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Prepare to have your health questions answered here on Safe, Effective, Natural Solutions

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with Dr. Todd Binkley, owner of Binkley Healing Center in downtown Ventura.

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Now here's Dr. Todd.

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Good afternoon.

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I'm Dr. Todd Binkley, board certified non-force doctor of chiropractic and practitioner of

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functional medicine.

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Most of the time, most of the shows are about, predominantly about functional medicine, about

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how to use more advanced testing to identify places where your organs and tissues, your

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heart, your liver, your immune system, your kidneys need a little support, some nutrients,

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some better food, maybe some exercise to get them functioning at their peak so you can

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reverse or eliminate your dependency or prevent your dependency on pharmaceuticals for the

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rest of your life for things like high cholesterol, high blood pressure, heart disease, low thyroid,

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anemia, et cetera.

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For last week, I talked about how I am a non-force chiropractor.

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I've been a practicing chiropractor since 1989 when I graduated where I got my doctorate

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of chiropractic degree at Palmer College of Chiropractic, what some people call the Harvard

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of chiropractic because it attracts students from all over the world and it is where the

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profession was founded by Daniel David Palmer back in 1895.

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So I got a number of questions after last week's episode.

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I talked a lot about some of the understanding how the body works, understand how non-force

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methods can work, how you can release tension, correct headaches, neck pain, back pain, sciatica,

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carpal tunnel syndrome, rotator cuff injuries, plantar fasciitis, all the things that most

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chiropractors address with traditional adjusting methods with some kind of application of force

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or with deep tissue massage or with physical therapy, some combination thereof.

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How do I help people with those things without using any kind of force?

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How does non-force chiropractic work?

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What does that look like?

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And it's difficult to describe on the radio.

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It's much easier to show you in my office.

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But ultimately, the non-force method I use is called network.

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The main non-force method is called network spinal analysis.

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I use a number of other non-force methods.

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I've developed myself, but all of them have one thing in common.

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They all are means of sending feedback to your brain to help it release patterns of

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tension that have built up in tissues throughout your body, patterns of tension in your muscles,

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and also hypersensitive nerves.

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So just sitting a lot in lousy chairs, beds that are too soft, having poor posture creates

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patterns of tension in your muscles.

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And these can be felt.

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They can be palpated.

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So just by running my hands along or touching certain muscles, doing a physical exam to

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identify places where you're holding tension anywhere in the body.

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But along the spine in particular, there are little nerve endings that come directly from

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the spinal cord up to the surface, which can also be felt, which allow me to figure out

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exactly where the worst tension is on your spine right now.

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And all I have to do is hold a contact to send a signal to your brain to help it figure

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out what muscles it needs to use to release that tension.

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And when it does that, because it has to figure out what muscles to use, it learns something

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from that every time we do it.

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And so it becomes a more lasting method, more lasting results than if you apply force.

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So I love using non-force chiropractic and helping people find and identify a way to

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get a lasting solution for a problem as opposed to just a short term relief from pain.

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So this is one of my favorite case studies.

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This is a patient in his 40s who was referred to me by another chiropractor.

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He'd been getting regular chiropractic adjustments with a local chiropractor in a neighboring

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town and then he had another injury.

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He had gotten a car accident and that chiropractor worked on him for a little bit, but he got

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to the point where he just wasn't getting any better.

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This chiropractor strongly suspected that he had a herniated disc and he knew that was

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something that you're not going to do a regular adjustment on.

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So he sent him to me.

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Well, I did a physical exam on him, found some issues which I'll describe here in a

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minute, but I told him we definitely need to get an MRI immediately.

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And he had good insurance, so I just told him to go to his regular MD and have him order

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the MRI so that the insurance would pay for it.

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So this was July 2009.

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The MRI comes back and he's got a 6 to 7 millimeter herniated disc at L4.

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This is the fourth vertebra, the second to last vertebra in your lower back.

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And it's compressing that sac that surrounds the spinal cord that I've described before

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that protects the delicate spinal cord inside the fluid-filled sac.

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So there's pressure on that.

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That's what's causing his low back pain.

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He also had a smaller disc bulge in the vertebral lobe at L5, but it was obvious that most of

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his symptoms were coming from L4.

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Well, his family doctor that ordered this scan told him he needed to go see a neurosurgeon

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immediately.

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And I agreed.

