The Practice Gap
The Practice Gap
#39 Functional Neurology & Chiropractic: The Perfect Match – with Haakon Kuhnle
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In this episode of The Practice Gap, we dive into the fascinating journey of chiropractor Haakon Kundle. Growing up in a family of chiropractors, Håkon never planned on following in their footsteps—until a series of injuries led him to discover the power of functional neurology. From extreme sports injuries to groundbreaking neurological treatments, Håkon shares how his personal experiences shaped his approach to chiropractic care. If you've ever wondered what sets functional neurology apart and how it can transform patient outcomes, this episode is for you!
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Elisabeth Aas-Jakobsen, DC, MSc
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Chiropractic Journey
Speaker 1Hi and welcome to the Practice Gap, the podcast for closing the gap between the practice you have and the one that you want. I'm Elisabeth, a chiropractor, a business owner, coach and entrepreneur, on a mission to help you move from frustration and overwhelm to clarity, focus and joy in practice. 3, 2, 1, go Three, two, one, yeah, hi and welcome to the studio, håkon Kundle, is that right in English also?
Speaker 2Yes, thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here and there's been so many interesting people on the podcast, so I feel very blessed to be here. So thank you.
Speaker 1Thank you, I'm super excited to have you here. Why don't you start by telling the audience a little bit about yourself?
Speaker 2So yeah, my name is Håkon and I am a chiropractor and I live in Tønsberg and own my own practice and Tønsberg is a small town outside Oslo, about 50 minutes yep and um.
Speaker 2It's a specialized clinic where we mostly see complex neurological cases. So I got into chiropractic after having too many injuries myself as a up-and-coming athlete and I wanted to. I never saw myself as a chiropractor. I just wanted all my clothes to say Red Bull growing up, and that also led into a bunch of fractures and concussions and a lot of weird symptoms and disabilities that weren't that easy to detect, even though I come from a chiropractic family which they helped me tremendously, tremendously when I was a kid throughout my most of my injuries. But something lacked in the progress of my. Even my brain processing was weird and off. And then I got introduced to functional neurology through my father and my uncle and so I was like okay might I just add a little bit?
Speaker 1you have both a mother and a father who's a chiropractor, which is very cool.
Speaker 2I mean, that's quite unique, but keep on going, going and so I was wondering what this functional neurology is, because it's a very vague and non-specific thing that not really many people know about. There's like is it neurology, is it not neurology, and how does it relate to chiropractic? And when I first received the treatment from dr kirk in the states, it was a very revolutionized experience. I was very unfortunate and had a really bad accident which I ended up losing my memory and developing seizures and all these kinds of weird symptoms that didn't have any neurological base in the system. Like if you took an MRI, ct scan or blood work, you wouldn't find anything wrong with me and I was like, maybe it's just in my head, like it's a mental problem.
Speaker 2And then when I got treated I got, I would say I went from like nothing to maybe 70% better within like five days of treatment and I was like, whoa, this is very cool. And then that kind of got me hooked into functional neurology. So my dad was like, okay, do you want to do chiropractic? Then you just have to sit in functional neurology club at school until it doesn't sound Chinese anymore. But you also need to learn how to adjust, so you should also go into the gonstead club. So mostly my parents are old school gondroids it was what they used to call themselves back in the days and I think that really was the kickoff into how I became a chiropractor.
Speaker 1Cool if you say you're from a chiropractic family. We know your mother and father is chiropractic and then, as I was saying that, then I realized you have more, more people in your family that are chiropractors yes, we are kind of as I grew.
Speaker 2When I was growing up I felt like we were kind of like the chiropractic mafia of Norway. I have an uncle and five cousins that are chiropractors, and then my mom, my dad and then now me wow, how, how was it growing up with a such heavily based chiropractic family?
Speaker 2um, to be honest, they I thought everyone got adjusted. When I grew up I was like, oh, you have a headache, then just go get your neck adjusted. I was like what people take painkillers for that stuff and um, but it was interesting because my mom and dad never pushed chiropractic on me and that was a very interesting thing when I got to the states because, being what they, where did you go to school?
