Align Your Spine And Your Health With Dr. Debra Block, Part 1

Do you know the importance of a healthy spine and it's connection to the nervous system? Have you suffered from headaches, body aches, digestion problems, and more? In this episode Dr. Debra Block explains why a visit to a chiropractor may be the answer to all of your ailments. Chiropractic care is not only for the patient that suffered a traumatic car accident or fall. Dr. Block shares with us stories of healing chronic headaches, helping children potty train, and more in part 1 of this 2 part series. Stay tuned for part 2 where we discuss why females are especially in need of a chiropractor.  


About Dr. Debra Block
Dr. Block always knew that her purpose in life was to help people to improve their lives. After attending the University of Florida and obtaining her B.S. in Psychology, she realized that she wanted to help people improve their health both mentally and physically.  She discovered the awesome benefits of Chiropractic care in 1997 while attending Life University in Marietta, Georgia. Dr. Block received her Doctor of Chiropractic degree in 2001 and went on to develop her own practice within Horizon Healthcare Group in Sandy Springs, Georgia. After practicing in Georgia for two years, Dr. Block decided to return home to Maryland and continue practicing Chiropractic close to her family and friends. After joining a practice and treating patients there for 5 years, Dr. Block decided to open her own practice in 2008 and accomplish her dream of running her own practice and treating patients with the individualized attention and high quality of care that she feels patients deserve and need in this current world of healthcare.

Dr. Debra Block has owned her successful practice for 14 years that has grown to include chiropractic, acupuncture, massage therapy, and weight loss. For the entirety of her career, Dr. Block has consistently educated herself on the newest advances in the chiropractic profession as well as the latest developments in patient care. She is certified in the Webster Technique for chiropractic care during pregnancy and is a member of the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association (ICPA).  Dr. Block is also certified in Dry Needling. Dr. Block’s philosophy is to care for patients in the way that she would want to be cared for. She strives hard every day to be the type of doctor that can give patients the assistance that they are looking for, whether it is with a smile, friendly greeting, courtesy phone call, or a hug, individualized attention is what makes Dr. Block an exemplary doctor and healthcare provider. She has done all this while raising twins who just turned 16. 

Find Dr. Block:
Block Chiropractic Center

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Transcript

Amy: 0:06

Welcome to Nirvana sisters podcast where we take the intimidation out of well being and beauty to help you achieve your highest state your nirvana. We are sisters in law and your hosts. I'm Amy Sherman.

Katie: 0:18

And I'm Katie Chandler. So let's get into some real conversation.