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But we both knew the neurosurgeon was just going to recommend surgery, and the patient

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said, you know, I don't want to have surgery.

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Do you think you can help me?

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And I said, well, let's see.

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We'll give it a shot.

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We'll give it some time.

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I've explained before how there are so many muscles that can contribute to low back pain

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and make your low back an accident waiting to happen.

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Well, he was a classic case of this.

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All of his hip rotator muscle, the small glutes and the piriformis, his psoas muscle, and

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his hamstrings were all super tight.

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I think his hamstrings were probably the tightest I've ever seen.

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When he was lying on his back and I tried to lift his foot, it came up about 12 inches

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off the table.

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With his leg straight, lifting his foot up, it came up to about an angle of 20 degrees

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from the table.

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Well, you want your leg to be able to get up to 90 degrees.

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And if you can't get it up to 90 degrees with your knee locked straight, then that's tight

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hamstrings and that is going to contribute to low back pain.

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So I knew that even if he ended up needing surgery, if we could get the tension out of

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those hamstrings and all those other tight muscles that were overloading his back, contributing

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to him, if not causing him getting the injury in the first place, that it was going to give

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him a much better outcome even if he ended up having to have the surgery.

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So three months later, he has hardly any pain radiating down his legs.

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He still has some pain in his back, but it's better.

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So I said, now go see the neurosurgeon.

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But I don't want to get surgery.

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You know, you know, you don't have, you know, I don't want that.

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I said, well, you don't have to get surgery.

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Just tell the neurosurgeon that you're still having some low back pain and occasionally

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some pain radiating down your legs.

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So he'll order another MRI and then we can see what this disc looks like.

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Right.

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Okay.

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So we had an excellent neurosurgeon in town back then who's since retired, but I sent

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dozens of patients to him and I knew that he was conservative and I knew that he wouldn't

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recommend surgery except as a last resort, unless it was the only option.

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And I also know that if he needed surgery, he was the best because he had excellent outcomes.

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So this neurosurgeon orders another MRI.

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This is October of 2009 now and the MRI showed a five millimeter herniated disc at L4.

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So in three months, his herniated disc has shrunk by 25% from six to seven millimeters

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to five millimeters with conservative care only.

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No adjustments, no force of any kind, just stretching and giving his brain feedback to

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help it relax all those muscles so that the disc could actually heal.

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And of course this very smart neurosurgeon said, well, if you've got that much improvement

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in three months with conservative care, just keep doing what you're doing.

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So fast forward a year, patient's doing great, no pain at all, nothing going down his legs,

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no back pain.

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He's back to lifting weights and his back is feeling stronger than ever.

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And I told him, I said, you know, I wish we could get another MRI to see what that disc

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looks like now.

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And he says, you know, I never get to see that.

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I've helped so many people heal herniated discs.

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I know if I could get another scan, we're going to see it shrunk even smaller, but somebody

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has to pay for that.

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And of course, you know, I can always send you off for an MRI.

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Nowadays they don't cost that much.

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I can get a lumbar spine MRI for about $275 cash if you don't want to wait on your insurance

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to pay for it or get permission or go see the specialist to get permission to, you know,

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sometimes you have to go through two or three appointments just to get permission to get

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the scan.

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Anyway, back then it was more like $1,200 for a lumbar MRI.

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So he went back to the neurosurgeon and I don't know how he did it.

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This is really rare, but he got this neurosurgeon to order another MRI.

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He probably told him he had a little pain in his back going down his leg once in a while

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or something just to give him a reason to order the scan.

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So this is a little over a year later.

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It's November of 2010 and his MRI says stable mild diffuse disc bulge with stable mild spinal

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stenosis.

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Well, what does that mean?

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Basically he has no herniated disc anymore.

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It's stable.

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There's no signs of inflammation.

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There's no signs of something that's prone to tear more.

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And mild stenosis means there's just very little, stenosis means narrowing.

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So there's very little narrowing in the canal.

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Basically there's nothing that's going to be pressing or rubbing on his spinal cord

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anymore.

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Well, it also says the neuroforamina are adequately patent bilaterally.

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Well, what does that mean?

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The neuroforamina, those are the little holes on either side of the spine where the nerve

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roots exit.

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And patent just means they're not blocked.

