Business Innovators Radio - Road to Recovery

Episode Date: October 17, 2024

When dealing with a specific health challenge, the road to recovery might seem like a difficult journey. And it’s easy to fall off track when things start to improve, and life gets in the way. Little steps each day that could move you closer to health are missed – or you start traveling in the wrong direction all together. But it’s not impossible. With a plan in place and the right team to keep you on course, wellness is within your reach!In this episode, Dr. Dan, Dr. Riley and Angela discuss how they guide people every day on their road to recovery. They share how important it is to know where someone is starting from in terms of both their current health and their ultimate wellness goals. They review the three main phases along the road to recovery, the challenges that people may faces and ways to build a stronger foundation for continued health. If you’re looking for support along your journey, this episode is definitely worth a listen! To learn more about this and other hot health topics, follow us on social media and subscribe to our WTH podcast. If you have a specific health question or would like to find out if we can help you with a personal health challenge, check out our office page or contact us at 412-369-0400/ [e-mail]. As always, our mission is to help you Get Healthy and Stay Healthy for a Lifetime!What the Health?!https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/what-the-health/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/road-to-recovery

Welcome to What the Health, where anything health is fair game as we tackle the trends and bust the myths about health and wellness. Here are your hosts, Dr. Dan and Angela Toro. And welcome to another episode of What the Health I am, Dr. Dan, here with two of my co-host this morning. Dr. Riley and Angela, welcome, guys. As always, you know the drill at this point, we're here for informational purposes only and no way offering individualized medical advice. Always talk to your trusted health care providers. before making changes to your particular routine. So with that being said, I think this will be a good one today.

I feel like this is one we all kind of need to talk about. Yeah, we've had a couple recent incidents with patients who I think just kind of a misunderstanding of maybe where they were at and care, where they were starting at. And so we have this wonderful poster on the road. We're going to talk about the road to recovery, this wonderful poster on the wall, in our exam room. And it literally is titled, The Road to Recovery, and it's got a nice path of, you know, starting down in like the acute crisis, the suffering, a lot of symptoms, and then it moves up towards, you know, an optimization and enhancing a wellness phase. But then part of the

problem, you know, that we see a lot of times is where patients will, you know, they'll come in with a specific issue and then, you know, and then they'll, you know, maybe recover just a little bit, get out of, like, crisis mode, you know, feel a little bit better, but then they just stop care, you know, whether it's because, you know, a third party insurer did not, you know, reimburse or, you know, just because, like, that's what, you know, they just wanted to get out of pain. And so in any event, they just made the decision that it was. was time to stop. And so then they start this yo-yo, right, where it's like they get a little bit better, you know, feel a little bit better, but then they'll stop. And then maybe, you know, a month

or two goes by, they feel okay. Then a couple months down the road, it's like things start flaring back up. And so then they start this yo-yo pattern without ever truly strengthening and stabilizing their health and well-being. So I think that's the discussion that we really want to get to at the heart of today is, you know, these phases of care that we, and again, it's all blended together, right? It's all one journey, but like, you know, these kind of like categories of care that we use in the office to kind of help someone, you know, understand where they're at and where maybe, you know, help them help us understand where they'd like to get to. And ultimately, us providing the tools and resources to help them get there.

Yeah. And I think on the other side of, you know, the people that might start, feeling a little bit better than stop, you get the people that maybe don't feel like, in quotes, it's working because they're not magically feeling better after one or two adjustments. Yeah. Or even four or five. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So it's getting, and again, and those are, and it seems to be both of those people tend to have

a disconnect between what they're perceiving is where they are versus where they physically actually are. Yeah. And so that's, you know, the people that are like, well, why don't I feel better right away? Well, they probably have some really intense things going on that are going to take a longer time to correct, even if they don't feel that bad. So there's that, there just seems to be that disconnect as well where people aren't understanding that it's not just a, you know, an instantaneous. Yeah. And that's the big challenge of helping people understand it.

