 Happy Lunar New Year and welcome to Much More on Medicine. I'm your host, Catherine Norr. Do you have neck or back pain? Well, if you do, stay tuned to learn how you can benefit from chiropractic treatment. Much More on Medicine is an opportunity to learn about all aspects of healthcare. I talk with guests about medical and alternative care treatment, insurance, medication, surgery, rehabilitation, prevention, and Much More. Lunar New Year is an opportunity to start your New Year's resolutions all over again. Are you hoping to have a pain-free healthy year? Well, my guest, Dr. Crystal Argetta, has advice for how to make that happen. Dr. Argetta is a chiropractor and the owner of Arrow Spine & Sport in Dallas, Texas. She's a graduate of Parker College of Chiropractic and Louisiana State University. Doctor, how are you today? Good, how are you? Fine, thank you. It's great to have you on my show. And the first question I have for you is what is chiropractic? So chiropractic care is a trained chiropractor. We specialize in finding abnormal movement in the spine and we do deliver something called an adjustment to get that spine in a better position. So why did you become a chiropractor? Yes, I really like taking care of the person, the whole person. So when someone comes in, you do a full body assessment and deliver a unique specific treatment depending on what's going on. Every, let's say ankle sprain is different even though they're clinically the same. Okay, and I understand that you are an athlete, is that correct? That's correct, I do my best. Okay, well let's bring up the picture of CrossFit. Okay, so is this a picture of you doing CrossFit? Yes, that is. Okay, so now you must have, be a really strong person to be able to lift that kind of weight as I would imagine, is that right? Yeah, you have to be pretty strong to do CrossFit, but honestly CrossFit, I think it's for everyone, beginner all the way to advanced elite. Okay, and how long have you been doing CrossFit? I've been doing CrossFit about five and a half years now. And do you compete? I compete from time to time, yes, it shows you a different side of you, pushes you a little bit farther than you do every day. Okay, and I've done CrossFit only one time, and I understand it involves multiple types of exercises, including lifting weights. Do I have that right or? Yeah, I would say CrossFit is a mix of cardio, gymnastics elements, so like the pull-ups, muscle-ups and weightlifting. Okay, so the reason I brought this up is I wanted to ask you, is do you treat athletes in your chiropractic clinic? Oh yes, I love to treat athletes. One of my favorite populations to treat, mainly because they're very intuitive in their bodies. They know when something doesn't feel 100%. Not saying that it's an injury, they just feel like something's off. I feel like chiropractic care, we're the best at fixing those little, I call them tweaks. It's not an injury and it's not nothing, it's in between. Okay, I understand that because sometimes when I'm working out at the gym, I'll feel a little tweak somewhere, like maybe my knee will start hurting a little bit. I know it's not an injury, but it's just hurting a little bit or my shoulder or something. Is that what you're talking about? Yes, that's definitely what I'm talking about. Chiropractic is more than just pain relief, obviously. We do deal with the headaches, the back pain and all that, but I say we're getting the true meat of chiropractic when we're fixing, just keeping you in balance, maintaining everything. So chiropractic is supposed to kind of be like going to your every six months you go to the dentist for a cleaning. Chiropractic care is actually meant to be more of a maintenance kind of thing. It's turned into a pain injury care, which there's nothing wrong with that. I love treating people in pain and getting them out of pain, but the purpose of chiropractic is to be balanced throughout your whole life. What is the most common complaint that people have when they come to see you? I would say just kind of that dull, achy, low back pain. Okay, and what do you do for someone who comes in with back or neck pain? Yeah, so if they come in with back or neck pain, I'll do a full exam to see exactly what ranges of motion they're limited in, which ranges of motion reproduce the pattern. And then obviously I'll check the alignment of the spine, see if we're missing some movement in the spine, deliver a unique adjustment. And then what I specialize in, besides just adjustments, I do a lot of soft tissue work. So a lot of the times the back needs to be adjusted because it's not out of alignment, but those muscles are trying to stabilize the spine. If you're in a lot of pain, it's trying to hold down. So I go in and try to strip out the muscles, reset the fascia, take some of that pressure off those back muscles so your back can heal properly. Do you find that sometimes when people come to see you and they have back pain that they'll feel relief after one treatment, or does it take a lot of treatments to get some relief? I would say it's case-by-case. If I'm over simplifying things, usually the younger you are, the faster you bounce back. And one reason for that is just you haven't developed the compensation patterns. A lot of the times, let's say you hurt your back, now you're walking funny, now your knee's hurting, and now you come to see me 10 years later after your initial injury. So now I have