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So it's basically saying there's no pressure from a disc bulge on the spinal cord and there's

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no tissue that's pressing or interfering with or narrowing the openings in the spine where

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the nerve roots exit on either side, which makes it very easy to understand why he's

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feeling great.

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But this is amazing.

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He's gone from a six to seven millimeter disc herniation down to one that's so small they

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didn't even put a number to it in the summary.

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And if you read further down in the report, if they don't mention the size, then you know

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it's less than two or three millimeters if you read enough MRIs because that's the smallest

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number they ever put that's associated with any symptoms.

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Typically a two or three millimeter disc herniation has no symptoms.

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Anyway, further down in the report, it did say that his bulge was now a, quote, stable

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bulge of two millimeters.

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And you know, so that basically means he's got no herniated disc at all, no nerve irritation

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and no instability.

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So this is unheard of to shrink a herniated disc from six to seven millimeters down to

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two, which is basically nothing without surgery.

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And this patient went back to lifting weights.

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He kept doing all the stretches.

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Most importantly, he kept doing all the stretches that I showed him to keep the pressure off

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of his back so he wouldn't re-injure the disc, including hanging upside down and twisting.

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And that probably sounds kind of scary.

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So we'll come back to that.

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I certainly didn't start that when he came in.

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In fact, what made the biggest difference when he first came in is I had him lie.

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This is what I do for somebody that comes in.

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I've had people walk in or come in on a walker or be carried in by somebody or crawl in even.

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And I do what I'm about to describe and they can stand up and walk out in one visit.

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Sometimes I'm not saying that fix the problem, but it just reduces enough pressure that you

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can get a dramatic reduction in the pressure on the nerves.

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So I lie him on the floor with his feet on the wall with his hips bent at 90 degrees,

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his knees bent at 90 degrees and his feet pressing against the wall.

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So he's lying on his back and then I strap his hips with a strap to the wall.

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And then I have him lying flat on his back.

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So his back is totally supported.

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There's nothing that you're going to do that's going to damage the back in any way because

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it's fully supported and he's lying on his back.

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And then his hips are attached to the wall.

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And then I either use a strap around his rib cage or eventually I just grab his forearms

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and have him grab my forearms and I gently pull.

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I stress gently pull.

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This may sound like if you were, if you're hopefully you can visualize this and I'm actually,

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you know, giving you something that's of use to you to understand how I can help.

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But you know, if you were there watching it, you might, and you don't realize how gently

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I'm pulling it might look like some kind of medieval torture or something.

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But I trust you, I promise you it's not.

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It's a very gentle stretch.

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And the most important thing is I'm stretching for just a little bit and then releasing and

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letting the muscles relax and then stretching again and relax, letting it relax.

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And promise you this, I don't know of any other doctors that do this kind of traction.

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Most doctors, if you need traction, they put you on some kind of machine where you're strapped

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to this machine for maybe 20 minutes or 45 minutes, sometimes longer.

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In the old days, they used to use these horrific cables and wires in a hospital bed and, you

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know, put you in traction and leave you that way for days or weeks.

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They don't do that anymore.

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But most doctors, if you need traction, they're going to use some kind of machine to stretch

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you where they might be helping to stretch a little bit on some kind of table that bends

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or a machine that strap you onto and it kind of shakes and twists and pulls a little bit.

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The problem with that is the machine can't feel where your limitations are.

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So when I'm doing this on the floor where your back is totally supported and your back's

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not moving at all except for the stretch that I'm providing, I can feel the response.

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I can feel and see the reaction and know exactly how little to stretch and how much to stretch.

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Where's that safe limit?

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So by monitoring the body's reaction the entire time, I know exactly how much pressure or

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how little pressure to use.

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And this removes the compression from a compressed disc.

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Your discs are compressed all day long when you're standing and sitting.

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Your discs, especially in the low back, are being compressed.

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And two thirds of your body weight is carried by that last lumbar disc or the last two lumbar

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discs.

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L4 and L5 are the most commonly ones that you hernia because two thirds of your body

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weight is being carried by these little pieces of cartilage that are about a quarter of an

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inch thick.

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It's a little bit thicker than that depending on how big you are and about an inch and a

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half in diameter.

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So think of that.

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Two thirds of your body weight is being supported by this little piece of cartilage that's about

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a quarter of an inch thick and about an inch and a half in diameter.

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But normally, it's a wonder everyone doesn't get a herniated disc, but normally they're

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incredibly strong.

