Village Chiropractic & Wellness Podcast
Welcome to the Village Chiropractic & Wellness Podcast with your host, Dr. Matt Green! Join us as we explore health, wellness, and the power of chiropractic care to help you live your best life
Village Chiropractic & Wellness Podcast
EP #8: Spinal Hygiene: Why Your Spine Needs Daily Care
Could you be neglecting your spine the same way people once neglected their teeth? Dr. Matt Green reveals the revolutionary concept of "spinal hygiene" – a preventative approach to spinal health that mirrors dental hygiene practices we now take for granted.
Ready to transform your approach to spinal health? Discover simple daily exercises that can prevent degeneration, maintain mobility, and potentially add both quality and quantity to your life. Your future self will thank you for the investment you make in your spine today.
Join Dr. Matt Green of Village Chiropractic & Wellness Center for practical advice designed to keep your neck in top form and your life pain-free.
Visit villagechiropracticoakland.com to learn more.
The thing that causes decay in the spine is also chemicals chemicals that are located inside of inflammation, and when we're in a constant state of inflammation around the spine, that inflammation of those chemicals wear away at that disc and that bone and cause a state of arthritis. What causes that arthritis is lack of motion.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Village Chiropractic and Wellness Podcast with your host, dr Matt Green. Join us as we explore health, wellness and the power of chiropractic care to help you live your best life. Let's dive into today's episode.
Speaker 3:Welcome back listeners and viewers. Charlie McDermott once again co-host, producer of the show here for a phenomenal episode, and I haven't even heard it all yet. But Dr Matt is here, as always he's it. This is why we are here. Dr Matt Green, how you doing.
Speaker 1:Thanks, Charlie, I appreciate it. This is a core message for me, for everybody, for all the people that I take care of and as well as people who haven't met me yet. It's a very important message, the one that I really hope resonates. Yeah, the one that I hope that resonates.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you teased me a little bit. I did see some of your slides and I mean you just keep like raising the bar on your content and your shows and this is going to be so helpful and for your listeners. You'll still get a lot out of this because I know Dr Matt will do a great job explaining what we will be seeing. But if you have the ability to jump on YouTube, by all means get over to the YouTube channel and watch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I'll do my best to. If people are just to describe what the slides are, what we're seeing, but, yeah, all right, let's get to it, let's do it, let's do it, go ahead, yeah. So the title here the thing that's important for me to get across is the importance of what I'm calling spinal hygiene. So spinal hygiene what do I mean by spinal hygiene? It's the same thing as a dentist is going to talk about dental hygiene. However, I'm talking about the health of the spine, and hygiene implies there's a process. It's not anything that's done. We need to regularly brush and floss our teeth and see a dentist on a regular basis in order to take care of the health of our teeth. We need to exercise and stretch and see a chiropractor on a regular basis in order to keep our spine healthy and up to date and hygiene. So let's see the slides here.
Speaker 3:I love number one, that term spinal hygiene. I've not heard that before and that really it just sets the importance of, like you said, taking care of your teeth. You don't do that, you pay the consequences. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So let me get the slides up here. There we go, look at that.
Speaker 1:So let's let's talk a little bit about that analogy between dental hygiene and spinal hygiene. You can see in the slide here it says the the Bacterias and germs plus sugar equals the acid in our mouth that if it's left there over a period of time, mixed with a healthy tooth, will cause tooth decay, otherwise known as a cavity.
Speaker 3:Otherwise known as pain Right, otherwise known as pain.
Speaker 1:Right, and pain will come along with that, because pain is the body's natural alarm system to let the conscious mind know that there is something wrong. So the analogy, the direct analogy to the spine, is now we're looking at a picture, if you can see the slide here. What we're looking at is we're looking at the spine from the side, but in a very advanced decayed state, and spinal decay has many different names, maybe names that you might be familiar with Degenerative disc disease, degenerative joint disease. A lot of people that come to me, that have seen their medical doctor, that have gotten x-rays, come back and tell me well, I got x-rays and they told me I have this degenerative disc disease. Yes, that's exactly what he or she said DDD, that's right.
Speaker 1:Another name that almost everyone is familiar with is arthritis or osteoarthritis. There's many different types of arthritis, but the ones that we're going to talk about is osteoarthritis. Another way of saying it is wear and tear. So it's almost the same exact process is that? Can you see? The thing that causes the decay in teeth are the acid or chemicals. The thing that causes decay in the spine is also chemicals. Chemicals that a constant state of inflammation around the spine, that inflammation of those chemicals wear away at that disc and that bone and cause arthritis. What causes that arthritis is lack of motion, and we're going to get into a little bit more of that just to break that down and make it as simple as possible. And that the process of a cavity or tooth is almost exactly the same process in your spine.
Speaker 1:All right, so onward to the next slide here. So here's the importance. The importance is that decay to the spine causes damage to the nervous system. Now, the nervous system controls and coordinates every cell, tissue and organ in our body and it is our communication system. It is the system in which our body uses in order to receive information that something's wrong and for the brain to process that and for the brain to give directions on how to heal it. So our nervous system is our primary mode of healing and decay to the spine causes damage to that system.