The intensity of symptoms really has nothing to do with how long. long, you know, a condition. And one of the conditions we talk about in the office is subluxation, right? That's the misalignment or locking in the spine that's really impacting your nervous system communication throughout the body, you know, that will impact your health and well-being. And so, you know, the intensity of symptoms really does not necessarily, you know, go hand in hand or correlate very well with, you know, how severe someone's condition is. You know, one of the great, the great example, and I think we talk about this a lot in the office, is you can be the healthiest person in the world, you know, stub your toe on the bed or touch a hot stove, and you're going to be

in an intense amount of pain. But, you know, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Like, those are, you know, two signals that you just did something. Yeah. You know, need to quickly remove yourself from the situation. That's what the pain reflexes are for. But, you know, that acute intensity of pain, you know, someone else might just have a little, you know, tingling and numbness or maybe like a doll achiness in their low back. And it's not like debilitating. It's there. You know, they, they wake up in the morning. They, you know, try and, you know, get out of bed and they feel a little stiff. And it might slow them down a little bit, but it's not necessarily going to, you know, debilitate them or interfere with their activity level now, right? It might not interfere with their activity level now. And I think that's where we strive to make the connection of what could that, what could happen if you don't do anything about it right now. Like, right, those little signs, those, you know, those little check-ins of like, hey, maybe you're just having some minimal muscle stiffness.

Maybe you're just having a headache, you know, flare up once a week. Maybe you're, you know, you're having some indigestion or, you know, some reflux. And, you know, maybe you are starting to take some medication. You just had, Angela, you just had that. you know, individual you were working with who was popping medication like crazy before our workouts just to get through her workouts, right? And so I think that, you know, there's that disconnect with, you know, patients in terms of what they grew up with and their understanding of health and well-being. What's normal? Yeah, what's normal, but like also the different models

of health care, right? So many of us, you know, even we did. We talk about this a lot. Like, we grow up in that medical model of... There was always Advil and Tylenol. Yeah. Yeah. Cold anything you can imagine. Yeah, it's like a medicine cabinet. Literally, yeah, we have medicine cabinets. Yeah, there's, you know, you go and buy a house. You're, you're going to be a recent,

you're going to be a homeowner as of tomorrow, right? You know, provided everything goes through. So it's like, I could almost guarantee if I go to that house you're buying, like there's probably a built-in medicine. Oh, there's a bathroom behind the windows. Yeah, absolutely. It's got a little magnetic mirror and you open it up and it's got the built-in medicine cabinet.

It's perfect size for a pill bottles, line them up, you know? So, you know, we have, we're in this model, unfortunately, we're in this model of like, well, hey, if I have this symptom, I'm going to take this medication. And, you know, the model has done a great job, helping people understand, well, like, if the pain or the ache or the symptom goes away. That's the goal. That's the goal. And I'm better, right?

Rather than we know the reality of the situation is you're just, you know, put, you're just covering the fire. you know, the fire alarm, right? The smoke detector that's going actively going off. You just covered that smoke detector. And, you know, to hush the alarm, it's still going off. Yeah. But, you know, but you're not getting the, you know, the massive pain signals because you're quieting the symptoms. So I think we do a good job also in the office of teaching people about that.

Some people come in thinking headaches are normal or they won't realize, like, the new patient I had a couple weeks ago. You know, she came back for her day two visit. She's like, I'm starting to notice some different things that I thought was just a part of my everyday life. But no, that's just the, like we said, the beginning started the road in recovery. You kind of realizing you're in this acute pain and stuff, and that's not normal. Yeah. Well, and it's interesting. You say that too, Dr. Riley, because sometimes, you know, if you don't have a lot of intense symptoms, and then, you know, we start making corrections in the body.

You know, we find these areas that are locked up in the spine. You know, we find areas that are tight and help people start stretching. You know, they go in these first couple weeks and then they start recognizing like, oh, well, that feels weird. That feels different. Or that's, you know, oh, like I'm actually aching more in an area, you know, because now the body's starting to move differently and more efficiently. And so now muscles and tendons and ligaments are pulling in a way that they have not been pulled before.