Speaker 2oh yeah, I went to school at Life University in Atlanta, georgia because my mom and dad they went to Palmer University, but they said it's not fun in the cornfields, it's way more fun in Atlanta Georgia. So you should go there. And on top of that, carrick was affiliated with the school at that time, so I was very lucky to be in that time area.
Speaker 1Me and what was the time you were in?
Speaker 2From 2011 until 2016. And there were so, so much cool stuff happening at Atlanta at that time. That was kind of like the hub of functional neurology. So we were super lucky with seminars and doctors coming in and out from all over Europe a bunch of people from Norway and Netherlands and Sweden. Everyone came over to Atlanta to go through Carrick seminars and so this was a very cool and interesting place to be.
Speaker 2And so when I got to Atlanta, there were it was this term with all my student friends that said, oh, you're a chiro kid I don't know what that means like, oh, you're second or third generation chiro and I'm like, hmm, okay, so they're like so you know how to adjust and you know all this stuff. I'm like I don't know anything about chiropractic. I thought like I would when my, when my dad went into the x-ray rooms at the hospital to look at one of my fractures, I was like, why do you want to look at the fractures that you only, you only crack bones. You don't really know anything about this. And he would still stay there, just stumble and like some, someday you'll know. And then, as I went through school, I was like, man, my mom and dad actually know quite a lot. You know they. They actually know way more. So I've all.
Speaker 2I had all these epiphanies as I was in school. I'm like, well, that was the reason why I weren't allowed to do this, or this was the reason why we did this, and I think one of the reasons, besides all the injuries, why I became a chiropractor was I truly enjoyed my mom and dad's lifestyle and how they, how they thought us about nutrition and just the way of living. So I remember living in Sydney, australia, in 2010, and I was like, dad, I don't really know if I want to do business and marketing and all this stuff that I'm doing down there besides surfing and kite surfing and I asked him do you truly love your job? And he was like I love Mondays and I'm like, hmm, I don't know if that many people actually truly love their job that much, so like, maybe there's something to this chiropractic thing. So then went over to the states and then, yeah, the rest is history so you actually started a different education before you decided to chiropractic.
Speaker 1How long did you? What or what made you make the decision? It is, I don't want to do marketing. How long have you? Oh?
Speaker 2I, I went down to Sydney, uh, for about six months and tried out many different things, like business, marketing, architecture, and I was like, hmm, it's not really anything. And I'm like, okay, my mom and dad, they're happy, they're healthy, all their children are healthy. Like maybe there's something to this thing that I don't really know anything about, which is chiropractic. And I remember moving back and I wanted to move to Oslo and hang out with all my friends and my dad's, like you're over 20 years old, either get an apartment or start studying. I'm like I don't know what I want to do. I just got back from Sydney and then I, within two months, I got a visa and never seen the school, just jumped on a plane to Atlanta and then stayed in America for six and a half, almost seven years.
Speaker 1So you finished life and then you went to then start working. For how long did you work?
Speaker 2in this place. So I worked for a little over a year at a clinic called Northwest Functional Neurology in Portland Oregon.
Speaker 1So at that point you already knew you wanted to specialize in functional neurology.
Speaker 2Oh, before I started chiropractic. So my whole premise around chiropractic and how I see chiropractic all revolves around the nervous system. I don't, I don't actually. I learned how the chiropractic adjustment actually affects the nervous system more than I actually knew what, uh, the biomechanical components of moving a bone was before I started school, because in undergrad, when I had to go through different courses in order to have enough credit to start chiropractic school, I did undergrad for nine months and I just sat in in in their neuro club and Gonstead club and I actually got to hang out and at Dr Carey's clinic at school for nine months before I actually started chiropractic school. So I went around and was like doing some neurological rehab on patients and I was like, oh, this is super cool to see people with crazy dystonic posturing all of a sudden sit up straight and people are super dizzy or not dizzy within like two days of treatment and I'm like what is this thing Like? This is so, so cool.
