1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,760 Prepare to have your health questions answered here on Safe, Effective, Natural Solutions 2 00:00:06,760 --> 00:00:12,040 with Dr. Todd Binkley, owner of Binkley Healing Center in downtown Ventura. 3 00:00:12,040 --> 00:00:14,640 Now, here's Dr. Todd. 4 00:00:14,640 --> 00:00:15,640 Good afternoon. 5 00:00:15,640 --> 00:00:21,460 I'm Dr. Todd Binkley, practitioner of functional medicine and doctor of non-force chiropractic. 6 00:00:21,460 --> 00:00:27,560 Last week for the past two episodes, we talked about neuropathies, problems with nerves, 7 00:00:27,560 --> 00:00:31,960 especially in the lower extremities, in the low back, hips, legs, all the way down to 8 00:00:31,960 --> 00:00:33,200 the tips of your toes. 9 00:00:33,200 --> 00:00:38,880 So I thought this week we'll talk about the arms, the neck, shoulders, arms, pain in the 10 00:00:38,880 --> 00:00:44,560 nerves that usually come from the neck but can show up in any part of your arm, even 11 00:00:44,560 --> 00:00:49,920 something as simple as numbness in your pinky and the finger next to it, or the thumb, or 12 00:00:49,920 --> 00:00:52,760 just pain in one finger. 13 00:00:52,760 --> 00:00:58,640 Numbness, tingling, burning, these are all signs of pressure on or some kind of disease 14 00:00:58,640 --> 00:01:05,920 process or ailment or nutrient deficiency oftentimes to the nerves in your upper extremity, 15 00:01:05,920 --> 00:01:07,520 in your shoulder, arm, hand. 16 00:01:07,520 --> 00:01:13,440 Problems that are caused by disc herniations in the neck or simply patterns of tension 17 00:01:13,440 --> 00:01:17,800 in the muscles of the neck, this is actually more common than disc herniations. 18 00:01:17,800 --> 00:01:20,560 But also we're going to talk about thoracic outlet syndrome. 19 00:01:20,560 --> 00:01:25,120 You may have heard about where there's pressure on the nerves just underneath the collarbone, 20 00:01:25,120 --> 00:01:30,960 rotator cuff injuries, which can cause pressure, nerve-like symptoms anyway. 21 00:01:30,960 --> 00:01:35,800 Tennis elbow, which isn't really a nerve condition but can also cause similar symptoms. 22 00:01:35,800 --> 00:01:39,520 So we want to sort of debunk any confusion between those two. 23 00:01:39,520 --> 00:01:45,320 And of course everyone's heard of carpal tunnel syndrome, where supposedly there is pressure 24 00:01:45,320 --> 00:01:51,340 on the nerves as they pass through this little outlet in your wrist and also that is often 25 00:01:51,340 --> 00:01:54,280 not actually caused in the carpal tunnel. 26 00:01:54,280 --> 00:01:55,640 So we'll talk about all of those things. 27 00:01:55,640 --> 00:01:59,640 But before we do that, we're going to get into some recent news. 28 00:01:59,640 --> 00:02:01,680 This is a story that came out in medical press. 29 00:02:01,680 --> 00:02:02,680 It's pretty exciting. 30 00:02:02,680 --> 00:02:08,600 It's entitled, Which Probiotics Are Effective in Irritable Bowel Syndrome? 31 00:02:08,600 --> 00:02:15,360 And this is kind of a compendium of research from France, from Ireland, from Sweden, an 32 00:02:15,360 --> 00:02:21,120 upgrade actually to the recommendations of the American gastroenterology community. 33 00:02:21,120 --> 00:02:27,080 And it's pretty exciting because what they're doing is naming specific strains, specific 34 00:02:27,080 --> 00:02:36,480 strains of probiotics, specific types of lactobacillus, bifidobacteria, other types of beneficial 35 00:02:36,480 --> 00:02:41,280 bacteria that are often in probiotic products. 36 00:02:41,280 --> 00:02:45,240 And these have been studied by top shelf manufacturers of probiotics. 37 00:02:45,240 --> 00:02:51,860 The functional medicine practitioners have been using for years, but it's just really 38 00:02:51,860 --> 00:02:54,000 unusual to see this in the medical literature. 39 00:02:54,000 --> 00:02:57,960 And so it's pretty exciting because they go on, it's a little bit technical. 40 00:02:57,960 --> 00:03:03,520 They go on to describe several of these different strains and different populations and some 41 00:03:03,520 --> 00:03:08,960 major studies, randomized controlled trials showing huge differences with specific types 42 00:03:08,960 --> 00:03:15,360 of rhamnosus is another type of bacteria that is in some of the top shelf products. 