Amy: 0:28

Welcome back to the show Nirvana sisters family. It's Amy and Katie. And I'm so excited. We have been wanting to have my best friend Debbie on the show for so long. She's very, very busy. So I'm very happy that she's here with us today. And this all started because I've always been scared to go to the chiropractor, which is crazy, because I know it's not a big deal. But for some reason, I was always freaked out, as Debbie knows. And I recently went to Debbie and experienced the whole thing. And it was incredible. And it opened my eyes to the world of it. So we wanted to have the show to kind of shed some light on the chiropractic category. And Debbie is the perfect person to do this. So I won't call her Debbie. That's my friend Debbie. But Dr. Deborah Block always knew that her purpose in life was to help people to improve their lives. After attending the University of Florida and obtaining her BS in psychology. She realized that she wanted to help people improve their health, both mentally and physically. She discovered the awesome benefits of chiropractic care in 97. While attending life University in Georgia, Dr. Block received her doctor of chiropractic degree in 2001, and went on to develop her own practice within a group in Georgia and after practicing in Georgia for a few years, she decided to return home to Maryland to continue practicing chiropractic close to her family and friends. So after joining a practice there for five years, she decided to open her own practice in 2008. And accomplish her dream of running her own practice and treating patients with the individualized attention and high quality care that she feels patients deserve and need in this current world of health care. So Debbie has owned her successful practice for 14 years that has grown into that has grown to include chiropractic, acupuncture, massage, therapy, and weight loss. For the entirety of her career, Dr. Block has consistently educated herself on the newest latest and greatest advances in the chiropractic profession, as well as the latest developments in patient care. She is certified in the Webster technique for chiropractic care during pregnancy, I know you do a lot of focus on pregnancy. And as a member of the International chiropractic Pediatric Association, she is also certified in dry needling, Dr. Blocks philosophy is to care for patients in a way that she would want to be cared for she strives hard every day to be the type of doctor that can give patients the assistance that they're looking for, whether it's with a smile, a friendly greeting, a courtesy phone call, a hug or individually individualized attention. She has done all of this over the past 20 plus years, all while raising twins that just turned 16. And I can attest to all of the hard work and passion Debbie has put it Dr. Block sorry, has put in over the years, because I just went in for the first time and I can see the care that she puts into the practice and the way even that she worked with me, but she worked with me the same way she works with all of her patients. And it's really rare because you definitely don't go to practices a lot where the doctors actually take an interest. It's more of a, you know, machine where people are in and out. So definitely a special experience when you're working with Debbie. And I think also, as I was thinking through this preparing for this interview, I was like Dr. Block has really been an early adopter in this like holistic health space. I mean, you've been doing this for so long. And I think you know, over the last 510 years, it's become in vogue, all of this holistic health and all of this, but it really wasn't when you started doing it. And I think you probably got a lot of looks and stares like oh, what field are you going into? And it's so mainstream now. So I want to hear a little bit about that. And not only that, I mean, and I was thinking about this, too. You're an entrepreneur, and you have this amazing practice. And not only you're treating patients, but you're running a business, and it's so hard. And that's why, for our listeners, it's been so hard to get Debbie on. She's so busy. But it's such an interesting topic. We haven't had anyone in this field on the show. And so we wanted to have her on and kick off all the questions we have about this incredible career and occupations. So welcome to the show, Debbie.

Debbie: 4:40

Thank you so much. That was an awesome introduction. I can use one of those like every week.

Amy: 4:45

I know right? You listen, you're like oh my gosh, I really have accomplished a lot.

Debbie: 4:48

Thank you. Yeah, it's awesome. Thank you. That was sweet.

Amy: 4:52

Yeah. So we are going to start off the show as we always do with our weekly nirvana. So this is where we talked about something that's sparked a little joy in our week or day or month, whatever it may be big or small, something that just sparked joy and put a little smile on our face. So I will hand it off to Katie to start. Thanks, Amy.

Katie: 5:10

Well, let me say hi to Debbie. Dr. Block. Are we calling you Debbie? Are we calling you Dr. Block? What are we doing here tonight?

Debbie: 5:17

Debbie director blocks to formal for this.

Katie: 5:19

All right. Well, I'm so happy you're here. And I can't wait to pick your brain. But before I do my nirvana of the week, I just want to mention I was perusing your website. And on Google, there was a review about Dr. block that was just so great that I just wanted to say it's so sorry to if this embarrasses you, but it says I've been in there. It's a great, it's such a good review says I've been in the military for 30 years, I have received medical care in seven states and three countries, I have not experienced a more professional, hard working and effective health care provider. Dr. Block is one of the best period that's from John L on Google. And I just thought that says somehow it says so much. So I just wanted to say,

Amy: 6:04

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah,

Katie: 6:06

so my nirvana of the week, I'm going to think might be the same as Amy's we'll have to see. We had a photoshoot on Thursday for the Nirvana sisters brand for our website and our branding and everything that we're expanding and growing with. I was just in Maryland for the week for spring break with the kids and so that the cousins can be together and Amy and I could get some work done actually work face to face for the like, it never happens literally ever. So that was great. That was my nirvana. It was such a fun day. We had such a great time. And the funniest thing was like Amy was saying to me, you know, used to be a model, you know, you're doing she's like, I feel like I'm gonna be so stiff. I don't know what to do. And I was giving her some tips and then the camera comes on. And I mean, did this girl come alive or what? Like she she was like, so vivacious and having so much fun. And it was it was so it was just great. It was such a fun day. So what was your Ami? What was your nirvana?

