← Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
How To Get Healthy Without Overwhelm: Beginner-Friendly Tips | Dr. Mike Pierce, DC
01:05:07
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- [00:00]
A
If people are seeing a chiropractor and they're not asked to have an X ray done, should they be running out of that office?
- [00:06]
B
There's only two times that I would adjust somebody without an X ray if it's a baby or a kid under five, and number two, if it was a pregnant woman, everybody else gets an X ray. If you want the most specific care, if you want the most intentional care, you need an X ray to see what's going on in your spine. There was a study done that showed that people who are under consistent regular chiropractic care, 85% less pharmaceuticals. So in our office, we celebrate people coming off drugs all the time, but it's not because I told them to come off a drug. I say, hey, where's the dysfunction? We're going to help that heal through good nutrition, through good chiropractic care, through good movement, through good supplementation. And then you're going to watch your body get so well that it doesn't need the medication. Foreign.
- [01:07]
A
Most people think chiropractic is just about cracking backs. But what if it's actually about rewiring your entire nervous system, reversing chronic illness, and teaching people how to eat, move, sleep, and live like their health depends on it? Because it does. Today I'm joined by my chiropractor, Dr. Mike Pierce from Empower Family Chiropractic in Chandler, Arizona. Dr. Mike is a chiropractor who doesn't just adjust spines. He literally takes patients grocery shopping. He helps families detox their homes. He'll talk to you about your breakup. I mean, I don't think he really wants to, but like, if you bring it up, I'm sure he won't tell you to stop. And he will walk people step by step out of chronic pain and hopefully eventually disease. We're breaking down how beginners can start getting healthy without overwhelm what actually works in the first 30 days of your health journey and why modern life is secretly making you sick. Whether you're new or been listening for a while, please take 10 seconds to leave a 5 star review. This tremendously helps the show. Watch this interview on the real Alex Clark YouTube channel or culture Apothecary on Spotify. Please welcome my chiropractor, Dr. Mike Pierce from Empower Family Chiropractic in Arizona to culture Apothecary. You said that chiropractic actually changed your dad's life, which is how you got into it. I think a lot of people have this idea like a chiropractor. What can they do for my overall health? Like, all they're going to do is crack my back. What are the misconceptions about chiropractic care and. And whole health care?
- [02:33]
B
So my dad and his journey in health is what got me into chiropractic. And I ideally, I think with some people, you think, oh, chiropractic's for headaches and neck pain and back pain. And growing up as a kid, we were a really unhealthy family. Like, I was in sixth grade. I was 180 pounds. I was on tons of medications. My whole family lived that way. So my dad, when I got to college, graduated college. The next day, my dad has a massive heart attack. My dad goes into a coma for four months. And we spent four months praying that God would open his eyes and that we could figure out a game plan. And after two years of doctors shoving medicine down him, he was on 18 different medications, not getting any better. His health was declining. And it wasn't until a chiropractor stood up and said, hey, I think we can get to the root cause of your dad's issue. We went in there, he did different scans and X rays, and come to find out he had a pinched nerve in his neck that goes to his heart. This chiropractor starts getting him adjusted. And I'm skeptical, by the way, because I didn't grow up in this model at all, right? So I'm watching my dad go through this program with his chiropractor. Six months, Alex, of him getting adjusted, clearing his nervous system. My dad came off 10 of his medications, like, flipped his health upside down. And, like, me and him were out walking, hiking, doing life all over again. I had loved sports all my life. I loved athletics, but I didn't know what I want to do with it.
- [03:51]
A
And.
- [03:51]
B
And then I saw this healing, this miraculous healing happen through my dad. And I thought, if I could do what this man can do for other people, because I knew that there are so many people now that are hungry for natural health. And if I saw how this man literally changed my dad's life, not just physically, but spiritually and mentally. And I said, if I can be in a profession where I can help, like, speak the name of Jesus over people, if I can help, put hands on it, help people heal naturally, I was like, that's where I feel like I'm called to be. For me, I feel like chiropractic isn't something I just kind of fell upon. I feel like God used my dad's health crisis to get me into chiropractic.
