The Berman Method
The Berman Method
Episode #198: Back Pain, Knee Issues, and Problems with MRIs
Ever wondered why taking medications rarely solves your health problems permanently? Dr. Jake and Jenni Berman pull back the curtain on a healthcare system designed to treat symptoms rather than cure conditions.
"A patient cured is a customer lost" isn't just a cynical observation—it's the business model driving modern medicine. The Bermans highlight how pharmaceutical companies bombard us with advertisements showing actors living their best lives while speed-reading through potentially fatal side effects. They connect these marketing tactics to the tobacco industry's former grip on American culture, suggesting that future generations will look back at our pharmaceutical dependence with similar disbelief.
The podcast introduces a groundbreaking perspective on chronic pain that challenges conventional medical wisdom. Rather than blaming herniated discs or torn menisci for your suffering, the Bermans introduce "Weak Ass Syndrome"—the true culprit behind most back and knee pain. Through clear analogies comparing your pelvis to the keystone of an architectural arch, they explain why structural abnormalities visible on MRIs often correlate with pain without actually causing it. This perspective explains why surgeries frequently fail to provide lasting relief despite removing damaged tissue.
What makes this episode particularly valuable is its hopeful message about healing. By understanding that the body is remarkably resilient when placed in the proper position to heal itself, listeners gain actionable insights that transcend quick fixes. The Bermans connect physical dysfunction with nutritional factors, explaining how systemic inflammation from food sensitivities can make your body more vulnerable to pain and injury.
Ready to break free from the symptom-chasing cycle and address the root causes of your health problems? Listen now, then visit bermanpt.com to discover how a holistic approach might be your path to lasting wellness.
This is the Berman Method podcast, featuring Dr Jake Berman and physician assistant Jenny Berman. We are here to treat problems and not symptoms. Disclaimer this podcast is for entertainment purposes only and not to treat anyone or to give medical advice. If you are interested in any information that we are giving and would like to use this for yourself, we recommend that you contact your primary care physician or reach out to us and ask us questions about yourself specifically. Enjoy.
Speaker 2:Here we are, baby, with the Berman Method podcast focused on treating problems and not symptoms, david going against Goliath, goliath being the corporate medical system, big pharma, health insurance companies, the pharmaceutical companies. They do not have your best interests in mind. They will choose profits over patient outcomes every single time, because it's simple A patient cured is a customer loss. Now we can try to deny it all we want, but the reality is that there's not a single pharmaceutical on this planet that treats the actual problem causing your symptoms. 100% of pharmaceuticals on this planet treat symptoms.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:If you need any proof at all, just watch TV in the evening.
Speaker 1:Just listen to one commercial.
Speaker 2:One commercial talking about how great the life of somebody with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, how great their life is after 12 to 18 months of taking this pharmaceutical medication, and their symptoms have decreased somewhat.
Speaker 1:And in the fine print, another medication that they're taking to combat the side effects that this medication is taking. But we don't need to get into the details of that one on the commercial.
Speaker 2:And you know it's funny because it's almost like we've become numb to the fact that 100% of these pharmaceuticals that are marketed to us every single day have a side effect of death.
Speaker 1:Yes, or stroke yes, with permanent damage. But it's in the fine print, it's in the end of the commercial, where they speed the voice up six times so we can hardly understand what they're saying. And it's fine. It's just a list of laundry list of symptoms or issues that could occur.
Speaker 2:In very rare cases, people have died from taking this. They've experienced brain bleeds.
Speaker 1:Why are you laughing?
Speaker 2:Because look how happy the actors are on the commercial. Yeah, hasn't happened to them yet. Oh my gosh, I mean, it's such a joke. We're the only country on the planet that is allowed to market pharmaceuticals the way that we do. Like I don't know that. Many people know that, other than europeans that come over here and they're like I cannot believe the way you're allowed to market pharmaceuticals here. It's insane, right?
Speaker 1:But it's the moneymaker.
Speaker 2:It's the same thing. It's back to tobacco. I mean, think about it. I can remember the Marlboro man commercials I was. I'm old enough, I'll be 40.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness, can you believe it? Baby's growing up. You'll be 40 years old.
Speaker 2:I remember the Marlboro man commercials and it was everywhere. Every break had the Marlboro man, every magazine was filled with the Marlboro man and now it's nowhere Right. Like it's insane.
Speaker 1:We were actually just talking in my office the other day about places where you could still smoke. I mean, it's so rare to actually see somebody with a cigarette these days, isn't it?
Speaker 2:it well in our life, yeah, in our life.
Speaker 1:That's oh, yeah, okay I understand what you're saying, like in our particular me and you, yeah, in our world, our bubble. The people in the office right next door to us upstairs smoke and that still blows my mind.
Speaker 2:It's like you're outside smoking, right next to a door that says health and wellness.