to fix 10 years. And yes, I can reduce your pain in one visit, but getting you fully healed that will take more time. And I would also say the more chronic issues, the ones that have been going on for a while, they require more time. It's kind of like even a simple paper cut takes a week to heal. So if a paper cut takes a week, chronic back pain obviously takes more than one visit to fix. And so do you see patients who have been injured in motor vehicle accidents or other types of traumatic events? Yeah, for sure. Chiropractic care is really good at calming that down. I unfortunately don't do any personal injuries. So if they have an open case or anything, I actually refer them out to a different specialist who has another chiropractor who specializes in that. But if you're just in a little fender bender, no open case or anything, yeah, calming down those neck muscles, calming down the back, making sure that your spine's in good alignment because even at 10, 15 miles an hour, there's still quite a bit of trauma that your spine and soft tissue structures actually take on. So undoing that, putting them in their natural state is definitely key to staying healthy. Okay. And when you first see a patient, do you have them undergo X-rays or other diagnostic testing such as an MRI? In my particular clinic, I only X-ray or get MRIs if it affects my treatment. So if I come in with someone who had a traumatic ankle injury, yes, I'm gonna get an X-ray to make sure there's no broken bones or anything. But if someone's coming in with low back pain and it's very dull in nature, I'm not gonna order any imaging, at least for the first couple of weeks, treat them as if they have the injury that I think they have. And if they don't get any progress in two weeks, then I'm on the right track, it didn't change my treatment, so no imaging is required. And about how frequently per week would you see a patient and about how long would that go on? Yeah, so usually, if the pain is pretty severe, meaning it affects your activities of daily living, I wanna see you twice a week until we're down to the pain not affecting your life. Yes, it might be uncomfortable, but let's say you're driving and you have intense pain when you're driving, I wanna see you twice a week until it doesn't prevent you from driving. Or if you do CrossFit, I wanna see you twice a week until it doesn't prevent you from doing CrossFit. Yes, you might have some pain, but you can still push through it a little bit. So usually the initial phase of treatment is about two to three weeks, where I see you twice a week and then it tapers off once a week, every other week, once a month as needed. And then would you put them on a home exercise program for when they leave treatment or is that something you might start during treatment? Yes, so the phases of healing, obviously if you're in a significant amount of pain, we wanna get you out of pain, no level of stretching if you're having radiating pain is really gonna help because you're in too much pain to do the exercise. So once the pain is calmed down a little bit, the soft tissues are relaxing and going back to normal, yes, strengthening exercises, home rolling, home exercises, that's key to make sure that the problem does not come on again because just like I keep on using the same example, just like an ankle sprain. Almost, if you do it once, your ankle is more prone to spraining just because you haven't retrained those structures to stabilize again. Okay, I've been talking with Dr. Argetta, chiropractor in Dallas and we're gonna take a short break and be back and this is much more on medicine on the ThinkTech Live Streaming Network series and we will talk to you after the break. Aloha, y'all. My name is Mitch Ewan. I'm from the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute and I'm the host of Hawaii, The State of Clean Energy. We're on every Wednesday at four o'clock and we hope that we have interesting guests who talk to us about various energy things that are happening in Hawaii all the way from PV to windmills to hydrogen, close to my heart, electric buses and electric vehicles. So please dial in every Wednesday at four o'clock on Hawaii, The State of Clean Energy. Aloha. Aloha and welcome. My name is Mark Shklav. I am the host of ThinkTech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea program. Every other Monday at one o'clock, I am here on deck with various guests talking about different topics of the world and the ocean and international law, different areas where we all have seen and want to travel to and learn about. Please join me for my next Law Across the Sea program. Aloha. Hi, I'm Rusty Kamori, host of Beyond the Lines. I have a TV show based on my book which is also called Beyond the Lines and it's about leadership, creating a superior culture of excellence and building winning teams. We are having a fun drive for ThinkTech Hawaii and please, please, please, please help us keep these shows going. Please go on our website, ThinkTechHawaii.com to donate. Thank you. We're back. We're live. I'm Catherine Noran. This is much more on medicine on a ThinkTech live streaming network series. We're talking with Dr. Crystal Argetta about how you can benefit from chiropractic treatment. Doctor, now we have you live. Good to see you live. We had you by photo for a while there because we didn't have a good internet connection. So great to see you. And so let's bring up the