43 00:03:15,360 --> 00:03:20,020 And we've been using these things for years, but to see that it's actually working its 44 00:03:20,020 --> 00:03:24,860 way into mainstream medicine is pretty exciting because a lot of people are going to benefit 45 00:03:24,860 --> 00:03:32,880 from that because most people who have irritable bowel syndrome, and first of all, that's often 46 00:03:32,880 --> 00:03:38,800 kind of a catch-all diagnosis or a diagnosis of exclusion if you have certain symptoms. 47 00:03:38,800 --> 00:03:47,220 It's not the diagnosis of it can vary a lot depending on what doctor you go to. 48 00:03:47,220 --> 00:03:54,560 But if you have a chronically irritated gut, oftentimes people will sort of diagnose themselves 49 00:03:54,560 --> 00:04:00,280 with irritable bowel syndrome, especially if you have alternating constipation and diarrhea 50 00:04:00,280 --> 00:04:03,680 and just chronic upset for a long period of time. 51 00:04:03,680 --> 00:04:07,080 But there are ways to diagnose it more specifically. 52 00:04:07,080 --> 00:04:12,200 But the most important thing is in the big scheme of things, most people, when they go 53 00:04:12,200 --> 00:04:20,600 to most doctors with irritable bowel syndrome, they get treatment with drugs, anti-diarrheal, 54 00:04:20,600 --> 00:04:21,600 from the Mayo Clinic. 55 00:04:21,600 --> 00:04:28,640 The treatment that the Mayo Clinic recommends is fiber supplements, good, laxatives, maybe, 56 00:04:28,640 --> 00:04:35,760 anti-diarrheal medications, anticholinergic medications, tricyclic antidepressants, SSRI 57 00:04:35,760 --> 00:04:42,000 antidepressants, pain medications, Lote-Ronex, there's a whole list of things that just treat 58 00:04:42,000 --> 00:04:49,160 the symptoms of the irritation, that calm the nerves that are overstimulating your bowel 59 00:04:49,160 --> 00:04:56,360 and causing it to become irritated or treat the symptoms of constipation, diarrhea, inflammation, 60 00:04:56,360 --> 00:05:01,400 etc., and those just never work long term. 61 00:05:01,400 --> 00:05:07,480 They certainly do nothing to correct the problem, whereas probiotics, powerful specific strains, 62 00:05:07,480 --> 00:05:13,640 not just the, this is another good reason to, I talk a lot about, you know, some supplements 63 00:05:13,640 --> 00:05:15,480 are fine to buy anywhere. 64 00:05:15,480 --> 00:05:17,400 Vitamin C is the best example. 65 00:05:17,400 --> 00:05:22,720 If you can tolerate plain old ascorbic acid and you need extra vitamin C for any condition, 66 00:05:22,720 --> 00:05:23,720 buy it at Costco. 67 00:05:23,720 --> 00:05:25,240 It doesn't matter. 68 00:05:25,240 --> 00:05:30,440 But there are some things that you should never buy in any store or other than a health 69 00:05:30,440 --> 00:05:35,840 food store, and probiotics is another one on that list because cheap probiotics are 70 00:05:35,840 --> 00:05:37,160 a waste of money. 71 00:05:37,160 --> 00:05:43,700 The most money you'll ever waste on a product is something that you purchase for any price 72 00:05:43,700 --> 00:05:46,360 that has no effect on your physiology. 73 00:05:46,360 --> 00:05:51,400 So cheap probiotics don't work, and the ones that do work are expensive, but you shouldn't 74 00:05:51,400 --> 00:05:56,480 need to take the big guns, the really expensive probiotics, for more than a few weeks or a 75 00:05:56,480 --> 00:05:57,480 few months. 76 00:05:57,480 --> 00:05:59,320 So that varies for everyone. 77 00:05:59,320 --> 00:06:03,720 But anyway, it's exciting to see in the literature that they're finally naming some of these 78 00:06:03,720 --> 00:06:10,720 specific strains that are well documented to reverse inflammatory bowel syndrome and 79 00:06:10,720 --> 00:06:15,040 other inflammatory conditions of the gut. 80 00:06:15,040 --> 00:06:22,120 There is another fascinating paper in the literature connecting chronic pain to accelerated 81 00:06:22,120 --> 00:06:24,920 brain aging. 82 00:06:24,920 --> 00:06:31,960 I've often talked about how anything you can do to improve your heart health, regular exercise, 83 00:06:31,960 --> 00:06:36,480 eating right, reducing stress, keeping your blood pressure low, keeping the pump strong 84 00:06:36,480 --> 00:06:41,200 will also heal your brain, keep your brain effective as long as possible. 