Speaker 1:Right, and the amount of times that we've been like you cannot smoke right here, but anyway.
Speaker 2:I remember my aunt. She lives out. She's lived out in California the majority of her life. I remember she came and visited Naples this is years ago, had to be early 90s and we went to a restaurant and the hostess asked us smoking or non-smoking? And my aunt looked at her weird and looked at us weird. She goes you guys still allow smoking in restaurants Because out in California it had been banned for years at that point and it's funny, I still remember that non-smoking section, yeah, but that's the same thing that it's got to happen with pharmaceuticals. It has to happen with Western medicine and health insurance companies. Pharmaceuticals, it has to happen with Western medicine and health insurance companies. I can't imagine that 30 years from now, 20 years from now, we're not looking back on this time in healthcare and going what the heck were we thinking? What was America thinking? Like it's crazy.
Speaker 1:I hope you're right.
Speaker 2:I mean think about it. It was 50 years ago that doctors were smoking cigarettes in the clinic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's true, and more and more people are going the route of paying cash, pay and concierge because they're actually realizing, like our patients, that they're actually getting care, they're getting time with their providers, they're getting answers and not just here take this medicine, take this medicine, take this medicine and we've talked about it, but we'll review for our new listeners here and thanks for joining us and listening. But even when I was in internal medicine, working for the hospital, we had sponsored lunches every day. I would come home and be like Pfizer sponsored our lunch today or Johnson Johnson sponsored our lunch today. Like every day you're getting sponsored for a lunch, but they're sponsoring you and providing you with all of this material and these samples so that you will give your patients these medications and you are paid for it by the amount of medication, these medications that you're prescribing.
Speaker 2:It's. That's just crazy, that's.
Speaker 1:Western medicine.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 1:The doctors are paid by the amount of medications or the amount of these prescriptions that they are prescribing to the patients on a daily basis.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you can. You can say that that's not true, all you want, but the reality is it's true. The evidence is there. Just do a quick research or quick search on it. Use my BFF chat, gpt, pay for the advanced version and get some.
Speaker 1:That is your best friend.
Speaker 2:You should see, jenny, the way she looks at me when I'm having a conversation with chat.
Speaker 1:She goes looks at me when I'm having a conversation with chat. She goes you even have a baby name for it. You call it chat, and so it's like your buddy name. He talks to this thing like it's a human and even says like please and thank you, or he's like hey, buddy. So here's the next episode or the next story I have for you. Help me out with this. I'm all it's.
Speaker 2:It's you're talking to it like a human just yesterday I used it to help me troubleshoot this fault code that was showing up on our boat from over the weekend, and it's just the best conversation ever. I mean it's so much more pleasant than talking to an actual mechanic Because you know it's like yeah sure, jake, you know that sucks, that you had to deal with that. That's a real bummer, but I completely understand how frustrating that must be here. Let me give you a couple of tips to try, and I'm just going. This is great and it worked.
Speaker 1:Jake's. All I have to say please and thank you, though, because I want him to continue being nice to me. I wish I worked for the AI system so I could hear how all the different people talk to the thing, but anyways, that's besides the point.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Let's come back to what we're talking about here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, here we are. I believe this episode is number 198. So we are two episodes away from our 200th episode, and when I said that Jenny's going, we haven't even hit 200 episodes yet. And I'm saying the opposite. Holy cow, I can't believe we've done almost 200 episodes of bickering and hopefully helping people make better decisions. So one of the things that we want to do is come back to the notion that we need to be reminded more than we need new information. We need to be reminded more often and more frequently than we need new information, and it's so true. I mean, the reality is most of us know that we shouldn't eat cookies, donuts, drink soda At least. If you've been listening to this podcast, you should know that Even diet soda. I was just looking at that in, oh my gosh, my favorite place on the planet, jersey Mike's. Yeah, jersey Mike's. I was just in there Sunday after running to them.
Speaker 1:You went to Jersey Mike's on Sunday.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Marine Trading Post yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did. That's nice to me, yeah, and on their soda cooler right there, they've got every soda they have in the cooler with its associated calories. And I'm just looking at this sticker and go, I can drink this 32 ounce diet Mountain Dew and only get five calories. Right, and that may be true, but your body does not respond that way, right?
Speaker 1:It's not telling you about all the aspartame you're getting, which is spiking your blood sugar regardless of it having only five calories.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm just going. This is hold on one second. Let's get Walker. He just woke up. There he is. Did you have a good little morning nap? The cutest smile of all time. Oh my goodness, oh my God, oh my God. Say something, walker.
Speaker 1:Good job, you're starting young, oh my goodness. We've had so many requests to bring Stella back on the podcast.
Speaker 2:And herself requested it.