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So these discs are kind of like a slice of an onion made out of cartilage with a series

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of concentric rings, like the slice of an onion with a marble in the center that supports

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the weight of the vertebra above and acts like a fulcrum or a pivot point so that when

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you're bending and twisting and turning, it provides that space between one vertebra and

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the next.

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But when you tear some of these fibers, some of the concentric rings, some of the layers

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of the onion, then that marble becomes more like a jelly bean.

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So it's always like a jelly bean.

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It's just as hard as a marble when it's fully supported.

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But if you tear some of those rings, then some of that jelly in the jelly bean, the

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contents of that is pushed back through the breach, through the tears in these fibers

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towards the back or towards the side, creating a disc bulge that presses on the spinal cord.

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And if it goes toward the side, then it can press on the nerve roots or sometimes both.

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I'm Dr. Todd Binkley talking about safe, effective natural solutions to almost any health challenge.

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Today, we're talking about herniated discs.

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I mostly talk about things like rheumatoid arthritis and low thyroid and diabetes and

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heart disease.

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But today, I am a non-force chiropractor.

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And so today we're talking about a herniated disc case.

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So a vertebral disc in your back is kind of like a slice of an onion.

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When you tear some of those rings of the onion and the material in the center pushes back,

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creating a bulge that presses on the nerves, that's when you feel the symptoms of a herniated

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disc.

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So the best way to make it strong again is to take the pressure off of that disc, to

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decompress it.

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And eventually, the way to make it strong again, so after we decompress it with some

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traction on the floor and get the muscles released to take some of the tension off,

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then the best way to make it strong again so that it's less likely to tear more in the

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future and to fully heal it, basically to make it strong, is you want to put these fibers

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of this disc in traction and rotation.

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So you want to decompress and rotate a little bit because they're circular.

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So the best way to make those circular fibers strong again is to decompress and rotate them

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by hanging upside down and twisting.

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That may sound pretty scary and I certainly didn't start with that.

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I can imagine that that might sound kind of scary if you've got this huge 6-7 millimeter

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disc herniation to hang upside down and twist.

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So I didn't start with that obviously.

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For the first couple of months, all I did was have him on the table and release the

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tension from the spinal cord as I've described before and then doing this traction on the

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floor.

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And after a couple of months, then I started doing some other stretches to prepare him

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to hang upside down for at least another month.

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It was probably around the third month that we were able to get him to actually hang upside

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down and twist.

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Well, he's been doing that ever since on his own at home and his L4 disc is still doing

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great and he's doing great.

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He's still doing great because he's a great patient.

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I wish all my patients were as dedicated to doing their stretches as he is.

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He's smart and he knows it works.

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So actually I've got lots of patients who think stretching is a huge hassle in the beginning.

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You might be wondering, oh my God, I'm not going to go to him.

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He's going to make me do stretches.

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Who has time for that?

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Well, here's who has time.

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I'm not going to give you a handout with a list of 20 stretches and say good luck or

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say watch this video.

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I'm going to design maybe two or three stretches that are going to make a huge difference for

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you immediately.

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So if you spend a few minutes every day doing these stretches, you're going to feel the

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difference and you're going to want to do them because they work.

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So it's but you can't you can't learn this from a video or looking at a picture in a

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book.

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You have to be shown exactly how to do.

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You're as different as you.

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You're as different as everyone's different and there's no there's no one size fits all

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stretch.

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The stretch the same stretch the same sort of like a hamstring stretch looks different

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for you than it does for the next person.

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So you need to be shown specific ways to stretch your muscles given where your attention is.

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The whole point is to release tension in your body and help your brain figure out how to

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relax those muscles so that they keep getting longer and looser over time and so that they

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stay that way and so that your pain goes away and so that your pain stays away.

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And then later if you do something like lifting something you shouldn't or bending and twisting

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pulling weeds in the garden you know you have some kind of a setback.

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It's much easier to fix then because you're keeping your back limber and loose so that

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your spine and your other joints bend instead of breaking and you just get a few little

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micro tears which will heal easily versus major tears that may end up requiring surgery.

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So I've helped hundreds of people with herniated discs avoid surgery but I very rarely get

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to see the follow-up MRIs to see and confirm how much the disc has shrunk.