85 00:06:41,200 --> 00:06:45,320 It's all about supplying nutrients and oxygen to the brain, but this is really interesting. 86 00:06:45,320 --> 00:06:52,520 This is a study linking arthritis in the knee to accelerated brain aging. 87 00:06:52,520 --> 00:06:58,800 So it was a study that's on 9,000 adults from the UK Biobank. 88 00:06:58,800 --> 00:07:04,680 Investigators developed a model to compare an individual's brain age with their chronological 89 00:07:04,680 --> 00:07:12,800 age and those with osteoarthritis in the knee showed a much faster rate of brain aging than 90 00:07:12,800 --> 00:07:14,600 healthy individuals. 91 00:07:14,600 --> 00:07:16,040 So you heard that right. 92 00:07:16,040 --> 00:07:20,960 Osteoarthritis, the plain old arthritis that you get with aging that most people get over 93 00:07:20,960 --> 00:07:27,360 time in the knee was connected to a faster rate of brain aging. 94 00:07:27,360 --> 00:07:32,280 So it's probably not just arthritis in the knee, but arthritis in general, the inflammatory 95 00:07:32,280 --> 00:07:39,480 debris that is produced by osteoarthritis, inflammation from arthritis is affecting your 96 00:07:39,480 --> 00:07:43,600 brain because when you have arthritis anywhere in your body, you have it everywhere in your 97 00:07:43,600 --> 00:07:50,980 body and those inflammatory cytokines and other inflammatory irritants affect every 98 00:07:50,980 --> 00:07:51,980 part of your body. 99 00:07:51,980 --> 00:07:55,800 But they studied this specifically and it's interesting that just osteoarthritis in the 100 00:07:55,800 --> 00:08:03,640 knee was directly linked with acceleration of brain aging, especially in the hippocampus. 101 00:08:03,640 --> 00:08:08,920 If you've listened to my episodes back a few weeks ago when I was talking, I did four episodes 102 00:08:08,920 --> 00:08:15,400 on cognitive decline and dementia and the hippocampus is the part of your brain that's 103 00:08:15,400 --> 00:08:16,840 kind of like the file clerk. 104 00:08:16,840 --> 00:08:22,560 When you experience something, the hippocampus has to decide where to store that memory and 105 00:08:22,560 --> 00:08:27,640 that's often the first part that goes so even though you still experience things, it drives 106 00:08:27,640 --> 00:08:31,240 people around you crazy because you just saw something happen and you can't remember it 107 00:08:31,240 --> 00:08:36,400 because of the damage to the hippocampus and your brain didn't store that memory. 108 00:08:36,400 --> 00:08:39,760 So this is associated with arthritis in the knee. 109 00:08:39,760 --> 00:08:46,280 This is fascinating to me because there are lots of things you can do to reduce arthritis 110 00:08:46,280 --> 00:08:52,760 anywhere in your body and therefore potentially reduce another common cause apparently of 111 00:08:52,760 --> 00:08:56,560 damage or acceleration of aging to the brain. 112 00:08:56,560 --> 00:09:03,640 So chronic musculoskeletal pain affects 40% of the world's population and has been shown 113 00:09:03,640 --> 00:09:11,520 to have harmful impact on cognitive function, although the exact mechanisms remain unclear. 114 00:09:11,520 --> 00:09:16,280 Prior research suggests that inflammatory markers associated with brain aging are higher 115 00:09:16,280 --> 00:09:19,480 in patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain. 116 00:09:19,480 --> 00:09:20,560 So it goes both ways. 117 00:09:20,560 --> 00:09:26,920 The markers for brain aging and the markers of osteoarthritis are higher in both of those 118 00:09:26,920 --> 00:09:29,960 populations suggesting a strong link. 119 00:09:29,960 --> 00:09:36,520 But there's several types of common musculoskeletal pain that can be involved, knee pain, but 120 00:09:36,520 --> 00:09:40,960 also chronic back pain, chronic neck pain and chronic hip pain. 121 00:09:40,960 --> 00:09:48,760 Chinese, Dr. Yi Hing Tu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has announced a biomarker that 122 00:09:48,760 --> 00:09:53,840 they've developed to chart the progression of this and it revealed the specificity of 123 00:09:53,840 --> 00:10:01,080 accelerated brain aging in knee osteoarthritis, but also provided longitudinal evidence suggesting 124 00:10:01,080 --> 00:10:07,600 that the ability of this marker to predict future memory decline and dementia risk is 125 00:10:07,600 --> 00:10:11,520 directly associated with arthritis. 