Speaker 1It sounds like you really ended up at the right place at the right time in history. Good for you. Could you explain to the audience what is the difference between just regular chiropractor or regular what is well that's? That's a big, big question. The just regular chiropractic experience, uh, compared to, and if you go into functional neurology, if you seek help at a functional neurology clinic so I don't think it's really all right.
Speaker 2It all depends on what your problem is, right? I think the coolest thing about functional neurology is it works for chiropractors or it's made for chiropractors actually like it's perfect for us, because the coolest tool I still have in my clinic is my chiropractic adjustment.
Speaker 2I have all these fun toys like a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, a bunch of different lasers, all these different infrared goggles, we have PMI mats, pmf mats all these different technology tools are so cool, but still the most powerful tool we have is the actual chiropractic adjustment, and this is this has been. I think this is the thing that kind of bothers me the most about our profession is that when you, when you look at all the miracles we do in clinic on a daily basis which is why chiropractic is so cool is it has very little to do with the biomechanical structure of our spine, but how we're able to change the frequency of firing of our nervous system through manipulations of either the spinal column or appendicular joints.
Speaker 2so I and I think that the cool or what frustrates me in chiropractic in general, is that if you do chiropractic well and precise, you'll get profound and super life-changing awesome experiences, but then if you do it kind of wrong, it still works pretty good yeah and sometimes I wish it was more dire consequences of doing it and not so great, because then maybe people would get even more specific in their examination and the treatment and not just go into this assembly line of working, which tends to happen sometimes when you've been in practice and have long hours and you have bills to pay and all this other stuff okay.
Speaker 1So if I'm a patient coming to you with headaches and I've been to many of the different chiropractors and where do you start with me and what do you explain to me is the difference between what you do compared to what I'm used to doing that kind of works, but it doesn't give me the last 20 percent oh so, um.
Deep Dive Into Functional Neurology
Speaker 2So I'm don't get me wrong. Chiropractic works awesome, but when it comes to some of the patients that I see they have, their nervous system has a more on or have more unstable components, so you kind of have to stabilize these components before you make the adjustments, kind of like you don't want to run a 100 meter sprint without warming up so you're trying to normalize and calibrate these little small intricate system and then I can just deliver a high velocity, super loud crack and it's amazing and then all this things clears up right.
Speaker 2So when you come into my office, I spend probably 40 minutes of doing a case history with you and I just want you to talk, because when I listen to a patient talk and you actually let them explain and just talk for a good amount of time, they actually explain the symptoms and all their problems very well if you actually listen. And since I've been to so many different doctors and clinics myself, I feel the most important thing is to let them actually feel like they've been heard and let them just talk, because a lot of time oh, we don't have time to this let me just figure out the problem that you have and so I don't need them to talk for 40 minutes. But I allow them to talk for 40 minutes because I think it's it gives you that doctor, patient trust and relationship right off the bat, because I'm going to do so much weird stuff afterwards.
Speaker 1So it's good to start with some basic trust. That's amazing, so it takes about two hours to go through a first initial consultation in the office. Okay, so I'm done with the 40-minute consultation. I'll tell all about me and my problems. What happens then? What do you do?
Speaker 2Then we go through eye examination. So we have these it looks like huge diving goggles and they have infrared cameras which track your eye movements in different positions. So we do it in darkness and also with a screen that moves around a lot and this can tell us a lot about how your brain and nervous system is functioning, because you have this very cliche saying about eyes is the window into the soul, but it's actually the window into how your nervous system is functioning. So, depending on what type of eye movement we look at, we can say if it's a frontal lobe activation or a parietal lobe activation. So different parts of your brain I can look at.