photo of the spine and I'll ask you about what we're looking at, doctor. Okay, so doctor, can you describe this photo? Yeah, so at the top in your neck, also known as the cervical region, you have your seven vertebrae called your cervicals and those regions are very important mainly because at the top of it, those nerves come out those little holes and innervate the back of your head. They go into your face. It's really important. And also the lower ones go into your arms of any radiating pain down your arm is definitely related to the cervical region. The thoracic region, obviously your lungs, your organs are in there. So if there's a subluxation or a pinched nerve, bones moving properly, you can have some issues with those organs in there. And then the lumbar region, it's that low back, probably your most typical low back pain. And those nerves, if they are compressed, can cause that radiating or sciatic pain down the back of your leg. So basically your symptoms that you're having, I look back at the spine and go back to that region where the nerves originate from. Okay, so if I have pain in my thigh or pain that might even go down to my foot. But I don't feel any low back pain. Does that rule out any low back problem? Well, absolutely not. The way our system is put together, your spinal cord goes down your back and innervates nerves and they come out of your spinal cord down the back of your leg. Yes, you could have a soft tissue issue in there, but you definitely can't rule out spine just because that's where the nerves come from. And it's not always, I have pain in my back and down my leg. A lot of times it's a little bit more complicated than that. So you have to look at the spine, basically rule out that first because if you think of like a water hose, if someone's stepping on the hose near the faucet, yes, you're not gonna get full output down the hose. But if some, you can have a different issue as well. Okay, so you have to look at the whole system. So if I have pain in my arm or pain in my scapula, like the mid-back area or pain in my shoulder, is it possible that that could be originating from my neck? Oh, most definitely. Those nerves go around and innervate the soft tissue, the muscle and can cause a referral pattern into different areas and tissues. So definitely as a chiropractor, we are trained to look at the spine, assess the spine. They always actually teach us to clear the spine first before you think of any other issues, just because clearing the spine, making sure that it's moving properly, takes care of, I would say, 80% of the issues. Okay, so if I came in to you and you determined that my leg pain was caused by my low back, what would you do? So for me personally, since I'm a sports chiropractor, obviously assess the spine, get it moving, get you adjusted, make sure those vertebrae are moving properly. And then what I do special, what I specialize in is soft tissue work. So I'm gonna look at your pure form and that's usually a muscle that gets really tight in your glute. A lot of people have issues with it, especially if you sit a lot. That muscle is always compressed and it can pinch that sciatic nerve. So I'd go in there, manually release it. A lot of people think of it kind of like a soft tissue massage. I go in there, strip out the muscle, the nerve path, taking any adhesions off of that nerve sheath, because nerves have a sheath around them and that sheath can get attached to the muscle and it can cause that muscle to almost stop gliding, cause that nerve to stop gliding in the muscle, causing that referral pattern. So I go in there, strip out the nerve, clear the spine, take care of any of the muscles that could be involved. And hopefully that gets you out of pain, eases up the issue of the pain down the back of your leg. Okay, so when you're talking about the piriformis and the glute, you're really talking about the rear end, is that right? That's correct. Okay, I just want to make sure that viewers know what we're talking about. Okay, so and then if I had some kind of a arm pain, hand pain or shoulder pain or even scapular pain, and you determined that that was related to the neck, what would you do? So the neck, based on your range of motion, so a lot of times people have, we sit like this all day, and so a lot of times it puts a lot of stress on the backside of your neck, and so I have to go in there, obviously adjust the spine, get it moving correctly, take pressure off those nerves, but afterwards I'm going to go into those back of your neck muscles, strip them out, get them to relax, and then really strengthen the front ones because it's kind of an imbalance here. So a lot of times if you're like this, the back is lengthened and the front is weak, so I need to get you to work on this. I know this is not the best position, but work on those muscles and get it to loosen up. And honestly, most of the time that will clear a thoracic upper back shoulder pain. Obviously I'd go into this soft tissue itself if it's more of an actual shoulder joint. A lot of times you can adjust the shoulder itself, there's a joint in there too, and clearing up that, getting that moving freely will help clear that pain. Okay, and would you necessarily order any diagnostic testing if someone is having radiating pain in their arm or down their leg? It really depends. If you're in a car accident, absolutely. There's a traumatic event. I want to clear out, make sure that you're