- [04:26]
A
And so when people go into your office, they're not only getting adjustments, like, what are all the things that you guys are doing within your office?
- [04:32]
B
When you go into an office, you want to go somewhere where, if you're looking for root cause in your health, if you're someone who's saying, hey, I want to find truth, I want to find the root cause. I'm tired of covering stuff up. You want to go to somewhere where they're going to sit back and look at your body as a whole spectrum and say, where is the nervous system Dysregulation? Why is my nervous system not functioning? Because at the end of the day, your nervous system is the system that controls and regulates every function in your body. So regardless of the symptom you have going into an office, you want to make sure that someone is checking the energy or checking the flow of that system to see, where is it stuck, where is it caught up? Where is that interference happening in my body that's not allowing me to express health? So that being said, when you come in, what we do is I would sit down with you and I would say, hey, Alex, tell me where you're at. Tell me what you've been through. Give me a clear path of your health history, and then I want to know where you want it to be. What is your goal? And I think today doctors can get so caught up, focused on, what do I want to fit Alex into this box of what I think people should be versus saying, what are you looking for? You know, I've had so many patients come in, and, I mean, when looking at their X rays and looking at their. They're testing, I'm like, yeah, they are broken, and they need a lot of help. But I'll ask them. I say, what do you want? And they go, I just want to be able to pick up toys off the ground with my grandkids and play with them. That's all I want. So I'm like, great. We need to put a plan in action to help you achieve that. So when you come into clinic, we do very specific testing on your nervous system and your spine. So we do X rays, we do thermal nerve scans to see is everything in alignment and functioning the way it's supposed to do. Now, from there, obviously, there's multiple pillars of getting somebody healthy, right? So what we would look at is nervous system first. Because if the nervous system is what regulates everything else, it makes no sense to me to start anywhere else. Like, why would you start with the gut, if you know that the gut is regulated by the vagus nerve to some degree, which then controlled via the nervous system, right? Everything goes back to nerve system. So we look at nerve system and then we sit down with people and go, great, how is your nutrition? How is your movement and your exercise? How is your toxicity levels? How is your mindset? Like number one, I sit down with people, I go, do you believe that you are a child of God, made in his image, born to heal? Do you believe that your body was created to heal itself? If you don't believe that, then we have to start there too, right? Because if someone's coming in and they've had the medical model pushing down their throat all these years, that no, you're sick, you're sick, you need drugs, you're born this way, it's your genetics, this is what you have to do. They're so programmed to think that that's what I have to live with, that they don't even believe health is an option, right? So we have to sit down and say, no, no, no, I, Alex, I need you to know that your body can heal the same way a cut heals on your hand is the same healing that happens in your body. And we need to speak that into people. So one of the things that this chiropractor did for my dad, because he was so broken down, was he spoke hope and healing into my dad. And I saw the light come on in him and I saw hope come alive in him. And it was that moment that I go, there is something different here. And I remember thinking, if I was going to be a doctor one day, I was gonna be somebody that was gonna speak hope and healing into people. Because I think if you lose that and you lose your foundation and belief that God designed me to be a self healing body, then everything else kind of falls from there.
- [07:52]
A
What do you mean? You ask patients about their toxicity levels in their life.
- [07:56]
B
We have a questionnaire that we'll go through and it's like, hey, what kind of deodorants do you use? Are you paying attention to the air filters? Are you paying attention to the products that you're using, the cleaning products? So we have a whole host of different toxicity questions that will ask our patients, hey, are you being mindful when it comes to buying certain things? Laundry detergents, right? Like stuff that we know are pretty highly toxic that we use in everyday stuff. It's a questionnaire that gives us a breakdown of how are you using those things. And then we can have an idea of, okay, if someone is wanting to be better but they just are on the fence, or someone who doesn't even have any idea and they're just buying TIDE and whatever else, then it gives us a breakdown of saying, okay, do we need to start with a toxicity approach or do we need to look at more of a deficiency approach?
- [08:43]
A
So many chiropractors are adjusting people and are not asking to get an X ray. If people are seeing a chiropractor and they're not asked to have an X ray done, should they be running out of that office?
