Episode #15: The "What" AND The "Why" Of Your Health Problems

June 10, 2019

Show Notes:

Speaker 1: (00:00)
Hey everybody, what's going on? Doctor Chad Woolner here and Dr Buddy Alan, and this is episode 15 of the Health fundamentals podcast. On today's episode we're going to be discussing the what and the why of your health problems. So let's get started.

Speaker 2: (00:14)
You're listening to the health fundamentals podcast. I'm Dr Chad Woolner and I'm Dr Buddy Alan. And this show is about giving you the simple but powerful cutting edge tools you need to change your health and your life. So sit back and enjoy the show as we show you the path to your best life down to a science.

Speaker 1: (00:33)
So, hey everybody, hope you're having an awesome day on today's episode. We've got a great topic and subject that we're going to be discussing and that is the what and the why of health problems. And unfortunately what we find far too often when it comes to, uh, so many of the most common approaches to, uh, either managing or fixing various health concerns or health problems is that the primary focus is all on the what of the health problems. So what do we mean by that?

Speaker 3: (01:05)
The, what is essentially just the diagnosis. All right? And the, the, the, the fault with that is it's important to know what's going on, but more importantly, it's, it's kind of like the how did it happen? Why, what caused it, what created it? Because we frequently will have people come in and they'll say, oh yeah, I was told I have this, you know, like back pain. I have, I have a Lumbago, right?

Speaker 1: (01:31)
I have Sciatica is have, uh, you know, insert whatever term is used. And the problem with so many of these, uh, diagnoses that are, that are used is they don't really give us much in terms of any real answers. It's really just a, it's a starting point is really what it is. Um, you know, something like, for instance, uh, the, you know, so many times all diagnoses are fancy words, right? Lumbago which is Latin for low back pain, cervicalgia, Latin for neck pain, sufferer, Algia Latin fit for headaches or even further. Sometimes people think that they've arrived at an answer when they get diagnosed with something highly specific. Like, let's say I've been diagnosed with Migraines, I have migraine headaches or I have, um, anemia, right? Um, and so the, the, the problem is that again, we're still at a surface level there. If you could imagine almost like layers of an onion.

Speaker 1: (02:31)
We've got to peel away at some of those layers if we're going to begin to truly fix the problems. And, and I would argue, um, that our intention and our goal and our mindset should always be to fix the problem and not just mask symptoms. And if you're working with a doctor who doesn't believe that your problems can be fixed, um, I think that's selling your yourself short selling. The body's a recuperative abilities short. And I think, uh, I think the body is capable of miraculous things. And so we always approach, um, you know, our, our approach is always from a standpoint of can we fix it? And if so, what is not sufficient? We've got to dig deeper. And so we've got to answer the other question is why. And oftentimes it requires us to, to kind of peel away multiple layers that, that why question needs to be asked oftentimes three or four times for us to truly arrive at a real answer.

Speaker 1: (03:31)
So let's take for instance, you know, back pain, right? Um, you, you've got back pain. So what's the first question? Um, well golly, there's in terms of, in terms of, in terms of why Laos? Yeah. Let's say, let's say for instance, you come in with low back pain and the first question of why do you have a low back pain? We'll, I've got severe muscle spasms, right? Patients will often say that, right? Yeah. My muscles are just really, really tight and they're in spasm and they're bound up. And that may be the case upon evaluation and examination, we find that, yeah, you do, you have really, really a spastic, uh, you know, really, really overly tight muscles in the low back. But again, if we ask why it gets a bit more of a what still, yeah, it's still a what? Yeah, exactly. You've got tight muscles.

Speaker 1: (04:16)
So then why do you have tight muscles? And let's say that we find upon evaluation what I mean, just throw it out. You could have a, a rotation in your pelvis, your pelvis is rotated, something mechanically is shifted. And again, we could still ask, well, why? Okay. You know, and upon further evaluation, it could be that we find that the way you're sitting at work or the fact that you just sit for prolonged periods of time at work or the fact that you had an old injury to that area or any number of reasons. But once we start answering, you know, answering the, the, the why of it and answering several layers deep, eventually we can kind of get to, if we can get to the source of it and the cause of where everything began and what caused it in the first place, that's when we can start to really do the most good for people and help them.

Speaker 1: (05:06)
And I think that's one of the most important things that as patients, we need to demand that, um, and not even necessarily demand it, uh, of, of the doctor, uh, themselves, but it demanded of ourselves. You know what I mean? Seeking that out. If, if, if you're working with a doctor who's a either unwilling or incapable of, of answering those questions, then that's when you start seeking out the help from other people you know, other, um, and I don't want to say other people, other trusted healthcare advisors will say that, you know, so what are your thoughts on that? Well, the thoughts that I have are the reason that why is so very important is there are, there's a lot of different reasons you could have any type of given. Um, diagnosis. All right, cause low back pain can be caused by dozens different scenarios.

Speaker 1: (05:58)
It can be caused from gut issues. It could be caused from ulcers, kidney stones, uh, you name it. You know, there's tons of, you know, torn muscles in your hip flexors. Who knows, there's a lot of different things that could cause low back pain. And if you, um, and again that's just one example. Low back pain is one example of, you know, we see patients who commonly have obviously low back pain, but we also see patients who have neck problems, shoulder problems, knee problems. Well and another thing that's important about, you know, like when we're trained as physicians to diagnose and then D as we dig deeper, it's like generally what happens is you kind of want to start with the most potentially life threatening things first and ideally rule those out, you know, the most severe scenarios first. But then from there, you know, you kind of just by asking the right questions you can find out, is this something that came on suddenly?