And so now you're actually becoming more aware of like some of these, you know, aches and pains because your body's becoming, you know, more self-aware of what's going on. So, you know, I think that's kind of like this idea of road to recovery. You know, first and foremost, it's so important to understand, well, where are we starting at on this path to recovery? We do have some patients that come in and like they've been to, you know, other chiropractors or physical therapists or, you know, they've done a, decent job with, you know, kind of maintaining their level of function and, you know, doing some level of, you know, maybe it's a once a month check-in, once-a-month adjustment. And so they, they're, you know, they're not in crisis mode. They're not in this Q mode, but, but they've really

never, like, you know, fully gotten out of, like, they're constantly in this, like, stabilization mode. Like, they just, they're, they're kind of stuck in. The three phases that we really look at in the office are your acute crisis. That's when you know how you can have any number of symptoms. Maybe they're a little more intense. Maybe they're not so intense. But you've got this, you know, acute crisis going on and you, you know, hopefully want to help fix that. And then we talk about like, okay, well, now what is it going to take to like stabilize your system and start to strengthen some things so that we prevent you from going back to that acute crisis phase. and then, you know, once we get through that stabilization phase, we look at the final,

which is, you know, the goal for everyone would be to get to that enhancement and optimization. But, I mean, I would argue that a lot of people, you know, can't or don't get there, right? No. Because, you know, they've, you know, and I'm one of the most positive people. I feel like I'm talking a lot here, but like I'm one of the most positive people. So it's like I'm always trying to give people hope. But the reality of the situation is a lot of people don't start regular care or, you know, whether it's chiropractic care or whether it's an exercise routine or they don't do any level of a routine

work on their body other than there maybe once a year, every other year, once every five year check in with their medical doctor. They're really not doing any sort of ongoing routine for their health and well-being. So by the time they actually start that, they're in crisis mode and their 40s, 50s or 60s. and, you know, for them to be able to actually get to an optimal level of health, I mean, it takes a significant level of time, energy effort and sometimes finance, depending on where you're investing those, you know, that energy, you know, to actually optimize, you know, that level of health and well-being. Yeah, I mean, we don't really do preventative care in this country.

I mean, we do as, yes, yes. And more and more people are starting to. We, as a society, are very corrective. Something goes wrong. You try to correct it. But until then, I mean, the amount of people, I was just talking about somebody, you know,

with this the other day, you know, people in this country think that exercise is a tool for weight loss. Like, that's what, that's just another association that our society has made.

It's like, so if people aren't overweight, or if they're not athletes, or they're like, why do exercise? Because you do. Because our bodies are felt to do it. Yeah,

because we're not designed to sit in a chair for 24 hours. a day. And yeah, and it's just, so yeah, just this idea. And again, it's not until people, you know, get to the point, like a lot of people I'm working with, they're in their 50, 60, 70s, and are now realizing, oh, I'm losing the strength to, now of a sudden it's like, oh, now do you understand why you need to be exercising your whole life? Because now you can't get in out of your car. Now you can't get up a flight of stairs. Now you can't get off the floor with your

grandchild. Yeah, you can't get on the floor, yeah, on the floor, let alone off the floor. Down is usually easier. Yeah, I know. Most of them, they can't even get down, you know, so it Yeah, I mean, all of a sudden it's like, oh, like, and these are, guess what? Those are all motions we do at a gym. They're like, up and down, squat. That's how you get out and out of a chair. Lunges. That's how you get down to the ground.

Yeah, so it's just, again, making those associations for people. And I think, I think chiropractic's the same way. You know, we people all the time, why don't have neck and back pain? Why? Why would I come in? Yeah, why would I need to see a chiropractor? Or they wait until they have the neck and back pain and then, again, and they don't understand. It's like, okay, we understand you're having this neck and back pain, but...

And it just flared up a week ago. Yeah, but like, look at your spine. This didn't happen a week ago. Yeah, and that, yeah, that's such a good, you know, disconnect that we really have to help people understand is that, you know, okay, just because the symptom just flared up, you know, a week or two ago, you know, or even a month ago, it's like, I'm looking at your spine. And that's why we do x-rays in the office. I mean, the x-rays tell a freaking story. Like, you know, how many times, Dr. Riley, do you, you know, look at someone's x-rays and it's, you know, you know, look at someone's x-rays and it's, like, oh my gosh.

You take that x-ray and you look at them. You're like, I'm kind of surprised you're feeling the way you feel. Are you sure you're okay? Yeah, yeah, right? Because, yeah, it's like, oh, it's not that bad, right? We get that a lot. People always want to, you know, under. Yeah, though, you know, the stages in the video, they're like, I think I'm maybe,

or phase one, you know, phase two. I'm like, I think you're a lot worse than what you really believe to be. Yeah, but they feel okay, right? Yeah. feel, you know, again, that's where the intensity of symptoms. It's like they might, they might feel okay. It's like, again, other than a little bit of stiffness and soreness, you know, they're like, all right, well, I feel fine.