126 00:10:11,520 --> 00:10:16,520 The good news is there are well established ways to keep your brain sharp. 127 00:10:16,520 --> 00:10:23,560 Most importantly, regular exercise, a healthy diet of mostly vegetables and staying mentally 128 00:10:23,560 --> 00:10:29,040 stimulated are all proven strategies to reduce dementia risk. 129 00:10:29,040 --> 00:10:35,240 Think of chronic pain management and addressing arthritis throughout your body as another 130 00:10:35,240 --> 00:10:38,680 tool you can add to keeping your brain healthy. 131 00:10:38,680 --> 00:10:40,560 I'm Dr. Todd Binkley. 132 00:10:40,560 --> 00:10:44,960 You're listening to Safe, Effective, Natural Solutions to Almost Any Health Challenge and 133 00:10:44,960 --> 00:10:48,840 today we're going to be talking about neuropathies in the upper extremity. 134 00:10:48,840 --> 00:10:54,600 Damage to pain, any kind of irritation to the nerves in your neck, shoulders, arms, 135 00:10:54,600 --> 00:10:59,400 elbows, all the way down to your fingertips and some exciting case studies that I've 136 00:10:59,400 --> 00:11:02,520 been able to help people with these situations. 137 00:11:02,520 --> 00:11:05,480 But for starters, let's just define, what is neuropathy? 138 00:11:05,480 --> 00:11:06,480 Let's define neuropathy. 139 00:11:06,480 --> 00:11:10,840 So neuro means nerve, pathy means disease or disability. 140 00:11:10,840 --> 00:11:16,440 So any kind of problem, pressure on, nutrient deficiency, anything that irritates or prevents 141 00:11:16,440 --> 00:11:19,560 the normal function of a nerve is a neuropathy. 142 00:11:19,560 --> 00:11:25,840 And the most common symptoms of damage or pressure or irritation to a nerve are pain, 143 00:11:25,840 --> 00:11:32,640 but also numbness, tingling, a feeling of ants crawling on your body and the most important 144 00:11:32,640 --> 00:11:36,960 thing to understand is if you have, and we talked about the legs last week, in your arms 145 00:11:36,960 --> 00:11:44,160 and your hands, if you have burning, tingling, numbness, any kind of sensation that's especially 146 00:11:44,160 --> 00:11:49,480 very difficult to define, to identify exactly where it is, if it feels like it's moving 147 00:11:49,480 --> 00:11:54,480 around or if you know it's in your hand or in your elbow or in your shoulder or down 148 00:11:54,480 --> 00:11:59,120 your whole arm somewhere, but it's hard to push on a specific spot and find it, then 149 00:11:59,120 --> 00:12:04,440 that is just classic for a situation where you have pressure on a nerve. 150 00:12:04,440 --> 00:12:09,480 It's hard to feel exactly where it is, but there are only a limited number of places 151 00:12:09,480 --> 00:12:11,840 where that irritation can occur. 152 00:12:11,840 --> 00:12:16,720 And of course, in the upper extremity in the arm, one of the most common causes of any 153 00:12:16,720 --> 00:12:22,400 kind of nerve irritation from your neck all the way down to your fingertips is pressure 154 00:12:22,400 --> 00:12:29,760 on nerves where they exit the spine from a disc bulge, from arthritis in the spine, or 155 00:12:29,760 --> 00:12:31,800 just from tight muscles. 156 00:12:31,800 --> 00:12:34,120 So everyone's heard of disc herniations. 157 00:12:34,120 --> 00:12:39,660 If you go to most doctors, especially if you've had an accident and you've got, say, radiating 158 00:12:39,660 --> 00:12:43,740 pain down your arm or numbness and tingling or burning, one of the most common things 159 00:12:43,740 --> 00:12:49,400 they're going to do is an MRI to rule out a disc herniation, and that's important to 160 00:12:49,400 --> 00:12:50,400 do. 161 00:12:50,400 --> 00:12:55,960 Also, if you're older, arthritis, or if you've had repeated injuries over a long period of 162 00:12:55,960 --> 00:13:02,480 time, arthritis, just when your body lays down extra bone to try and fortify an unstable 163 00:13:02,480 --> 00:13:09,760 joint, then arthritis, spurring of the bones, can rub on and irritate nerves. 