Speaker 3:Makes sense.
Speaker 1:So it makes sense, right? So here's some statistics. Okay, so, spinal decay and degeneration this was I got this out of American Journal of Neuroscience in 2020. Wow, 96% of 80 year olds have been diagnosed with this severe spinal decay. Wow, 85 in in this test. Yeah, 85 percent of 50 year olds have mild to moderate spinal decay. 37 percent of 20 year olds have mild to moderate spinal decay. And here's the kicker in this test, they took 150 10 year olds have mild to moderate spinal decay. And here's the kicker In this test, they took 150 10 year olds and out of the 150 10 year olds, 9% of those 10 year olds had the beginning stages of spinal decay.
Speaker 1:Now, this is going to now go in the face of a belief that when people come to me with those x-rays and they say, well, I have that degenerative disc disease, but my doctor told me that it's because of old age, and age is a factor. As you can see, the older these people have gotten, the more severe it's gotten. So age is a factor, but it's not the cause. It's not the cause.
Speaker 3:Well, each one of those just just floors me, like I. I look at the, the 10 year olds and the fact that there's nine percent like there shouldn't be any in my mind, and and I mean each, mean each age group, it's it's mind blowing Wow.
Speaker 1:Mind blowing. That's right. That's why this is feel like this is such an important message. Okay, so now the the next question I'm imagining people are asking is well, what's causes it right and what causes it? This is a great picture here. So what causes it is our sedentary lifestyle and the dramatic rise in our sedentary lifestyle, our lack of exercise, the poor posture, our screen time, our increased screen time, and there's a whole other way that we could talk about diet and other causes of inflammation, but for this purpose here, the dramatic rise in sedentary lifestyle is the cause of this great uptake, of these new findings of spinal decay. So let's go to the next slide here. So here's the amazing analogy.
Speaker 1:The amazing analogy is is that in the in the early 1900s, the same thing was happening in the realm of dentistry that no one was teaching anybody how to take care of their teeth and and dentists were making a lot of money by pulling teeth. And there were a small group of wellness dentists that said, hey, maybe we should teach people how to take care of their teeth so they can take care of their teeth, so they don't have to be pulled. And for Charlie, for a lot about 50 years, there were large dental organizations and associations that were fighting this message because they were making so much money pulling teeth, yeah, but finally that message started to come out and it and it and it clicked here just in the 1970s, the 1980s really. That's when it really went widespread, when they started putting commercials out about people, uh, commercials where they bit the dye, the red dye, and then people could see what was happening on their teeth and that was the time.
Speaker 1:That was the big turnaround, and so I take care of my dental hygienist and I went in and I, when she came in, I said, hey, how many people come to see you and say, hey, I don't have any teeth pain, but I just want to take care of my teeth so they don't, so I don't get pain or anything later in the future? And she said, wow, 98%. So the dental dentistry has done it. They, they did it. Now, what happened that? The reason why that was happening was because there was a large uptick in the eating of sugar. Okay, you ready for this? 1942, the average adult ate an average of two pounds of sugar per year. Charlie, I'm going to ask you in 2020, how many pounds of sugar do you think the average American eats per year? Charlie, I'm going to ask you in 2020, how many pounds of sugar do you think the average American eats per year?
Speaker 3:I'm guessing it was significantly more. I mean sugar is in everything In everything.
Speaker 1:Have fun making a guess. It was two in 1942.
Speaker 1:1942 I'm gonna add a zero to it, I don't know 20, 20, yeah, it's a 54 oh my lord, so that's if that's four per month like yeah so when there was this large increase in uptake in eating of sugar, this stress that's happening to the bones and the soft tissue in our mouth, dentistry responded to that by saying we have to make sure that people take care of their teeth on a regular basis and have daily things to do to fight that stress. So they did it right. Here's an ad right Prevention of cavities, preventing tooth decay. Tooth decay is caused by bacteria and sugar in the mouth, but you can help to prevent it. Brush your teeth twice a day. So if you ask anybody on how do you take care of your teeth on a regular basis, I would imagine that very close to a hundred percent of people would say well, I brought, I need to brush and floss and see a dentist on a regular basis. Yes, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So here it is 97% of Americans brush their teeth daily. 50% of Americans visit a dentist regularly. There's great awareness on how to manage the health of teeth. How do we manage the health of the spine? Here it is you ready? I'm going to give you the answer. It's three things it's alignment, it's range of motion and it's strength Strength. The alignment all of our joints are meant to move and when they're not moving, to settle into a neutral position. And when they're all sitting in a neutral position, then that's what we call alignment, and all joints are meant to move in a full range of motion.
Speaker 1:My little exercise that I give in my office that everyone's familiar with, is yes, no, maybe so. So you want to move your joints in the yes direction up and down. You want to move them in the no direction, as if you're saying no, and maybe so is to the side, I don't know, Maybe so. And so I have all those exercises for the entire spine and I have a little plaque up on my wall that says yes, no, maybe so to make sure that everyone remembers that. So that's how we practice the range of motion Now, once your joints are aligned and have their full range of motion and then you strengthen the postural muscles surrounding that area. Now you got the secret. Brush and floss your teeth. Now you got the secret.