Amy: 7:07

Yeah, I Yes, mine is definitely the same one. And we normally don't have the same Nirvana's. But yeah, I mean, it was such a fun day. It was just nice to be able to do something that was our own and really lead the vision in the direction and it was just super fun. And yeah, we're building our website. And so a lot of these photos we use on the website and all of this stuff. So it's super fun. What about you, Deb?

Debbie: 7:29

I can't wait to see them. Yeah, um, mine has to be tied to my kids, which I don't know if that's allowed or not. Yes. So I have had a crazy week with work. It's been one of those, like everything that could go wrong went wrong this week. And it's been super stressful. And one day after work, I was running to my daughter's lacrosse game and picking up my son from work. And I had this like two hour block where I got to watch my daughter and her joy on the lacrosse field. She plays for her high school team and watching her you know, really successful and really aggressive and really loved by this group of girls that she's playing with. This is a brand new sport. She literally like picked up a lacrosse stick for the first time right before tryouts. And I really watched all of the stress of my week just kind of leaves me seeing her and her joy and seeing what she's, you know, able to do. And then soon thereafter, I had to pick up my son from his first day of his first job. And he's working on a golf course he's in charge of the carts cleaning them and driving them to and from Oh, that's so cool. Where some like, you know, Mom of me, I'm like, Does he even know how to drive the golf cart. Meanwhile, he's like, responsible for driving 30 of them. And anyway, and I got there early, earlier than when he was finished. And I ended up parking and watching him work for, like 30 minutes or so. And it was awesome to see your 16 year old, responsible and capable and working and at the end of be trying to grab him. The guy that was training him came over and told me how awesome he was doing and just a moment of pride, you know, realizing that like both of my children are in good places. And that was just a very, very Nirvana kind of feeling

Amy: 9:16

and love that. Those are great. Yeah.

Debbie: 9:18

Thank you.

Amy: 9:19

So nice. Such good kids such good

Unknown: 9:21

kid. Thanks. It's hard. It is hard,

Katie: 9:24

I'm sure and especially I can't imagine. Yes.

Amy: 9:28

Double hard. Yes. Okay. So Dr. Block, aka Debbie, Deborah, give a quick intro to the audience. I mean, I kind of teed you up, but just a quick soundbite on you know, you and your practice and all of that. Or your background. I would say,

Debbie: 9:46

you know, what you didn't read in the bio was that I really didn't know anything about chiropractic before I went to chiropractic school, which is really unusual. Most chiropractors either like, you know, start out as patients as children or teenagers or they have some accident or trauma and chiropractic change their physical well being. So they enter into the program, I really knew nothing about chiropractic for me, I was, I was going forward to psychology and wanted to go that route. But then realized, in order to do it the way I wanted to do it, it was going to be eight years of schooling after college. And I kind of fell into this chiropractic idea. And it really fit all my boxes, I had very specific criterion for what I was looking for in my career. And this meant all of them. But the physical part of adjusting the spine and, and working with the spine was not really something I was well versed in. So that was a huge learning curve for me. And it was not it didn't come easily, it took me a lot of time to find people that were like minded to me, the chiropractic field is very, very varied. In the type of practitioners you can come across, some are more medically oriented, some are more philosophically oriented. And so you have a large continuum of different types of chiropractors. But I went to chiropractic school, I finished in four years, I stayed in Georgia to practice. And I really seeked out this profession because I knew I wanted to work with people. And I knew I wanted to work in healthcare. But I also knew very clearly that I did not want to work with sickness, I didn't want to work with ill people, I didn't want to work with dying patients. And I didn't want to prescribe drugs. Those things I knew just weren't in my understanding of health. So I was seeking something that gave me an opportunity to be a health care provider that met the met those criteria. And this did, what I didn't take into total account was the level of physicality that my job requires. And that's been harder as I've gotten older, to be honest. But the work itself is unbelievably rewarding and unreal, unbelievably, filling in terms of you know, how I feel at the end of the day after helping people.