164 00:13:09,760 --> 00:13:17,080 But what often gets left out of the evaluation of these situations by many doctors is patterns 165 00:13:17,080 --> 00:13:23,160 of tension that build up in your muscles, patterns of tension in the muscles of your 166 00:13:23,160 --> 00:13:25,200 neck and your upper back. 167 00:13:25,200 --> 00:13:29,840 Your upper back is the foundation of the neck, so patterns of tension in your upper back, 168 00:13:29,840 --> 00:13:33,680 especially if your shoulders are rolled forward and sticking up, or if you're carrying your 169 00:13:33,680 --> 00:13:38,760 shoulders up around your ears and you have a little bit of a hump in your upper back, 170 00:13:38,760 --> 00:13:44,000 that's a disaster waiting to happen for your neck and is very likely to increase your risk 171 00:13:44,000 --> 00:13:52,240 of pressure on the nerves in your neck, which can cause radiating pain down your arm, numbness, 172 00:13:52,240 --> 00:13:54,920 burning, tingling, etc. 173 00:13:54,920 --> 00:13:59,800 And those things, if it's the pattern of tension in the nerves, then that's always reversible, 174 00:13:59,800 --> 00:14:04,200 at least reversible enough that you can get rid of the pain and stabilize it so that it 175 00:14:04,200 --> 00:14:11,200 stays away by first loosening up, restoring your brain's ability to relax that pattern 176 00:14:11,200 --> 00:14:17,040 of tension and then doing some regular stretches to maintain that mobility. 177 00:14:17,040 --> 00:14:22,200 Even if you've got arthritis in the neck, it's those symptoms, the symptoms of arthritis, 178 00:14:22,200 --> 00:14:27,920 even if there's some bone spurs that are rubbing on the nerves going down your arms, that's 179 00:14:27,920 --> 00:14:33,840 always in combination with tense muscles around it that often cause that arthritis in the 180 00:14:33,840 --> 00:14:34,840 first place. 181 00:14:34,840 --> 00:14:39,560 And if you can relieve the pattern of tension in those muscles that's built up over time, 182 00:14:39,560 --> 00:14:43,080 which you don't even feel, you don't feel it until it gets to a certain point when you 183 00:14:43,080 --> 00:14:44,080 do. 184 00:14:44,080 --> 00:14:47,840 But when people come into me and they say, oh, you know, this pain just started two weeks 185 00:14:47,840 --> 00:14:55,080 ago and I do a physical exam, the causes of that have obviously been there for 20 or 30 186 00:14:55,080 --> 00:14:56,080 years. 187 00:14:56,080 --> 00:15:01,240 It takes a long time for joints to get to a certain level of tightness or not. 188 00:15:01,240 --> 00:15:05,240 It might be a more, if it is a recent situation, then there'll just be a little tension in 189 00:15:05,240 --> 00:15:08,040 muscles and it's much quicker to relieve. 190 00:15:08,040 --> 00:15:13,120 But most of the time when people come in with situations like this, the palpation findings, 191 00:15:13,120 --> 00:15:18,880 the physical exam findings strongly suggest that these muscles have been tight for 10, 192 00:15:18,880 --> 00:15:25,840 20, 30 years and they just don't hurt until they do, until the pressure gets just a little 193 00:15:25,840 --> 00:15:30,760 bit more to press on the nerves, cause the burning numbness, tingling pain, radiating 194 00:15:30,760 --> 00:15:33,280 down your arms, hands, et cetera. 195 00:15:33,280 --> 00:15:36,680 So it's important to do a proper physical exam to identify that. 196 00:15:36,680 --> 00:15:43,480 And oftentimes it is reversible, even if, for example, you've been to a neurologist 197 00:15:43,480 --> 00:15:48,240 or some other doctor who's told you, for example, if you've known someone who's been told they 198 00:15:48,240 --> 00:15:52,040 have thoracic outlet syndrome. 199 00:15:52,040 --> 00:15:57,640 So thoracic is the middle part of your back and thoracic outlet is a place where the, 200 00:15:57,640 --> 00:16:02,360 this bundle of nerves called the brachial complex, you don't need to remember that. 201 00:16:02,360 --> 00:16:09,280 It's just a collection of nerves that go from your base of your neck down to your arms. 202 00:16:09,280 --> 00:16:13,360 So all the nerves to your arm branch off of several different levels of the spine in your 203 00:16:13,360 --> 00:16:19,240 neck form, and then they sort of cross over in this brachial plexus, which is underneath 204 00:16:19,240 --> 00:16:25,240 your collarbone and then extend down through your arm to your fingertips. 