safe and I'm the best person to treat you. And if it's more of a chronic ongoing thing where it just slowly gradually got worse, most of the time it's just that compensation pattern. You're walking different, it's putting more pressure on your spine. So in most of the time, the more chronic in nature, I'm not really going to take an image. Obviously we do orthopedic testing. So it's a test to reproduce your pain. If I can do a test and I reproduce your pain, most of the time I know what's going on without actually seeing your spine. Are you finding that people who use tablets in an uncomfortable or poor posture position are complaining of neck or back pain? Yes, that's definitely one of the biggest complaints. And it's a lot of the times, shoulders, a lot of people, they're like this. So it's not necessarily you have pain in your neck. It's you have pain in that upper trap area. That's probably the most common from people who are on the computer and working all day. Okay, that probably covers a lot of people. So our viewing audience, I would like to know if, who should come and see a chiropractor or you? If, what kind of pain would they have that would lead them to come and see you? Like I said before, I think chiropractic's for everyone. Everyone has a spine and honestly, you only get one of them. It's hard to replace a spine. It's not like a knee where you can just do a total knee replacement, a spine you only get one of. So honestly, I would, when I have children, I'm gonna have them taken to the chiropractor, not on a pain, management stance, but more on, I want their body to be in full alignment. So if you're in full alignment, kind of like brushing your teeth, if you brush your teeth regularly, you're less likely to have cavities, bigger problems later on in life. So if you take care of the spine you get early on, you're in a better position. But a lot of us as adults are not fortunate to have someone to take you to the chiropractor when you're young. So yes, I see a whole bunch of problems. Me being a sports chiropractor, I see a lot of shoulders, hips, ankle, knee, and then obviously the back and neck complaints. Yeah. Okay. And so it sounds to me like at some age, at some young age that it's appropriate to go to the chiropractor. What would be the youngest patient that you would see? Me personally, I wanna see someone that's at least mature, have an adult spine. So for me personally, I'd probably see someone eight years or older, but someone who specializes in pediatric care, you can see them as early as one day old. The birthing process is very, very rough. I'm sure you've seen how the doctors sometimes pull the baby out, the baby's neck is compressed. It's chiropractic for children is completely different than it is for adults, mainly because they're mostly cartilage, those nerves are tiny. So you kind of need to be a specialist to work on tiny humans. Okay, that makes sense. And so when you do maintenance on a person, how often would they come in? So I always give my recommendation, it depends on your activity level. If you're working out five days a week doing CrossFit, honestly, once a week would be good because you're always putting yourself in a position that you could compromise your form or something. If you're a runner, probably the same thing, that's a lot of repetitions on the ground. And if your knee is out a couple of degrees, that's a lot of wear and tear on those joints. If you're someone who kind of sits around not super active, maybe every other week or as needed, mainly because the spine's not giving a whole lot of trauma. And one thing that you've talked about during our show is adjustments. Can you tell us what an adjustment is? Yeah, an adjustment is the doctor's gonna feel your spine. So the doctor goes on a couple of things. A lot of the times if an area is not the alignment, you'll feel a little bit of heat in the area. So when the chiropractor will feel your spine, they'll assess the temperature. And then that kind of creates a red flag. So I go back to the area, kind of hone in on there. Then I go to each segment and feel for motion. A lot of the times the heat is coming from inflammation and inflammation comes from when something's not moving correctly. So I go in there, assess it, palpate, move the joints one by one, see which one's not moving, and then I deliver an adjustment. And so for the adjustment, I'm gonna put it in an end range and deliver a little force. And most of the time you'll hear a pop and that means that the joint has regained that range of motion that it was missing before. Okay, so I hope that the viewers will have learned what chiropractic is and what type of challenges that they might have that would lead them to see a chiropractor. I'm sure interested and I'll probably go to a chiropractor at some point and get some maintenance. But we're about out of time. And thank you, doctor, I appreciate having you here today. All right, thank you, Catherine. So we'll wrap it up. I'm Catherine Norr. This is much more on medicine on the Think Tech Live Streaming Network series. We've been talking with Dr. Crystal Argetta about how you can benefit from chiropractic treatment. Thank you for joining us today and I wish you and yours a happy and pain-free Lunar New Year. Thanks for our broadcast engineer, our floor manager and to Jay Fidel, our executive producer who puts it all together. Please join us for future Think Tech productions.