Katie: 12:02

Yeah, I was just gonna say it to the point to the physicality of it, you have to be really strong. I mean, you're handling people all to end moving. And I've just recently started seeing chiropractor, we can get into that in a little bit. But yeah, I would imagine, it's, that's not easy. And so that was a surprising learning curve for you.

Debbie: 12:24

Yeah, it was. And you know, honestly, when I went into chiropractic school, I wasn't really as focused on my own health and well being as I needed to be. And I really started working out and getting healthier and watching my nutrition and watching my diet, and trying to focus on on endurance and strength, and all of those things, knowing that my future was going to be demanding physically. And obviously your body kind of you get a rhythm and you learn how to do things more safely, more carefully as time goes on. But Amy had also mentioned earlier, when she was talking about how things are so much more mainstream now, I've been practicing for 21 years. And when I went to chiropractic school, it's really interesting. I think there was like 5%, females, I was LA, I was one of the very, very few women. And I actually one of my boxes that I was looking to are not necessarily looking to fulfill, but it works for me was that I recognized that a female in a space where there weren't many females was bound to be successful. So I knew that, you know, the fact that there weren't many female chiropractors would would bode well for me. And it really has, what I do is intimate, you know, I touch people all day long. And not everybody's okay with that. So having an not to say that male chiropractors aren't, you know, capable of earning patients trust, they are very much so. But I think inherently it's just more of a natural, a natural experience for a female doctor to be able to gain that comfort on that trust with the patient and also read when they need you to, you know, step back or when they're okay to let you in. So that was a really interesting thing. And now chiropractic school is like 5050 females and males, there is no longer a curve like that. So it's really in my 21 years of practicing, not only have we come far in terms of females in the profession, but we've also come very far in terms of respect in the profession.

Amy: 14:23

Yeah, I love that. I never actually thought about that before. So taking a step back just to for people who are listening who have never seen a chiropractor. Why should people see when like, what are the benefits and what can people expect when they go to do it? Because I mean, for me, I've done a lot of holistic treatments. I've done acupuncture, I've done a million things, but I was always so nervous. And even though, you know, for those listening, Debbie has been my best friend for 25 years plus 30 years. So I didn't even want Debbie to do it until recently because I was so freaked out it was like in my own head. But why should people see wine like if you can give us sort of the The DL on that? Sure.