205 00:16:25,240 --> 00:16:30,640 And mostly from bad posture, from just having your shoulders constantly rolled forward and 206 00:16:30,640 --> 00:16:36,160 up and having a little hump in your upper back, bad posture basically is what causes 207 00:16:36,160 --> 00:16:39,000 most thoracic outlet syndrome. 208 00:16:39,000 --> 00:16:43,640 And that is often completely reversible just by doing some stretching and a little bit 209 00:16:43,640 --> 00:16:48,320 of work on the table to take the pressure off of the bones in the spine in the, in the 210 00:16:48,320 --> 00:16:53,480 upper thoracic spine, the base of your neck and just below the base of your neck and between 211 00:16:53,480 --> 00:16:55,200 your shoulders. 212 00:16:55,200 --> 00:17:01,000 So thoracic outlet syndrome, sometimes people get surgery for this and that's just in my 213 00:17:01,000 --> 00:17:04,600 30 years experience almost never necessary. 214 00:17:04,600 --> 00:17:10,160 Another common cause of nerve type pain, people have rotator cuff injuries and you know, the 215 00:17:10,160 --> 00:17:15,680 rotator cuff is a collection of four muscles and the, the ligament and connective tissue 216 00:17:15,680 --> 00:17:24,240 cuff, little structure that attaches those four muscles to your, to your upper arm bone. 217 00:17:24,240 --> 00:17:28,980 And that's not a neuropathy, but you can have neuropathic like, you can have nerve type 218 00:17:28,980 --> 00:17:33,040 symptoms from the pattern of tension that results from that. 219 00:17:33,040 --> 00:17:38,320 It's also really important again to check those muscles, releasing tension on those muscles 220 00:17:38,320 --> 00:17:45,280 can often, it often involves nerve pain and it can be relieved by reducing the tension 221 00:17:45,280 --> 00:17:46,280 on those muscles. 222 00:17:46,280 --> 00:17:54,080 Tennis elbow, tennis elbow is an irritation of the ulnar nerve, usually sometimes people 223 00:17:54,080 --> 00:17:59,460 misdiagnose pain in the nerve on the other side of the elbow. 224 00:17:59,460 --> 00:18:04,760 But if you have pain in your elbow, it can be caused by having tight muscles and playing 225 00:18:04,760 --> 00:18:05,760 tennis a lot. 226 00:18:05,760 --> 00:18:09,960 That's why it's called tennis elbow, but it's really just pressure on a nerve from a pattern 227 00:18:09,960 --> 00:18:16,840 of tension in muscles and irritation of the place where those muscles attach. 228 00:18:16,840 --> 00:18:21,960 So muscle, muscle pain, muscle tension and nerve pain go hand in hand together. 229 00:18:21,960 --> 00:18:23,720 Tennis elbow is not a neuropathy. 230 00:18:23,720 --> 00:18:29,120 It is a problem with a muscle and the muscle attachments, but it can also contribute to 231 00:18:29,120 --> 00:18:30,400 nerve like symptoms. 232 00:18:30,400 --> 00:18:33,480 That's why I'm talking about it here today. 233 00:18:33,480 --> 00:18:39,640 And then of course, everyone has heard of carpal tunnel syndrome, the carpal tunnel, 234 00:18:39,640 --> 00:18:42,160 the carpals are the bones in your wrist. 235 00:18:42,160 --> 00:18:47,240 So you've got two bones in your forearm and you've got all the bones in your hand. 236 00:18:47,240 --> 00:18:51,280 And then in between where your wrist or your wrist bends, there are eight little bones, 237 00:18:51,280 --> 00:18:57,920 two rows of four between your arm bones and your hand bones called the carpals. 238 00:18:57,920 --> 00:19:04,620 And they basically form a C shape on the back of your wrist. 239 00:19:04,620 --> 00:19:11,240 And then on the inside of your wrist, like the palm of your hand side of your wrist, 240 00:19:11,240 --> 00:19:17,680 there is a ligament that bridges, that crosses over that C and keeps all of the tendons and 241 00:19:17,680 --> 00:19:19,880 ligaments in place. 242 00:19:19,880 --> 00:19:22,520 So these carpals are in kind of a C shape. 