It's like, yeah, but, you know, you can't get down on the ground and get back up. You can't drive to the, you know, to the grocery store and get out of your car without, you know, aching, you know, it's, so it's stuff like that. Or even things like people don't realize, you know, their, their energy levels and things like that, you know, okay. You feel fine, but, like, what's fine? I mean, you sit, you sit at a computer all day, and then you sit, I mean, like, would you like, would you like to have the energy, have you even had the thought of, like, maybe I should go for a walk? Maybe I should, you know, move around a little bit. Maybe I should, you know, go do something. It's like, we just, yeah, I feel like we've just set

the bar so low on what fine is. It's like, you know, and again, because we're talking about this all the time. You know, technology is great in so many ways, but it's also taken away the need for so many things. Yeah. So many things that, you know, it's like, oh, you don't have the energy to cook. Well, pull out my phone and look, food appeared. I mean, that's a great point. Like, we were, we went up to a friend the other day and she was teaching us how to can, you know, cans and vegetables. And it's like, you know, we were on our feet for like four hours in the kitchen, you know, cooking and, you know, slicing. and peeling and, you know, and, you know, that used to just be the norm.

Yeah, that was the norm. Like, you know, especially before, like, you know, electricity and refrigerators. It was like, you know, they would can things for, you know, in the early 1800s, the settlers, it's like, they have electricity, they don't have freezers, like, you know, so it was like that was, you're right, that was the norm. And it's like, you were expected to wake up with the sun, you know, go out in the, you know, in the field, you know, go, you know, pick or. you know, pull or, you know, do something.

Go to school if you were... Again, all the basic motions. Push, pull, bend and twist. It's like, these are the functional movements that I work with people all the time. And it's like, that's why they're the functional movements because they're the ones that we literally need to survive. Well, used to need to survive.

Now it's, can you roll from one thing to another? Do thumbs work. Yeah, literally, like, well, no, because now you can order things with your mouth. It's like, it's crazy. I can literally ask Alexa to bring me something. something that she would. I mean, it's just... Well, there was a comedian a while back. It was, uh, God, was a Peter Gaff again or, no.

But it was like, it was getting the point of like ordering food. And he's like, and can you feed it to? And can you come in the door and bring me the food and, oh, and spoon feed me so I don't have to get out of my chair. I think about that's like, that's basically where we're at. So again, I get it. Um, but, you know, being able to do some of that. And we talk. We talk. We talk. about exercise, you know, but it's more functional movement from the idea. Even like when I go out in our garden and I, you know, pick some, you know, pick some vegetables or pull some weeds. It's like just getting down into a squat position. Like that's, you know, that's a functional movement. And, you know, one of my hopes is that I can continue to maintain the ability to get down and do that well into my

70s and 80s. And a lot of people can't because, you know, a lot of my clients are, because it's road to recovery. It's not just from the chiropractic side. It's really any you can apply that to anything with health. And so a lot of my clients are, you know, they come in and, you know, they're like, oh, well, you know, this is, why? It's so, this is so hard, you know, just do the basic stuff.

And I'm like, well, yeah, but that's because you're, again, you're in the acute crisis mode. You're in, so it is going to be, we have to get, yeah, we have to get through that. We have to get to the point that you can get up out of a chair without using your hands, that you can walk across the floor

without using your cane before I can start having you do anything more than that. And it is. I mean, it's the progression's great. I mean, I've gotten a lot of these people from that acute crisis to the actual strengthening where I have them doing, you know, people that at the beginning, everything was against a wall or I was literally standing right there because I was worried they were going to fall, just doing the most basic stuff to things where I'm like, okay, we're actually going to start, like, haven't you stand on one foot?

Again, I'm still right there, but I had, um, I had Diana use it. and the TRX strap, just holding them and just lifting and extend in the leg. And when I showed her, she's like, you want me to do what? And I'm like, you can do this, I guess. And yeah, and just doing that a couple of times. It's amazing to see that, you know, you have to get through that, that mental block and then the physical block. And, but yeah, it's, you know, people want to go right to that, you know, join a gym and

they want to be right to that opt-up. I'm like, well, why don't I look like, why don't I look like the trainer? Well, because the trainer's been doing this. every day. Yeah, for 30 years. Yeah. Oh, even your son when he was doing the teen group. Yeah. You know, he's like, why do you make that look so easy?