Debbie: 15:02

So honestly, chiropractic care is really good for anybody with a spine, which is everyone. I mean, even honestly, animals receive chiropractic care. And I'm an animal lover and would have even gone into animal care. There's actually a huge field of it with racehorses. My veterinarian has my veterinary office has a a veterinarian that specializes in spinal spinal adjustments for animals. So it really is something that anything anyone with a spine can benefit from. But the reality is that the life that we live now and 2022 is so demanding on our lives physically, chemically, emotionally, that all of those stressors, physical, chemical, and emotional, all create issues and potential misalignments within the spine, the spine is made up of 24 vertebra, they all have the ability of the vertebra to move and shift. And when we are either experiencing the physical trauma, a car accident, a slip and fall, a broken bone that then requires us to walk on crutches or in a shoot, you know, if there's genetic history of spinal conditions, dowagers hum forward flexion of the spine. I mean, there's like a whole list of things that can create issues for someone. But what I've seen more than anything, is ergonomics. Right. So in the last few years, I've seen more of this than I have ever seen in my career. And honestly, in the last few years, I've worked harder physically than I ever have. Because people are a mess right now. I think working from home was such a tremendous change for people physically and emotionally that it just wreaked havoc on everyone. Whether it was the stress of managing your children who are doing virtual school in the room next to you while you're trying to work on your laptop at home. I mean, I had patients working, you know, on their laptops, in their beds, on their couches in their, on their dining room tables. And just the simple act of spending five to eight hours a day on your computer at home, to have screwed up people so royally the chairs wrong, in even just a laptop, which I would say probably 90% of people now use laptops and not desktops, a laptop was made for travel, it was never created for people to work on a laptop at home, there's no way to type on the keyboard, have your laptop and look in the screen and have it well aligned for your arms and your wrists and your neck and your head. It's just not configured that way. So I can't tell you how many times I've told people, okay, you need to put your laptop up onto a stand, and you need to get a portable keyboard and you need a portable mouse. Because there's no way you can be ergonomically correct for your head, and your neck and your arms on a laptop. So just that one iota, then we've got cell phones, then we've got you know, anything that pulls you forward and keeps you there for a prolonged period of time. And even my new moms who are breastfeeding and changing diapers, all of these activities, people whose whose stitch or who do you know projects in their lap, all of these things pull you forward and hold you there. And if you do them regularly, then those are habitual, poor body postures that are going to eventually translate to spinal issues and or spinal pain. We see young children, teenagers, adults, geriatric. So I really see the gamut of what your spine looks like when you're young versus what it looks like as you age. And if you have had traumas, if you've had a lot of emotional stress in your life, if you've had poor poor posture, if you're an athlete, and you've gotten, you know, a bunch of injuries, while playing sports, all of these things are going to translate, you may not have any issues in your 20s or 30s. But by 40s, and 50s, those those things start to catch up with you. And in my opinion, it's much better to go and see a chiropractor as early on in life as possible, so that you can start that foundation of spinal alignment early. You don't need to have a lot of care when you don't have a lot of issues. And you want to create a space where your body kind of learns how to have what I call maintenance treatments that allow your spine to know how to maintain alignment and maintain movement and motion so that you don't end up as a 45 year old or a 50 year old who has significant degeneration and significant restriction and significant discomfort. It's interesting

Amy: 19:27

really, the idea is you want to be proactive, like a like many things versus going in when there's a problem because then it's almost too late or you

Debbie: 19:36

read dental cleaning, right? Like we don't wait until our teeth are falling out to go and get a cleaning. We go every six months to make sure our teeth are okay. And when they say they're okay, we go okay, great. And then we'll be back in six months. So it's kind of a similar mentality. Like you should be getting your spine checked. And depending on how much you're doing in your life, it may equate that you need it more frequently or less frequently, depending on what's going on in your world.

Katie: 19:59

Yeah, As you're saying all of this, it's reminding me of the three times in my life that I have sought out a chiropractor to help with what was going on. And they were all for three very different reasons like the most reason why I'm having hip pain. And it just occurred to me as you're speaking to me. The last year, I started working doing this, and I'm sitting at a dusk and on a keyboard way more than I have in the last decade. So maybe that's part of it. Before that it was sciatica from pregnancy. Before that, when I was a fit model, I was told it was from these, like, micro micro movements that I did over and over and over and over and over again, from when I was working, I would always turn my head this way. And, you know, it's like these little teeny things over time, can cause the problem. I just find it interesting, because I think people often think it's like, it's a trauma thing. I was just in a car accident, so I need to be adjusted for that purpose. And and the other thing is, I find interesting is that it's also very much related to the central nervous system. Right is, and that's typically the pain is stemming from, it's not, and please correct me where I'm wrong. But it's not just the things are out of line, but it's because of where your central nervous system is in relation to everything. Is that right?