243 00:19:22,520 --> 00:19:27,840 And then you've got this ligament on the underside of your wrist, on the palm side of your hand 244 00:19:27,840 --> 00:19:36,160 that crosses and closes the circle of those C shaped bones to form the carpal tunnel. 245 00:19:36,160 --> 00:19:41,440 And the median nerve is one of the most common ones that gets pressure on it from repetitive 246 00:19:41,440 --> 00:19:47,200 stress like if you're working at a keyboard all day long or especially a cash register 247 00:19:47,200 --> 00:19:50,320 and just constantly moving your fingers, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. 248 00:19:50,320 --> 00:19:57,640 The friction of constantly flexing your fingers can cause inflammation and irritation and 249 00:19:57,640 --> 00:20:04,680 scar tissue around the median nerve that passes through the middle of this carpal tunnel. 250 00:20:04,680 --> 00:20:05,920 And that is the basis. 251 00:20:05,920 --> 00:20:13,400 That is basically what orthopedists and surgeons are looking for to diagnose if you have numbness, 252 00:20:13,400 --> 00:20:19,740 tingling, burning pain in your hand and fingers and they press on the median nerve for a certain 253 00:20:19,740 --> 00:20:23,680 amount of time in your wrist and that hurts, then okay, there you go. 254 00:20:23,680 --> 00:20:26,000 You've got a diagnosis of carpal tunnel syndrome. 255 00:20:26,000 --> 00:20:27,840 But guess what? 256 00:20:27,840 --> 00:20:34,640 Everyone who does those repetitive types of strain, working on a keyboard, 10 key entry, 257 00:20:34,640 --> 00:20:39,900 data entry, cash register, all day long tapping their fingers, when those people are doing 258 00:20:39,900 --> 00:20:41,820 that activity, look at them. 259 00:20:41,820 --> 00:20:46,480 They're also raising their shoulders up and forward and they end up in this same stuck 260 00:20:46,480 --> 00:20:47,480 posture. 261 00:20:47,480 --> 00:20:53,240 And most of the pain that gets diagnosed as carpal tunnel syndrome, those nerves are actually 262 00:20:53,240 --> 00:20:56,740 being pinched where they exit the spine and your neck. 263 00:20:56,740 --> 00:21:02,040 And oftentimes just fixing that posture in the neck and shoulders can get rid of the 264 00:21:02,040 --> 00:21:04,120 pain in the wrist and the hand. 265 00:21:04,120 --> 00:21:09,680 I met a hand surgeon, a top hand surgeon in Santa Barbara at a conference a few years 266 00:21:09,680 --> 00:21:15,280 ago and I asked him, how often when you go in and do carpal tunnel surgery, do you actually 267 00:21:15,280 --> 00:21:20,600 find any evidence of scar tissue around the median nerve? 268 00:21:20,600 --> 00:21:23,600 And he said about a third of the time. 269 00:21:23,600 --> 00:21:24,600 That's huge. 270 00:21:24,600 --> 00:21:25,600 I thought, really? 271 00:21:25,600 --> 00:21:28,400 I mean, he said, oh yeah, yeah, most of the time there's nothing there. 272 00:21:28,400 --> 00:21:32,600 We just cut the ligament, wait for it to grow back, creates more space. 273 00:21:32,600 --> 00:21:38,340 The point of carpal tunnel surgery is theoretically to identify scar tissue around the median 274 00:21:38,340 --> 00:21:39,340 nerve. 275 00:21:39,340 --> 00:21:40,660 But you know how they fix it? 276 00:21:40,660 --> 00:21:46,560 They just cut this ligament that closes the carpal tunnel, the technical term is the flexor 277 00:21:46,560 --> 00:21:47,560 retinaculum. 278 00:21:47,560 --> 00:21:52,200 You don't need to write that down, but it's just this ligament on the inside of your wrist 279 00:21:52,200 --> 00:21:53,640 that closes the carpal tunnel. 280 00:21:53,640 --> 00:21:58,500 And the carpal tunnel surgery is usually they just cut that ligament and wait for it to 281 00:21:58,500 --> 00:21:59,500 grow back. 282 00:21:59,500 --> 00:22:03,760 And it grows back a little bit longer and creates more space around the median nerve. 283 00:22:03,760 --> 00:22:05,360 So you no longer have pressure on that. 284 00:22:05,360 --> 00:22:06,360 Well, how crazy is that? 285 00:22:06,360 --> 00:22:11,560 Especially when only a third of the time is there even any evidence of scar tissue around 286 00:22:11,560 --> 00:22:12,560 that nerve? 287 00:22:12,560 --> 00:22:16,160 Most of the pressure comes from your neck. 288 00:22:16,160 --> 00:22:19,880 So there are lots of ways to reduce and reverse that. 289 00:22:19,880 --> 00:22:24,440 And it just requires a proper physical exam to identify the patterns of tension. 