Speaker 1:She has also asked, but we have had listeners say we should bring her back, although she's starting kindergarten. So I don't know when we'll be able to do that now. All right, so back to the Mountain Dew.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So 32 ounces of diet Mountain Dew and you're only getting five calories and you're thinking you're doing something good for yourself. And it's just not true. I mean, it's insane, absolutely insane, to think that it's okay to drink that and there's no calories in it. So you're not going to gain weight from doing it, it's not going to spike your blood sugar, it's not going to put you on the track for early onset diabetes. It's just insane. And dementia, dementia, yeah, oh, speaking of dementia, holy cow, they just came out with a legitimate study looking at the direct correlation of taking gabapentin and dementia and Parkinson's.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:A legitimate study. So not just correlation, but a legitimate study showing that those that take gabapentin chronically are at a significantly higher risk of developing dementia and Parkinson's.
Speaker 1:Wow, I want to see that article. Why didn't you share it with me?
Speaker 2:I just got it over the weekend, yeah, so I'll share it with you, okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's. I mean, it makes sense in my brain that that could be the potential side effect, but they're not going to tell you that when they prescribe you gabapentin for your nerve pain or your neuropathy or your shingles that you've just developed acutely and then you end up on gabapentin long term, they're not telling you any of that.
Speaker 2:No, absolutely not. So here, in light of coming up on our 200th episode and needing to be reminded more than we need new information, let's go back to the basics. The most common cause of back pain is Weak ass syndrome. Weak ass syndrome it's not herniated disc, it's not bulging disc, it's not degenerated disc, it's not spondylosis, spondylosis or scoliosis none of those things are the most common causes of back pain. Those can be correlated with back pain, but they don't cause back pain. The most common cause of back pain is weak ass syndrome.
Speaker 2:When your glutes are not doing the job they're supposed to do, they've not given your spine a solid foundation to sit on. I mean, think about it the strongest shape on the planet is an arch right, or technically, a triangle right. But let's just think of an arch, and an arch is our legs meeting in the middle with the pelvis right. So just think of your legs coming together, meeting in the middle with the pelvis right. So just think of your legs coming together, meet in the middle with your pelvis as an arch. So there's a reason why an arch is so commonly found in archaeology because it's one of the strongest foundations to build upon I don't think I actually knew that well, there you go I mean yeah, I can see a lot of arches.
Speaker 2:Now that you say that, yeah, and the stone at the very top is called the keystone. The keystone is what connects both sides of the arch and it is the most important stone in the entire arch. The human body is the same way. Our keystone is our tailbone essentially, fifth grade reading level. Keep this fifth grade reading level. Think of our keystone as our tailbone, our sacrum, our tailbone, the bottom of our pelvis. If we're not strong in our glutes, then that's going to be twisted in some way, shape or form. It's going to be tilted or twisted in some way, shape or form. And we're talking about a fraction of an inch, not crazy. It's not like I can look at you and say, oh, you're out of whack. Well, I can.
Speaker 1:You can.
Speaker 2:I can, but most people can. Right, but we're talking about a fraction of an inch of that thing being twisted, tilted something off, and that keystone structure is no longer functional, which means that your glutes are not functional. Which means that your glutes are not functional, which means your whole entire foundation is not working the way that it should be working. And what's the next level up from your glutes and your pelvis?
Speaker 2:The back your low back and that's why back pain occurs. So a herniated disc, a compressed disc, a bulging disc, a spondylolisthesis or a slippage of your L4 on your L5, all of these things are the result of weak ass syndrome or dysfunctional glutes, pelvis, hips, foundation.
Speaker 1:Right, and we so often will start to have that conversation with people and they say, oh, my glutes are so strong, my glutes are working fine. It's not a glute problem. I've done glute exercises, I do them every day, and it's not about you doing the exercises, about the fact that the glutes have to actually activate symmetrically.
Speaker 2:Symmetrically and efficiently Right. I cannot tell you how many times I've worked with somebody who has the strongest glutes in the world.
Speaker 1:You for example, Me included in that.
Speaker 2:Yeah your glutes are super strong, but one of them just isn't quite as efficient as the other one in certain positions.
Speaker 1:But literally, but Play on words.
Speaker 2:Okay, yes.
Speaker 1:Correct.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And that comes from years of injury and inefficiencies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and other people. It's years of sitting on your ass.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm Right.
Speaker 2:In first world countries. We're the only ones that sit In third world countries. You either stand or ones that sit In third world countries. You either stand or you squat, so you're never not using your glutes. When we're sitting in chairs, we're not using them, you don't use it, you lose, it becomes inefficient and that's the beginning of back pain. So yes, a herniated disc can correlate with back pain. You can have severe chronic back pain or severe acute back pain and go get an MRI that shows you've got a herniation at L4-5 on the right side. That does not mean that that's what's causing your pain. It can be correlated with your pain, but not causing your pain. Because how many times do you yourself or have you known somebody who's gotten surgery on your back for a herniated disc, a compression, a fusion, and the pain doesn't go away, gets worse, or it does go away and it comes back later?