Debbie: 21:12

Yeah, I love that you brought that up. Because sometimes that's like a little bit of a deeper conversation that I don't always go into right off the bat, your central nervous system is directly connected to your spine. So the brain and spinal cord are the first two things to form when you're conceived. And then the third thing that forms is the skull to protect the brain. And the fourth thing that forms is the spinal column to protect the spinal cord. So every single nerve that is coming off of their nervous system from the brain has to exit in between spinal vertebra. So if you have chronically misaligned vertebra, one, two, or five, and it's constantly putting pressure on the nerve that is exiting adjacent to it, you are going to eventually have issues in organs and or areas of your function that you may not have any idea has anything to do with your spine. But I have patients who come into me for neck pain. And you know, four weeks later, or three weeks later, they'll say to me, like, you know, I always have seasonal allergies right now, but for the first time ever, I don't Wow. You know, or I'm an asthmatic, and I usually have terrible asthma. I didn't even tell you about my asthma. But I haven't had one asthma attack since I've been seeing you and I normally have to a week. Wow. It's all the time. And it's not because I'm treating the asthma or treating the allergies. I'm treating the spine. But by clearing the interference for the nerve that's feeding the lung tissue or for the nerves that are feeding the stomach, people's gastrointestinal symptoms can improve. I even have and this always kind of blows my mind. I've had a handful of young kids come in to me parents who kind of like hear about chiropractic. And usually it's like a mom who's desperate because she can't potty train her, her her usually it's a boy having trouble getting their young child to go number two, and sometimes frequently actually chiropractic treatment to the spine in the area that feeds the intestines. And the stomach can help a young child to have a bowel movement without pain and without issue and allow them to have a bowel movement in the toilet instead of in a in a diaper. Wow. And the days when the moms like we barely made it home.

Amy: 23:25

Wow.

Debbie: 23:26

So I mean, even something as simple as bowel movements, like every single function that's doctrinaire by the nervous system has an has an impact by where the spine is, if the spine is in the wrong place, especially after years of it, it can create an issue within that within that part of the body.

Amy: 23:45

Yeah, one of the things, one of the big things so and Katie, we're going to do an episode on this soon in the future with my vestibular migraines, but that the spine is was I believe, a big part or a part of me getting these vestibular migraines because when I went to see, Debbie recently, my Atlas was out, which I didn't know. And that had happened years ago. So when I went to see another doctor, he was like, Oh, your head is literally not screwed onto your body. Right? I was like, What do you mean? And he's like your Atlas is out. You need to get it fixed. So my Atlas always comes out which Debbie can explain what the Atlas is, but it's probably common, I don't know. But that is that contributes to my headaches. So if you want to talk about that a little bit, Debbie, because I think first cervical

Debbie: 24:30

vertebra, it sits right underneath the skull. The skull has a the bottom portion of the skull is called the occiput. And the occiput is a U shaped bone. It kind of sits like this. And the occiput itself can kind of rock up or down, you know, left or right. And then the Atlas has a bone that sits right underneath it. And it's the most powerful vertebra in the whole spine. And actually, I use this example with patients frequently because it's really helpful. You guys remember Christopher Reeve about as Superman, he fell off a horse in his 40s, I want to say and he broke his second cervical vertebra. And he lost function in like 90% of his body, every single function, every single function within his body that was from C to below was no longer able to happen in his body because he had fractured his second cervical vertebra. But he could still see, he could smell he could hear he could move his head a little bit. And I don't know if he I think he could talk. And those functions were from C one and above. Wow, interesting. So the fact that he fractured that C two vertebra stopped the ability for the rest of his nervous system to function from C to below. And, you know, he, just to give him a quick nod, he had a lot to do with raising money for spinal cord research. He used his celebrity in the time that he survived, which was much longer than most spinal cord injured patients, and raised millions of dollars. So you know, this research continues. But yes, I mean, that's the reason for I mean, the whole don't, you know, breaking your neck is something that really equates to the potential for paralysis, because of the importance of the nervous system. So, so c one is a very important vertebra. It's, it's kind of the, you know, like the number one most important vertebra in the spine to make sure it's properly aligned. And what we find is when the occiput or the first cervical vertebra is misaligned, I almost always have headache patients headaches, are probably one of the most common things that walk in my office, migraines and headaches. And that relationship between the occiput and the SIR, first cervical vertebra are the very first thing that I check as well, as am I heard you talk about this jaw, that tension is also directly connected. So your TMJ or temporomandibular joint is directly connected to your first cervical vertebra and your occipital connection. And so those three vertebra are really not this isn't a vertebra. But those three joints are really important to make sure that they're properly aligned.