I'm like, because I do this every day and have been doing this every day since I was pretty much your show. Just do it. I'm like, it's about building on a strong foundation, right? Like if you don't have a strong foundation, and that's where injury occurs, too. We talk about prevention. Yeah, because they try to go from like zero to 60. and, you know, they gophers here at 60 age-wise. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, it's, it's, you have to build that foundation. And the same thing with adjustments, right? Like, you know, if you've got 40 years of damage and, you know, minimal, you know, minimal chiropractic care, minimal exercise and mobility. Like 40 years of sitting at a computer. Yeah, 40 years of, yeah, sitting forward. And, you know, I even think of someone like a Ben who came in and he's been coming regularly for like seven, eight months now.

And one of the big things, and he's a very tall man. But when he came in, like, he was slouched, like, significantly, probably like three or four inches short of what his full height is because he was just slouched so far forward. Because, you know, he does a job where he's, you know, up and down, manual labor. And, you know, and he just, like, at the end of the day, like, couldn't stand straight because his back was seized up so much. but going through regular adjusting, you know, weekly for, you know, seven, eight months now, like we've really been able to see, like, dude, you're so much taller. And he's even had friends tell him, like, how much taller.

You know, my goodness, am I getting shorter and getting taller? Like, what are you doing? But it's that unwinding of the stress and just building that strong foundation. It takes time and repetition. And if you don't have a strong foundation, it's a lot more, you know, frequency in terms of the the adjusting, the exercise, and, you know, so laying that foundation is so incredibly important, even if you don't have a lot of intensity of symptoms, you know, but a lot of people, like you said, Dr. Riley, it's, you know, they don't even realize,

they don't even realize, like, where they are on this, on this path, you know, optimal health. Like, they think, like, oh, well, I feel okay. So I'm, like, middle of the road. But, like, we're looking at them, like, you know, you can barely get in a. out of your chair. Like, it's... Yeah, and I feel like that's... In terms of the road to recovery

timeline, I almost feel like the acute pain, you know, crisis patients are almost easier to work with because you can get that fixed so quickly. Yeah. I think when the people come in at that, you know, decision of like, all right, I'm feeling decent,

but we're showing them, hey, x-rays are bad, thermal scans are bad. You know, functional movements are bad. It's that decision. It's like, all right, can take it to the next level, but it's really, you know, that's where the education is so important for them. Because that, I think, is the most critical, but also hardest to get them to commit to. Yeah. Yeah, it's, it is. It's tough because, again, it's like, it's a level of understanding and it's breaking that, that old mold of like, well, I'm not in pain. So, you know, why do I need to do this?

Yeah. It's like, you know, we're trying to be the, you know, the contractors or the home inspectors, you know, showing them where their foundation, their chimney, their, you know, their whole house is crumbling around them, holes and leaks in the roof, you know, that, but it's not raining, so the roof isn't leaking. But that's it, right? But isn't that, I mean, that's the whole thing with the body. It's like the rain is an added stress to the house. It's like, you know, if the roof has holes in it, no big deal if it's not raining.

But then it's like, boom, you know, you get a pouring down rain and now all this water is pouring into your house and it's like we're now so that that's the that's the stress in life right so if you are you know you might be quote unquote okay um you know i'm not in a lot of pain discomfort but if you add a layer of stress maybe it's mental emotional you know uh you know uh family member passes away someone gets diagnosed with cancer you know a son or daughter you know job loss son or daughter giving you a really hard time, you know, mentally emotionally. Like, whatever the case may be, we have those mental emotional challenges, but then we also have those physical challenges.