Speaker 2Oh, is this thing properly functioning or is this thing just a tiny bit off? Because most neurological symptoms or most neurological disorders don't really have any structural components in the brain. Like I said earlier, you won't find anything on blood work. You won't find anything on mri scans. You won't find anything unless you actually do functional testing like balance testing, eye movements testing, cranial nerves, palpation and all this stuff that we all the chiropractors I know all know this stuff, but they tend not to use it, which I think is sad, and I I wonder if it's a if, if it's an educational bias of that they don't know or don't understand the importance of doing all this small stuff and how they can actually get even more specific into their treatment and get even better results with their patients on that note, I don't know if you know this how much functional neurotic neurology do they teach in the different chiropractic school?
Speaker 2now? Oh, that's a very good question. Uh question. I know, uh, from life university. They have, or they used to have, at least three different clubs.
Speaker 2When I went to school we had basic neurology club, advanced neurology club and advanced advanced neurology club and you had to take quite extensive examinations to be in in order to go through to the next level, kind of like um in gonstead club you also were.
Speaker 2You were able to do like a mock diplomat exam, which was really cool too. So you got to feel what it was like to actually take the diplomat uh gonstead exam before you actually took it, if that's what you wanted to do after school. And we would have crazy cool gonstead doctors like linda mullen, which was one of the first diplomats in gonstead uh ever, or female diplomat in the in gonstead doctors like Linda Mullen, which was one of the first diplomates in Gonstead ever, or female diplomate in the in Gonstead, which and I to this day I have to give her so much credit for my skills as a chiropractor and actually adjusting. So the cool thing about functional neurology at Life University is all these clubs that you can do after school and also that there are a bunch of very, very, very good clinics that do functional neurology within like a 30-minute radius of driving from school.
Speaker 1So, if you have I know that we have a lot of chiropractic students as listeners. If they are in a school that don't necessarily have a functional neurology club and they want to get started but they don't, of course they're students and they don't necessarily know how how can they start a club at their school? Do you have any suggestions? Yeah, so it all.
Speaker 2I know some school has regulations if they're allowed to do clubs and all this stuff, but I know that uh, life university has a youtube page and also an online page where you can actually they stream most of their um club lectures. So even if you're in new zealand or in england or in canada, you can actually log in and see it and a lot of them is already recorded so you can look at all these videos and get started before you have to go and actually do pay a bunch of money and all these hours that I've done in neurology.
Speaker 1So do that first and that will give you a tremendous leap into what what working with functional neurology is so then, if you are a student, you can gather some of your friends and you borrow room and then you look at, watch these videos together and talk about it. So that could be a start and then you can build from there yep.
Speaker 2So I think the uh and the coolest thing, or the coolest thing I heard in orientation when I got to atlanta was guy reekman, very good talker. Uh, he was the president of school school at this time and I remember it's like it was yesterday and he said in order to become a chiropractor, you need three things. So this education that you will get over the next three to five years will only make you one third of a chiropractor. Like when you get your diploma, you're only one third of a chiropractor. And I'm like what am I paying for something? And I'm not even two thirds of a chiropractor. Like when you get your diploma, you're only one third of a chiropractor and I'm like what am I paying for something? And I'm not even, uh, two thirds of a chiropractor. This sounds really weird.
Speaker 2And then he followed up with the second part is you have to observe other clinics and see what it actually looks like in the world. So you need to find a mentor, you need to find a clinic or multiple clinics, and go and observe and look what chiropractic is to the world. Because right now you're in this bubble where everyone talks about chiropractic and chiropractic is the most, most awesome thing in the world. And, and the third thing is, you have to go to seminars and you have to continue continuously work on your, both your adjusting skills, but also just your skills about treating patients, communication skills and all this stuff. And when you have all those three together, that's when you truly become a chiropractor okay.
Speaker 1So if I'm saying that I've been working for 10 years and I've never really known anything, I kind of just heard about functional neurology and I listen to you now it's like this sounds really cool If I would learn it now, or not me? I've been working for almost 30 years, so 10 years. How long will it take me if I'm like really invested, I'm starting with some YouTube movies, I take some courses? How long will it take me to become pretty good if I'm actually investing time and money in it?