Speaker 1: (06:54)
Is it something that's been developing over time? Did it come out of nowhere? Well, and I think it's important to address too, that while we certainly do, and I appreciate you saying that because we don't want to be negligent with people and, and uh, and skip through any of those important things of, of ruling in or out any of the, what we would consider kind of red flag issues. But usually more often than not, within a few minutes we can rule in or out, that sort of thing. And then beyond that, it's not a matter of looking at what's possible. It's a matter of looking at what's probable and that typically nine times out of 10 is going to get you the best, uh, clarity and the greatest, uh, uh, value in terms of finding out answers to that why question. Um, oftentimes what happens sometimes, especially you'll find this in, um, you know, really large medical settings is that they will go through and they will run a lot of, lot of times, a lot of tests unnecessary.

Speaker 1: (07:54)
In fact, there was a study that was just done a that, or a study that was published, a University of Michigan health systems did a study for neuropathy. What they found was that more often than not, uh, expensive, ineffective testing was utilized when there was far less expensive, more effective testing that could have been done. Um, and so, and that's the interesting thing and this isn't the only time that's been the case, you know, um, there was a study that was published that compared, and I can't remember the, the, the source for that, but I remember us discussing it in school where they, they said that if, if you compared, um, uh, an MRI of the low back disc herniation compared to a, a complete neurologic and orthopedic evaluation of a patient with a disc herniation, they found that the, uh, ability to arrive at a correct diagnosis was, was comparable.

Speaker 1: (08:48)
And so basically what they, what they found was that, uh, in, in many instances it's not to order that MRI. Um, typically when at the time in which it is appropriate to order an Mri, let's just say is when you find that a condition is not responding to the care that, uh, there is suspicion of some sort of spinal cord involvement or problem there or there are progressive neurologic deficits. Those are typically, or presurgical. Um, you know, they're using it as a means of a screening tool in terms of looking at what they're going to be operating in or whatever. But, um, but far too often, um, and this is something that we don't, we're not necessarily, uh, as concerned within our clinic just because it's not the same type of setting, but oftentimes in a lot of medical settings, um, they're, they're very overly cautious and practicing what they call defensive medicine where it's, uh, because of the nature of the world we live until litigious nature of our culture.

Speaker 1: (09:53)
Right, right. Exactly. So, but, but I, I guess the point that we're getting at here is it's really important if you're really wanting to fix problems, you got to arrive at clear answers and just addressing the, what does not give you sufficient clarity on how to go about fixing the problem. You've got to also address the why. Why are you dealing with the problems you're dealing with? Well, and, and the what can vary in many instances be covered up by, you know, if I have a headache, which is the what, it's real easy to say, oh, I'll just take a couple Advil. Right. All right. And you can do that and maybe it's something insignificant and probably more often than not it is right. But it could also be something very serious and severe and, and, uh, so it's important to know why. And you know, what, why the why for the what, you know?

Speaker 1: (10:42)
Yeah, absolutely. Getting clarity on that is going to be a huge factor in you getting longterm results. Yep. I mean, fixing health problems. So, um, the advice, a recommendation is work with doctors who are going to be able to answer not just the what, but the why as well. And, uh, and, and, and the way we do that at our clinic, um, is, and every clinic's going to be different. They're going to have different protocols and procedures, but we try and be as thorough as possible in addressing this. And so we go through and we use a variety of different objective measures and tests that allow us to get a very clear picture and a very objective picture of where a patient is at and what are some of the factors that are involved. We do a full functional evaluation from head to toe. We look at balance and stability.

Speaker 1: (11:34)
We look at strength and coordination and we look at flexibility and quality of motion, uh, throughout the body and the various joints of the body. Uh, we do a digital balance assessment. We do a digital posture assessment, uh, at times if necessary, we'll do digital imaging, we'll take x rays. In fact, more often than not we do. Um, and then as well we can look at and measure range of motion digitally. Um, so there's a lot of different things that, that we utilize. And then obviously as well the hands on physical examination or what we call a problem focused exam, uh, where we look at the various areas that are involved. And based off of all of that information that we're able to, to look at, we're able to see very clear patterns that allow us to answer loud and clear the, the why as well as the what.

Speaker 1: (12:19)
And so, um, I guess that's the take home, um, is, is really, uh, if you want to fix health problems once and for all, you've got to dig deeper and you've gotta be willing to dig deeper. And so that's the thing, uh, as, as patients, uh, we have to take responsibility for our health and we have to be willing to get those answers and to put the work in when necessary. Absolutely. Yeah. And that, and that's the thing we tell patients all the time, uh, that, uh, when you come to our clinic, it's not a passive process. It's a very active process in that could sound daunting I think sometimes for some patients, but that's what we have a team in place, right, to help you, to assist you. And it's easy. It really is. It's easy when people, uh, flip that mental and emotional switch when they're ready to stop being a passive kind of bystanders watching life go by and instead of be an active participant and I should say proactive participants in their health. So, um, so take charge of your health. Uh, don't sit back and just accept the what. Also look for the why and once we start answering those questions, once you start getting answers to those questions, it's gonna take you a lot closer to, um, getting, getting the help that you need. So anyways, I hope that's a hope that's valuable and uh, uh, we'll talk to you again real soon. Talk to you on the next episode. See guys,

Speaker 2: (13:45)
thanks for listening to the health fund, the middles podcast. Be sure to subscribe so that you stay in the loop. And in the note with all of the cutting edge health information that we share, if you know other people that could benefit from this information, please share it with them as well. Also, be sure to give us a review. These really help us to ultimately help more people. Last but not least. If you have questions that you want answered live on the show, or if you have ideas for topics that you would like us to cover, please shoot us an email and let us know at info@thehealthfundamentals.com.

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