I think of something like when I was, you know, when I was your age, Dr. Rennel, I remember very vividly one morning when I was coming to the office, I was running, I ran down my front steps of my house. Well, there's black ice at the bottom of the, of the, of, the steps and I did not see it and it was dark in the morning. I hit it and I did the cartoon like you know feet right out from under me and I went flat on my back. But because my body was strong and I reflexed, I pulled my arms back just almost automatically and because I pulled my arms back of my shoulder blades to my spine, the brunt of the impact actually hit the back of my arms

and elbows and actually I don't think then I hit my head, you know, because I just reflexed and tightened everything up. And again, if my body wasn't strong, you know, imagine the average 50, 60 year old doing that. You're talking about significant possibility of concussion, fracture, you know, so if you keep a strong muscular system and then you add a physical stress, you're able to adapt like that. You're about stepping off a curb. How many people do we have, like, you know, you step off a curb fund. And it's like, you know, you twist your ankle, you're leaning your hip or where you do fall down.

Yeah. Because you can't adapt to that, you know, that added level of stressor, that added obstacle. I stepped wrong. I felt wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, it's like, so it's like if your body can't adapt to those situations, you know, pliability. We talk about, you know, we talk about this in the nervous system, right? The nervous system adaptability. We call it neuroplasticity, right? It's plastic. It's pliable. It has the ability to adapt to situations versus a rigid nervous system. You know, a rigid nervous system is, it's stuck. Okay. And it doesn't, it's rigid. Okay. And when you're rigid, then you don't have that adaptability, right? We've all seen the example of talking about like function. movements of like, you know, they're doing football drills. And it's like you have, you know, person stand up and, you know, stand, you know, straight up and tall and, you know, super rigid. And then you go up to them and just, you know, give them a little push. And then what do they do?

They stumble backwards. But it's like now get into a good athletic position, get down, and you give them the same push. And it's like, they don't go anywhere because their body can adapt that force through it, you know, down into the, down into the ground. And so it's like, you know, that's the adaptability of, you know, and I always use that as the simplest definition of health. If I could interchange one word with health, it would be adaptation. And so the better we can adapt, the healthier we are. And that's really what we're trying to do with this, you know, this enhancing and optimization of your body. It's like, how well can we adapt to the oncoming stressors? You know, if you ever get diagnosed with cancer, like, you know, do you want to be?

at an optimal level of adaptation? Do you want to be able to handle that? Or you do want to be so rigid that your body can't recover from any of the treatments that you're going to undergo? We've had a couple people go through cancer treatment that we've worked with while they're going through there. And they've responded and recovered really, really well. Versus people that just, and again, it's unfortunate.

We can go back into the societal, you know, the model is like, you know, wait until it's broke until you fix it rather than, hey, let's, let's check it. Let's check you regularly. Let's check in. Let's do some, you know, maintenance and routine work on on yourself so that, you know, when, you know, when you do get into the crisis or the stress, you're able to adapt to it much, much better. Yeah. Yeah. And it's really just getting people to, getting people to see and understand. I mean, we say all the time, we say from the day one, You know, so we have these nice videos that we watch it are day one and day two. And, you know, it's just constantly explaining that we do things differently. You know, if it's, again, if you're just, if you're that person, we always say,

if you're that person who's addicted to the crack, so, which is you just like the feeling of that, you know, the twisting, popping, cracking, you know, how many, how many chiropractors are there out there that you can do that and you can get, but it's like, if you were really truly trying to get healthy, if you were trying to make corrections, if you were looking for long-term wellness, that's what we do here. And it's just, it is, it's an education process because chiropractic, obviously, there's, you know, been a, there's clearly been a, at some point a split, and it's gone in, in two different, very different directions. Yeah, and that's, you know, without, yeah, we don't want to go down that route. No, no, right. Again, they're, you're right. It's just

getting people to understand, because I think sometimes people just, you know, they walk in the door and they just think, oh, chiropractor, okay, you're just going to adjust me once or twice, I'll feel better, and then I'll go on my way because that's probably what they've done or what they've heard other people's experiences has been. And so that's where, again, yeah, we just, the education is really important. And the analysis, you know, that we do here is, it's just if you can't, yeah, if you can't look at that, I love what I, you know, all over here sometimes you guys show an x-rays to people. And I love what, even before you say anything, they go, oh, I don't know that's supposed to

look like that. They're like, yeah, it's just, yeah, so I mean, they're already, they're already seen and kind of self-diagnosing and understanding that, okay, or even the thermal scan, you all do that very first scan on someone, they haven't even watched a video yet to know what a thermal scan is, and they're like, they're like, oh, that doesn't look good. Because they're just, they're recognizing that it looks, you know, usually they're right, and it's like that, but it's like, yeah, they're just understanding, okay, that looks intense, and that would explain, so they're already starting to put that connection together in their