Speaker 1:Right and I have the same conversation with knee pain. We just recently had a client who had their knee scoped and quote unquote cleaned out and a meniscus cleaned up. And here we are, eight weeks later, still having knee pain. And try having the conversation about we got to get your glutes firing. You love pickleball, you love the lateral movements, but if the glutes aren't activating appropriately, even if they're super strong, if they're not being efficient, this is why you're still having knee pain.
Speaker 2:Knees. Just drive me nuts, absolutely nuts. The number one cause of knee pain is the same exact thing as the number one cause of back pain. It's weak ass syndrome, and inefficiency in the glutes causes overactiveness of the quads. Inefficiency in the glutes causes overactiveness of the quads, which creates an equal or an imbalance in the loading of the knee joint, and that's ultimately what causes a meniscus to tear. There is too much compression on the knee as you twisted to the right, twisted to the left. Oh, walker, did you just headbutt mommy's foot? Oh, he headbutted the chair, walker.
Speaker 2:But that's what causes a meniscus tear. You went to plant and twist and you didn't have the glutes unloading the knee joint. That's what the glutes do with the knee is, when the glutes are working the right way, your knee joint actually unloads and that's what causes the meniscus to tear. It's really simple, not easy. Really simple, not easy. And that's what leads to knee pain. So here we are. I've got chronic knee pain. I go get an MRI and it shows that I've got a tear of the meniscus. Okay, let's go in there and scope it. Now the meniscus is not torn anymore because we just cut it out. That doesn't fix the problem that your glutes weren't working.
Speaker 1:Right, or the fact that you're still putting that kind of stress through the joint itself now, even with less cartilage, even yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:So you're making it that much more likely that you'll have chronic knee pain or something right? We're losing Walker right now. He needs more attention and we're coming up on 20 minutes, so let's wrap it up. We're being antsy. Yeah, let me say it with this.
Speaker 2:I have to credit David Lee with this saying David Lee is the first PT that I ever hired and he was one of my good buddies before we started working together a big CrossFitter and he said this thing, which completely changed my outlook on the human body You've got cartilage issues, you've got no cartilage at all. Whatever the problem is, well, that is what it is. You just have to deal with pain. And he said this and it really changed my outlook on it. He goes you know, the body is very, very resilient. If you put it in a position to heal itself, it will.
Speaker 2:And I don't want you to think of that statement as healing cartilage, regrowing cartilage, even though we are actually getting close to doing that effectively with stem cells and all these other things. But what we're talking about, healing itself, is decreasing inflammation, decreasing the pain response, and that should be our definition of healing Not getting rid of a herniated disc, but actually getting rid of inflammation, getting rid of the pain response, because the herniation is irrelevant if you don't have pain. So if you've got pain, you've got chronic pain. Let's figure out what we can do to put your body in a position to heal itself, so that the inflammation decreases and the pain response ultimately resolves.
Speaker 1:Physically reducing that pain response and through what you're putting into your body.
Speaker 2:Yes, systemic inflammation. You can't eat eggs chronically if you have an egg sensitivity, which is creating chronic inflammation in your gut, which is creating chronic inflammation in your body.
Speaker 1:Right. We're much more prone to injury and pain when we have systemic inflammation coming as a result of our food and our gut health too. So we have to look at the whole picture when it comes to healing, and not just the physical side of healing when it comes to healing, and not just the physical side of healing. Exactly Love it, so we're losing it with Walker, so we're going to wrap it up here. I'm like holding him upside down as we're speaking. Don't mind us over here Just trying to spike some adrenaline response.
Speaker 2:He can't take his attention away from the microphone.
Speaker 1:He really wants to hold the mic.
Speaker 2:Say something Walker away from the microphone.
Speaker 1:He really wants to hold the mic.
Speaker 2:Say something, walker sorry for all the noise. Y'all okay, so have a great rest of your day. Share this episode with somebody like and subscribe. Leave us some reviews please. We're coming up on our 200th episode and we're super excited.
Speaker 1:Thank you, everybody ciao for Ciao for now. Thank you for subscribing on your social media and podcast platforms to the Berman Method Dr Jake Berman with Berman Physical Therapy and Jenny Berman, physician Assistant, with Berman Health and Wellness. You can find more information on our website wwwbermanptcom for physical therapy. Wwwbermanptcom forward slash wellness for the health and wellness. You can also find us on social media Facebook, instagram and on your podcast platform, so be sure to follow us, like us, subscribe to us and, if you would like any further information, definitely visit our website and reach out to us. You may also find our free reports on the websites as well, where you can download this free information for yourself. Have a great day.