- [08:54]
B
There's only two times that I would adjust somebody without an X ray. Number one, if it's a baby or a kid under five, and number two, if it was a pregnant woman. Everybody else gets an X ray. And I'll tell you a story to help make this make sense. There was a gentleman one time, he came in, he said, hey, I've been adjusted my whole life. I just need someone to crack my back. And I was like, well, that's not what we do. We need to do some testing to make sure we know what's going on. We've got to be specific. And he goes, no, no, no, I just need a crack right here. Crack my back. And we went back and forth and argued. Long story short, I won. We got the X ray and he had a fracture in his lower spine that he didn't know he had. And if I'm not a little guy, if I would have gone up and adjusted his low back could have made that significantly worse.
- [09:38]
A
Wow.
- [09:38]
B
And so many times we have no idea what's going on in the inside. If we don't see. There's times where I'll take kids. This happened two weeks ago. I had a nine year old little girl come in the office. Asymptomatic mom was just like, hey, she plays sports. She's pretty rough out there on the field. We just want to get an X ray and see how she's doing. She had scoliosis. But if we have the X ray, X ray now you say, hey, this little girl has scoliosis. Now, it's a very intentional way to help this little girl. So with anybody coming in, if you want the most specific care, if you want the most intentional care, then you need an X ray to see what's going on your spine.
- [10:12]
A
I mean, not only are there chiropractors out there that are not requiring X rays, but nobody is asking, what cleaning products do you have in your home? Are you on different medications that you'd like to get off of. What's your diet like? So why do you, as a chiropractor, do all that? But some chiropractors don't?
- [10:29]
B
I think everybody has great intention. Right. I think that when you look back, though, as a doctor, if my job is to help you create whole healing, I have to understand that in today's society, those are factors that matter. I think when chiropractic, you know, you look at this 50 to 70 years ago, then, yeah, you could just adjust somebody. And we didn't have all the chemicals in our food we did 100 years ago. We didn't have a lot of the same stressors we had 100 years ago.
- [10:54]
A
But.
- [10:54]
B
But you look at it today and it's. I mean, you know, more than. It's worse than ever. So that has to be an intentional focus point if you want to help somebody create whole healing. I think a lot of chiropractors, or I think people who don't X ray, I'll say this. I think that their job is probably to just try to help somebody mitigate pain and get out of the initial pain. But it's not looking at the underlying root cause of dysfunction in the body. It's not looking at how to reregulate the nervous system fully. It's not saying, how can I get the nervous system to be functioning at its highest potential. Getting health to express its highest potential. I mean, everybody knows all those pillars of health will have a factor in getting somebody to express her highest level of health.
- [11:35]
A
There is a ton of people out there that think chiropractic is quackery, that it's just, you know, making a pop sound, that it actually does nothing, or that it actually makes any pain that you're experiencing in your neck or your back worse. And that's why you have to keep coming back. And it's this whole pyramid scheme of Dr. Quackery. What's your response to that?
- [11:53]
B
It's like saying if your pastor was like, you got to keep coming back every Sunday to church. And you're like, why? You're like, because I need you to keep coming back. You got to keep tithing. It's like, no, people choose to keep coming back to church every Sunday because they want an intimate relationship with Jesus. If someone said, you have to take your wife on a date night every week, like, yeah, I choose to do that. If someone said, alex, why do you got to keep brushing your teeth every single day? Like, you brushed them once, why do you got to brush them again? Because every day you put things in your mouth that re dirty your mouth, so you have to re clean them every single day. Your spine, you have physical, chemical and emotional stressors every day that are damaging your nervous system, that are putting pressure on your spine. We have to get that reassessed and aligned and put back in place at some level of maintenance, some level of consistency there. And this is why we're seeing people, their spines are breaking down so much more early than they should. There's people in their 40s now that are getting arthritis. Like that's not normal. But at the same time, if you've never done anything intentional with your spine for your whole 40 years of life, but you've played sports and you've had accidents, you've had falls, if you're under stress, your posture is like this because of, you know, computers and things like, what do you think's gonna happen? So the idea is that people don't have to keep coming back. They choose to keep coming back. And when you understand what the chiropractic adjustment is doing, bringing balance to your nervous system, realigning your spine, you choose that. And you choose it over and over and over again. Like for me and my family, I would choose a regular, well aligned adjustment for my family to keep us healthy for the rest of our life.