mind and it's like okay well yeah it's a good thing you're here and we'll we'll explain how and how we're going to get you there and yeah well and and that's where we have you know we have the tools to analyze um you know you do a lot of functional movement patterns when you're working one-on-one with people in terms of you know hey can you get down onto the floor get back up you know just get down into a chair and get back up and analyzing those functional movement patterns and you know and helping people understand how we can strengthen and come up with a plan but I think it all comes down to, we have to have assessments to be able to determine and help someone understand where they truly are in this path to optimal wellness and where they are on this road to recovery,

what phase of care they might be in because most people do come in, you know, they start care in acute crisis, you know, they've got a lot of symptoms that are flared up, but then, you know, helping them understand where they'd like to get to. So it's like, you know, those are two key points that we really strive to help everyone understand when they come into the office. It's like, where are you starting at? Where ultimately do you want to get to? Because then we can come up with the best recommendation, you know, to get you there.

And then again, it's like once you do get to that level of, you know, optimizing and enhancing your health, it's like, I always say my goal is to get everyone to apply. point where they, they, they are comfortable and they're feeling, you know, strong and functional enough where they could continue that functionality, that optimal level of help at a once a month, you know, check in. But some people's level of stress and activity level is they need to check in every other week or once a week because they just, they have a high, you know, they have a high level stress. They're just go, go, go, go all the time. They wear their body out a lot. And so it's like, you know, if that's the way you're going to, you know, you know, you're going to, you know, you know,

You're going to run your life, that's fine, but you just are probably going to need some more work, you know, in recovery. Yeah. So, you know, but I think at the end of the day, that's the big thing. It's just helping people understand where are they starting at, where ultimately would they like to get to? Because there are some people who just, you know, they've got some simple aches and pains, and they just want to feel a little bit better. And, hey, a couple of adjustments could make a big difference with that, you know, so going over an exercise, you know, regimen that they could do on. their own at home for, you know, you show them in 20, 30 minutes, you know, hey, these are what you should do on a daily basis to build a good foundation. And it's like, you know, we give them those

adjustments, give them that plan. And it's like, all right, we'll check back in with us when you feel you might be backsliding a little bit or, you know, or maybe ready to take it to the next level. So it's really just about getting to, you know, the understanding of where people are and where they'd like to get to. But we also don't lie to people, you know, if we, if we, if we, if We think we, you know, when our recommendations and we want to try and take someone to a certain level, but they're thinking like, oh, it's going to be way less time or way less, you know, it's like, well, I don't think we can, you know, we can help you or get you there. Because if I think that, hey, you've had, you know, six, five to six decades of damage, you know, in your spine, and I'm seeing that on your x-ray. And you've got some of these chronic things going on in your nervous system. and you think you're going to feel better in, you know, a couple visits or, you know, or even after a month of care, it's like, you know, our understanding of where we're at is completely opposite. And at the end of the day, if we decide, like, not to work together, that's okay too. Like, you know, we're some of the least pushy people when it comes to, you know, plans and helping, you know, we're just trying to help people to get to where they want to, but there's also a reality in terms of, you know, there's, you know, there's,

There's going to be a certain level of care and commitment if you want to reach a certain level. So if any of that resonated with you or if you want to get evaluated or you know if you want to get evaluated or you know someone if you're a current patient and you know someone that, you know, might want to take advantage or just kind of figure out where they are in their health journey. And, you know, how our office, you know, or other, you know, health routines might be able to make a better fit. you know, we would love to answer any questions that you had. You can always reach out through our website, ToroTU-R-O, Family Chiropractic.com. You know, reach out to us by email. And I think, well, I don't know if we have the licensure to be able to take a picture

and put that off. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, come see us in there. You come check out the Road to Recovery map in the office, and we can discuss that more. So we don't want to do any copyrighted enrichment. So I'm putting that image out there. But yeah, I'm Dr. Dan, Dr. Riley.

And we'll see you at the next one. Thanks for stopping by. You've been listening to What the Health with Dr. Dan and Angela Toro, brought to you by Toro family chiropractic. To learn more about the resources mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes, visit www.w.w.com.