290 00:22:24,440 --> 00:22:26,320 I talk about this a lot. 291 00:22:26,320 --> 00:22:28,240 There are patterns of tension in your muscles. 292 00:22:28,240 --> 00:22:33,560 We all have them just from posture, from sitting, from working on computers all day, looking 293 00:22:33,560 --> 00:22:35,880 at screens, driving. 294 00:22:35,880 --> 00:22:39,800 Our shoulders go up and forward and the tension builds up in and around the joints of the 295 00:22:39,800 --> 00:22:41,880 neck and the upper back. 296 00:22:41,880 --> 00:22:47,200 Creates this pressure on the nerves that can cause pain to radiate, numbness, tingling, 297 00:22:47,200 --> 00:22:49,400 burning all the way down to your fingertips. 298 00:22:49,400 --> 00:22:53,200 And that can often be reversed. 299 00:22:53,200 --> 00:22:59,280 I've had so many cases over the past 30 plus years, thousands of people with symptoms like 300 00:22:59,280 --> 00:23:04,520 this that are reversible just by identifying patterns of no snapping, cracking, or popping 301 00:23:04,520 --> 00:23:09,680 of the neck, just identifying the patterns of tension that build up in the neck, releasing 302 00:23:09,680 --> 00:23:15,840 those, showing the patient and usually their loved one, the spouse, especially to help 303 00:23:15,840 --> 00:23:17,880 them stretch at home. 304 00:23:17,880 --> 00:23:21,400 So we release the patterns of tension in the office and then show you some stretches to 305 00:23:21,400 --> 00:23:24,000 do at home to maintain those changes. 306 00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:26,440 And some really dramatic cases. 307 00:23:26,440 --> 00:23:29,000 I had a man who came in, was already scheduled for surgery. 308 00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:34,240 His whole left arm was numb, couldn't hold a pencil, couldn't pump gas into his car. 309 00:23:34,240 --> 00:23:35,920 He was scheduled for surgery. 310 00:23:35,920 --> 00:23:41,240 I told him he had such a bad disc herniation that he would probably need the surgery. 311 00:23:41,240 --> 00:23:46,520 But when I examined his upper back, it was so tight, his entire upper spine was locked 312 00:23:46,520 --> 00:23:48,600 up six segments in a row. 313 00:23:48,600 --> 00:23:51,880 And I said, if you don't release this tension, even if you have the surgery, it's not going 314 00:23:51,880 --> 00:23:53,720 to go well. 315 00:23:53,720 --> 00:23:56,940 And I worked on him for about three or four weeks. 316 00:23:56,940 --> 00:23:59,400 After about three or four weeks, half of his pain was gone. 317 00:23:59,400 --> 00:24:06,120 The numbness was half and he was experiencing such an improvement in function in just a 318 00:24:06,120 --> 00:24:10,800 few weeks by never touching his neck, never touching that damaged disc in his neck, but 319 00:24:10,800 --> 00:24:14,480 just working on the segments below that in his upper back. 320 00:24:14,480 --> 00:24:17,440 His surgeon said, okay, keep going, keep doing what you're doing. 321 00:24:17,440 --> 00:24:19,520 And they canceled the surgery. 322 00:24:19,520 --> 00:24:20,940 So we're about out of time. 323 00:24:20,940 --> 00:24:22,960 It's been a pleasure chatting with you again. 324 00:24:22,960 --> 00:24:27,280 I hope you'll tune in next Friday and tell your friends to tune in right here every Friday 325 00:24:27,280 --> 00:24:31,080 at 4pm on KDAR 98.3 FM. 326 00:24:31,080 --> 00:24:33,480 Have a fabulous weekend. 327 00:24:33,480 --> 00:24:39,000 You've been listening to Safe, Effective Natural Solutions with Dr. Todd Binkley. 328 00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:43,520 If you have a health question you want discussed on the show, email your health questions to 329 00:24:43,520 --> 00:24:48,080 drbinkley at binkleyhealingcenter.com. 330 00:24:48,080 --> 00:24:52,800 Take advantage of this opportunity to ask questions for yourself and for your loved 331 00:24:52,800 --> 00:24:55,760 ones because our health matters. 332 00:24:55,760 --> 00:25:03,720 Join him next Friday at 4pm for Safe, Effective Natural Solutions right here on 98.3 The Word, 333 00:25:03,720 --> 00:25:27,160 KDAR.