Speaker 1:Brush and floss your teeth, keep your spine aligned, full range of motion and strength and strong around those joints, now regular chiropractic care takes care of the alignment and the range of motion, and the exercises and stretches that people do at home take care of the strength component. So there it is. This is what I am hoping, and what I am not only hoping, but I am committed to, is that, as there was the uptick of sugar intake, dentistry responded in that way and now, as there's this uptick in sedentary lifestyle, yeah, that chiropractic can respond in this way and that people can start to think about taking care of the health of their spine the exact way that they think about taking care of their teeth. So what percentage of people do you think give daily care awareness to their spinal hygiene? 97%, 50%, 10% care awareness to their spinal hygiene? 97%, 50%, 10%. Right now, there's only an average of 11% of Americans that visit a chiropractor regularly.
Speaker 1:Uh-oh, uh-oh. I mean we can go back to that slide where there's a great amount of people who are showing up to this research project with severe spinal decay. So this is a real health concern. And remember that the spine surrounds the nervous system and the nervous system controls and coordinates everything, every cell, tissue and organ in your body. So this is an important message.
Speaker 1:So, lastly, just to finish here, so spinal hygiene is a set of principles and practices associated with the preservation and maintenance of the health of the spine. It includes spinal alignment, full range of motion of the spinal joints, strong postural muscles and regular chiropractic care. Everyone who wants to avoid spinal decay should have a chiropractor on their health team for early detection and correction of the cause of spinal decay. So here I am, matt Green, dr Matt Green, I am the chiropractor and lead chiropractor and owner of Village Chiropractic and Wellness Center. We're located in a very quaint community called Montclair Village, located in the Oakland Hills, and I have simple daily exercises to increase range of motion, exercises to increase the strength of postural muscles and a program of care that will not only relieve pain but will also help manage the health of the spine in order to here's the punchline add life to your years and years to your life.
Speaker 3:Love it, love it All right. So, dr Matt, there it is. I'm not letting you go this easily, oh okay, I got a question for you.
Speaker 3:All right, I love questions you look at. I mean there's mind blowing statistics. And so let's say I'm a 45 year old and I'm falling somewhere in that I know there's spinal decay and kind of like tooth decay. I'm guessing with spinal hygiene, like dental hygiene, I'm not going to be able to change the fact that I have a cavity, let's say, and with you know, the degeneration of my disc at age 45, there's nothing I can do about what's been done. But the benefit is let's keep you from losing all your teeth in the dental hygiene and in the case of what you do is, let's keep that the dent.
Speaker 1:Go ahead. Sorry, we can just slow down or stop that process. Yeah, yeah, that's it. Yeah, yeah, we can't go back. Yeah, once you've lost that disc and once there's bony spurs start to grow, we can't take those back. But we can certainly slow down or stop that process and I've seen x-rays with people who have moderate to severe arthritis that are functioning in their life.
Speaker 3:And I've seen people. Well, I was going to say that's my next question. So you're aligning and you're helping with that decay. Does then the fact that the muscles around the spine are being strengthened? Does that allow you to, in essence, get away with things that you would never have been able to do before because of that, those muscles now are supporting the spine, Do I?
Speaker 1:have that right. Yeah, you have that right, and it's not necessarily when we look at those x-rays. That's only one component. Um, there's, it's only one component.
Speaker 1:And I always point to people that even if you have a moderate to severe arthritis, that is not equal to the severity of pain that you will be feeling, can have people who have very mild osteoarthritis and are in a lot of pain. Maybe those people are working 60 hours a week and don't exercise and eat McDonald's. Maybe the people with moderate to severe arthritis have turned things around and exercise three to four times a week and stretch every day and eat really well and have a positive mental attitude and those people are probably going to feel better than those people that have just that mild. So there's, there's, it's, uh, you know it's it's. You're pointing to the fact that there's there's a lot of complexity to this um, uh issue. Uh, but that's, that's hopefully the. That's the hope that I want to give people is that when they even um, your, your x-rays do not equal the severity of the pain in your life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, good point yeah.
Speaker 1:So the best we can do is start with where we're at and choose a goal and and and be in all constant process toward it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no time like the present right. Let's take care of it now. No time like the present Amen. Yeah, Well, you killed it. Thank you for for sharing. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, you killed it.
Speaker 2:Thank you for sharing. Thanks, charlie, I appreciate it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, learn more and more. So I appreciate you and I know your listeners as well. Until next episode. Yeah, you enjoy spring. First day of spring. How's the weather?
Speaker 1:First day of spring. I wish I could turn my camera towards the window. Right now there's no clouds in the sky. It's really nice, it's really nice.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, all right.
Speaker 1:Thanks.
Speaker 3:Charlie, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thanks for tuning in to the Village Chiropractic and Wellness Podcast with Dr Matt Green. For more information or to schedule an appointment, visit our website at VillageChiropracticOaklandcom or call us at 510-281-1708. Stay well and we'll see you next time.