Amy: 27:01

Yeah, and I think so many people are like, grinding their teeth and their shoulders are up and their stress and it plays out in your neck and in your face. And so I think that makes sense why a lot of people are coming in like that. I really think

Debbie: 27:13

people with emotional issues who have issues because you know, sad, angry, you know, you hold yourself in a certain way. And that translates to what's going on physically, especially after a certain amount of time maintaining that like physical positioning,

Katie: 27:28

I have a question, how many of your patients that have come to you with these headaches and things? Have you found that they've been searching for an answer? You know, they've been there? It's like, they've tried all these other avenues? And then someone says, Have you seen a chiropractor yet? Have you gone into? Have you tried chiropractic? Does that happen often? Is it kind of a surprise to people,

Debbie: 27:49

actually, because it's not usually something that they think about, you know, and it's funny, because I've actually, over the years gotten, I have a whole bunch of dentists that refer to me now, because I've educated dentists that don't fit your patient for a mouth guard until you send them to me, let me check their jaw, and make sure their jaws where it needs to be and then fit them for a night guard to help stop the clenching. Otherwise, you're putting them in a night guard in the wrong position, potentially. And then you're encouraging this, you know, abnormal alignment. But yeah, headache. Patients are often surprised. It's not something that medical doctors are recommending, you know, getting dentists recommended has been a little bit of a, you know, an improvement. I do have neurologists that refer to me, but that's a tough sell, getting a neurologist to recognize that connection. I do have a handful that will send to me happily because their answer to me is, you know, a whole bunch of trial and error very invasive. Sometimes that's what's needed. You know, that actually, nowadays they have they've got less invasive options for headache patients. But yeah, if I can correct a headache with my hands, or if I can help a migraine patient who's suffering by just aligning the upper cervical spine, it's so much easier.

Katie: 29:03

Yeah, I have a friend that has had migraines her whole life, and I'm not sure if she's ever tried gone this route, and I'm sure she probably has, she definitely should have it. Yeah, that's definitely Shutts interesting. That's very interesting. The hormonal

Debbie: 29:15

case for women is also another big part of it for headaches and migraines. And that's something that I'm you know, starting to really work on it understanding and exploring and researching as I'm getting into the, you know, older years and the menopausal years and seeing how hormone depletion and hormone changes can really impact that as well. So I'm starting to really dive into understanding that connection, because for women, that's a big piece too.

Katie: 29:39

I have a question on the hormonal piece, and I'm not sure if it's related, maybe, you know, maybe you don't, um, I have recently started having a lot of hip pain and I know I went you know, I saw the chiropractor and she told me and we did X rays and everything but sometimes I feel like it is worse with my cycle can things like that fluctuate with your hormones as well? Do you know?

Debbie: 29:58

Definitely yeah. Funnily, I actually had a really interesting case recently that as you say that it kind of came to mind and I don't want to scare you in any way. But yeah, I had a patient who was having symptoms like that, and we ended up finding after me pushing and her OBGYN kind of excusing or dismissing her symptoms, and, you know, telling her, you know, take Advil and, and take, you know, could just take over the counter anti inflammatories that we sent her for an ultrasound, and she ended up having a huge cyst, ovary. So yeah, I mean, physical discomfort is a message from the body. It's an alarm, and it's telling you how there's nothing wrong. It's important pain is not always a terrible thing, because pain is a message. It's communication. And it's something that it's giving you feedback, you know, people often don't walk into my office until it's like a blaring alarm. And at that point, it's more difficult for me to help them and get them out of pain. Usually I will. But it's much better if you can start listening at an earlier stage and responding before it gets to that level of, you know, I'm now compromised functionally and I don't want to accept that.

Katie: 31:07

We hope you enjoyed part one with Dr. Deborah Block. Stay tuned for next week, part two, where we talk about why new moms especially need chiropractic care, tips and tools for things we can do at home. Plus, how frequently you should be seeing your chiropractor and what the whole experience is going to be like what to expect, so stay tuned for next week's

Amy: 31:30

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