maybe you can help me out with this question Can chiropractic be a proactive form of treatment?
Speaker 3:Absolutely yeah, and I have patients that see me that are not in pain. They go. You know what I tend to. Let's put it this way I don't have low back pain episodes when I see you regularly, when I'm proactively seeking you for care. I don't have my flare-ups that are like 8 out of 10 on the pain scale, debilitating low back pain or neck pain or headaches or what have you. I don't have those episodes when I am proactively doing things about it, right. So there's 100% yes, let's do some proactive care there. There's a huge component.
Speaker 1:What else do you think, Enzo? I think Enzo is really enjoying this conversation.
Speaker 2:I'm also thinking about, you know, from the point of view of mindfulness as well, about how much again that intuitive awareness, you know that, the thing about anatomy, and there are also some specific meditation practices in our tradition where you meditate on the 32 parts of the body where bones is involved, you know, muscles, tendons are involved too where you just be present with those and it can be, it can have very liberating effect, you know, because, again, like we embody our bodies all our life, unfortunately sometimes without knowing what's happening, you know, and then we die.
Speaker 2:So it's a beautiful thing to become aware of it and then the conversations open up. You know, when we see a practitioner like you, that, oh, this is the part where I haven't been paying attention to now I'm paying attention because of pain, you know, and yeah, I don't know, there's just so much that is we take for granted when we're not in pain you know, which is only what I realize when I'm in pain, because it's a very complex and sophisticated mechanism that we embody, which is beautiful, but also a lot is being missed out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you talking about that. It's all makes me think of how I love incorporating acupuncture, because a lot of you know, like you talked about meditation with bones and muscles and ligaments and there's a huge component to acupuncture when you look at all the different meridians and master points and things that acupuncturists do that are focused on tendons and sinews, as they refer to them, and you know low back pain and sciatica and all of these, all of these components that they can focus on. So I may have to do some digging in the meditation part too, because I haven't really gone into that realm myself with patients, but that could absolutely be an added benefit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when you're talking about lab early in your school year, it made me think of. This is not really practiced that much anymore, but in the past, in the ancient time or in the village, when there's a dead body, they just send it to the monastery where they look at the body and then meditate. You know, which is kind of scary, but that's also part of the process, where you cut the body and then meditate. The meditation part is that to kind of value your body, that you're alive, but also this is where you end up but also becoming very specific about what's there and what's not there, which is kind of scary. I've never done it, but I've heard about that. That body is sent to the monks and they just look at it at the contemplate.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. Of course they spend some time doing cadaver workshops.
Speaker 3:I was gonna say seeing some monks do some dissection would be real interesting. I doubt they would do it in a stainless steel, sterile environment sort of thing, pretty cold. Yeah, yeah, I mean there is. You know, there's a huge component there, I think too, for, like you said, appreciating that you know you being alive and that this person, you know it, has now passed and being able to learn from them, like, yeah, all of my patients, all my students, I should say all my students that come into the cadaver lab, you know I really focus and impress upon them how grateful they should be and how much respect they should have for the individuals that we actually get to dissect and learn from, because you know the sacrifice, if you will, of donating their body to science to help the rest of us learn is a huge sacrifice and we should have a mental respect for that.
Speaker 1:To me, there's no more beautiful puzzle than the human body. It's amazing how it all connects and works together in some way.
Speaker 3:It really is. And you know, for as much as we think we know, we still don't know a lot. There's still a lot of unexplored things and things that we're like we think we know that mechanism, but we don't know that mechanism. There's still a lot out there.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Dr Corson, for sharing the things that you do know with us today. We really appreciate it Absolutely. This has been awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you, you're going to join this conversation.
Speaker 1:So much, yeah, and thank you for shedding light on the world of chiropractic care. Your insights into the benefits, debunking myths and identifying potential limitations have been valuable. As we continue our journey towards collective health and wellness, it's essential to explore various health care options. Listeners, we hope you found this episode enlightening and informative and remember understanding and exploring different modalities in health care empower us to make informed decisions about our well-being. As always, we encourage you to connect with us on all the social media platforms. And, dr Corson, where can they find you? What's a good?
Speaker 3:I can put it on the episode notes but I was going to say we can put some things in the episode notes too. But yeah, you can find me on Instagram. Eric Corson erikorzen, is that how you spell that? You can find me there. Feel free to Google me too. I'm sure you'll find some very old pictures of me from my chiropractic school. But yeah, feel free to Google me. And yeah, let's put some things in the in the video notes so that they can connect with me.
Speaker 1:For your practice as well, and he's in the General Rental County area as well. So yeah well. Thank you everyone and for See you next time for another exciting topic. My name's Luke and this is Zah. Thanks for listening. See you next time, Thanks.