Speaker 2Two years, two years yeah.
Speaker 1That's not bad.
Speaker 2I think it would be good enough to see probably 40 to 50 percent of my patients okay, and I'm gonna have you back for another episode.
Functional Neurology Clinic Evaluation Process
Speaker 1So then we're going to talk about a little bit about more your clinic, uh the clinic you are in now, but before we do that, I want to get some more answers about functional neurology. So okay, so I've been working 10 years and I'm super interested in diving deep into it. Where do I start?
Speaker 2I think the first thing you should do is go to a functional neurology clinic, and a real one, the one, so a real one that sounds really bad.
Speaker 1Like to observe, like to find a clinic, and come and say like, hi, I want to.
Speaker 2Yes, because then you get to see what it's like to actually do it, because there's a lot of chiropractors and we have so many people here in Norway, I think, like per capita, I think we actually have more diplomats in neurology than any country in the world, which is super cool. But it's very hard to do just functional neurology. They are only, I think, a handful of clinics here in norway that just do functional neurology, because it is quite the investment to just have like all the equipment that you need in order to run it perfectly. But that's why you have people that do 50, 50 or 10 or 15, and in order to do that, you don't really need to learn all the stuff I know and have gone through in order to just elevate your normal practice.
Speaker 2And this is what I think is cool about functional neurology is because if you just know a little bit more, you will be able to even get greater results in any of the techniques you do If it's networking, if it's Thompson, if it's Gonstead, if it's working with children, if it's working with athletes, if because functional neurology just gives you more biomarkers to test and retest afterwards because I had the one of the things that I thought was hard. Coming out of school was okay my palpation scales have maybe touched like 100 people.
Speaker 2You know, and and I'm I'm trying to figure out, is this bone stuck or not? And which? Is it stuck in Finest right rotation or how is it bedged? I don't really know. I'm trying to do lateral bending and all this and then, okay, this feels kind of stuck and I adjust it and afterwards I'm like, is it better?
Speaker 2I don't know if it's really any better, but what I found with functional neurology is I could do a balance test because the balance is easy. I just have to, okay, close your eyes. Is the balance good? Cool, I adjust the joint that I think is stuck. Does the balance improve or did it get better or did it get worse? It's a very easy pre and post test. And sometimes now I found later in life I wear my palpation skills a little bit better and I adjust it and all of a sudden they're and I'm like, oh cool, now the motion palpation is so much better in this joint. But their balance is all messed up and I'm like, was that really a good adjustment then, or was it just me loving the crack?
Speaker 1yeah good, some good questions before we go on. So I'm back into office with my headaches, I have my ready goggles on the some infrared light, what is okay?
Global Perspectives in Chiropractic Practice
Speaker 2so then I'm now I'm like 50 minutes into the consultation about yeah, probably so this test takes about 20 minutes and we do blood pressure in laying down seated and standing position and then we also do the same thing with pulse like seated uh, laying down seated and standing to look at differences, uh, in pulse mechanism from seated to stand to see if you have what's called like pots or postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome or any form of dysautonomia. And then after that we go in back into my office and we do a full neurological exam. So we do cranial nerves, sensation, pinwheel lightness, crude touch. We check all your reflexes, do bedside examination of eye movements, we do balance testing and then we do gait analysis, where we just make you walk up and down the hall, look at strike length and arm swing and then we do report of findings. So we go through all your stuff afterwards by that time I'm fairly confident to see if you're actually a fit for the clinic or if we need to refer you somewhere else.
Speaker 1Perfect. Thank you so much. I feel I need to learn more about functional neurology and I'm actually quite inspired, and I hope the whole audience is too. We're going to have you back after a little break and then we're going to talk about how the different work experience with more business wise owning your own clinic, working for someone else, the different work experience with more business-wise owning your own clinic working for someone else working in the States compared to working in Norway, to give the audience tips and thoughts for their own practices Does that sound like a good plan?
Speaker 2Cool, excited Perfect.
Speaker 1Thank you.