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I've helped hundreds of people avoid surgery for herniated discs in the neck and people

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who were scheduled for surgery in a rotator cuff injury or for a torn meniscus in the

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knee or a hip surgery or these barbaric surgeries they do for some doctors do for plantar fasciitis

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or tension tension in the Achilles tendons and I've gotten most of them completely out

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of pain by showing them how to do and by doing the work on the table showing them how to

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do some stresses at home and then they can keep it that way forever so that they can

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feel good forever as long as they keep getting an occasional tune up with me to deal with

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the stress of daily life and keep doing their stretches at home.

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Well I've also sent many patients to surgeons if they need it.

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Some people just wait too long or occasionally have severe injuries injuries that require

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surgery but in all of these cases I help relieve the tension around the damaged area before

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they get the surgery so that I know that they're going to have the best possible outcome and

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then I encourage them to come back after the surgery so that we can get the best possible

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recovery and actually heal the damaged tissue.

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I give them some nutrients to heal the damaged tissue and continue to do some stretches and

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some other methods on the table to relax the tension around the damaged area so I can heal

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as quick as possible heal as strong as possible and then eventually get them on some regular

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stretches to restore and maintain the flexibility in these short tight muscles that contributed

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to if not directly cause them getting the torn tissue in the first place.

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Here's something else you can do with non-force chiropractic that you can't do within a traditional

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adjustment.

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Treat low back pain or neck pain or shoulder pain or knee pain or hip pain and any patient

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who's had a failed surgery who's had surgery and still has pain a year later two years

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later five years later it's still about 50-50 with back surgeries that you're going to feel

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any better two years later than if you hadn't had the surgery at all.

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And you're not going to do a traditional adjustment on somebody who's had a spinal fusion.

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You're not going to adjust someone's knee who's just had surgery there and still has

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pain or someone's shoulder who's had surgery and you know it's just obviously still too

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fragile to do anything forceful on it.

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But you can always reduce tension in the muscles around that area which in my experience tension

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in the muscles around that area and hypersensitive nerve endings in and around that area are

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what causes almost all pain in the first place.

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Tension in the muscles around the damage area as well as these hypersensitive nerve endings

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that just get stuck on.

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You can address both of these without any force and all of these methods that I'm describing

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to do that simply involve the one thing they have in common is they're all about giving

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feedback to your brain.

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So we're giving feedback to the brain to help it realize that it's safe to relax those

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muscles and reduce the sensitivity level in those nerve endings.

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The only reason your brain is maintaining that tension in those muscles in the first

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place is because it doesn't feel safe.

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It thinks you're going to re-enter this area immediately.

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It's on guard.

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It's trying to protect you from damaging that same tissue again.

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It's convinced that any minute now you're going to tear it again so it tightens up the

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muscles and keeps them tight.

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Maybe forever.

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It maintains this heightened sense of alert in the nerve endings so that you barely touch

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it and it hurts like you were sticking a needle in.

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These are just protective mechanisms but there are always ways to convince your brain that

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it's okay to relax those tender muscles and hypersensitive nerves.

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These hypersensitive nerve endings and tender muscles, and I'm going to use that phrase

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over and over again and I know it's difficult to understand, it's much easier to show you

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when you're in the office what I mean.

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But another way to think about it is hypersensitive nerve endings and over tight muscles that

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your brain is deliberately keeping on this heightened state of alert even when you don't

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have any damaged tissue that needs to be protected anymore.

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The metaphor I like is they're kind of like scared children.

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If you have a scared child, you can't force it to stop being scared.

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You can't force it to stop crying, to stop being hypersensitive, to stop being tense

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and worried.

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You have to calm them down.

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You have to gently convince them, make them understand that they're safe, that they're

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okay and it's all right to relax and release that tension.

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I'm Dr. Todd Binkley.

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I'd love to be a part of your New Year's resolutions to take care of your health better in the

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new year.

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Have a fabulous weekend.

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Be safe.

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I look forward to chatting with you right here on KDRFM next week at 4 p.m.

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Happy New Year.

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You've been listening to Safe, Effective Natural Solutions with Dr. Todd Binkley.

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If you have a health question you want discussed on the show, email your health questions to

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drbinkley at binkleyhealingcenter.com.

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Take advantage of this opportunity to ask questions for yourself and for your loved

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ones because our health matters.

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Join him next Friday at 4 p.m. for Safe, Effective Natural Solutions right here on 98.3 The

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Word KDAR.