- [13:25]
A
Is it just popping bones or what's happening that is so incredible with chiropractic?
- [13:30]
B
So when the bones are misaligned, we call that a subluxation, meaning that there is an interference in the alignment of your spine. That's not allowing your brain to communicate effectively to your body, right? So when we're doing an adjustment, the adjustment is re. Is re bringing that alignment back into correct position so that you're reconnecting the, the, the innate flow of energy or nervous system from the brain to get out to whatever that needs to go to. So, for example, when I was in high school, again, I didn't know a lot back then. And this is where you'd get your, your football friends and you bear hug each other in the locker room, right? Or you'd have them shove against a wall to try to pop their backs. Or you happy with walking your back. And I didn't realize how bad that was until I studied the anatomy of the body. And I was like, oh man, that's not good. But when you're, when you're getting a pop sound, the pop is just a release of gas that's built up in the joint due to excess pressure. So when the pop happens, the Pop doesn't significantly mean that adjustment happened or didn't happen again. An example would be when I adjust a newborn baby. There's no popping ever. But an incredible release of interference happens when the bone gently glides back into place and reconnects that baby's nervous system. Right? So there's no popping, but the adjustment still happens. So for us, when we're making an adjustment, you're allowing the nervous system coming back into place, back into flow, because you've now brought the alignment of the spine and you're moving it properly again, so everything is back in harmony.
- [14:57]
A
So when you're rolling somebody's neck around, when they're laying there to figure out where you're gonna turn it to adjust it, what are you feeling like? Are you doing the same adjustment on everybody, or you're feeling something and then making it tailored to that person?
- [15:10]
B
So when you come in my office, for example, what we would do is that we have your X rays. X rays on a screen, and then I'm sitting down, I'm looking at your X ray to see, okay, there's Alex's X ray. I'm now feeling to see if what I'm feeling in the moment matching what I'm seeing there still. And you're feeling all the different joints in the spine. You're feeling the muscles, you're feeling the tension in the ligaments, you're feeling any swelling, you're feeling any inflammation, you're feeling the joints if they're moving properly. And we're doing all that through that whole thing. So when someone just from the back sees somebody twisting someone's neck, for example, it looks like they're just doing the same thing. But there's seven different bones that we could be adjusting. So depending on what I'm feeling in your spine in that moment, that's what we're making, that specific correction. So it's not like you're just like closing our eyes and twisting your neck.
- [16:00]
A
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- [18:00]
B
I think that when you look at cracking anything over and over again, you can create this hypermobility and the hypermobility in the joint where it's not stable. Anything that's not stable, the body will create arthritis to stabilize it. So that's essentially what arthritis is in the spine. When your spine, for example, is out of alignment and then it's not aligned properly. God designed your body to be always working for you. Your body's always trying to help you and do the right thing at the right time. So if my spine is crooked, for example, and it's not stable, my body will start creating bone spurs. My body will start creating arthritis to try to Stabilize that joint if I don't do it myself. With your joints, if you're cracking your knuckles over and over again, then what's happening? You're creating this level of instability. And could it happen? I mean, short answer is I don't know. But when someone asked me this question, I usually ask them, how many times a day do you pop your knuckles? And they would say, I don't know, like, probably 10. And I go, how would you feel if, as your doctor, I told you I want you to come in to see me ten times a day to get adjusted? You'd be like, that's insane. Like, yeah, well, then stop popping your knuckles ten times a day.
- [19:05]
A
If you had a patient in front of you who is the most unhealthy person that you have ever seen, ever, and they wanted to turn their health around, where would you tell them to start?
- [19:12]
B
With their mindset? I would ask them to have it do a very deep dive and figure out why now, who knows how they got there? The point is, if you're here now and you want to get better, the question is you have to have a very deep rooted why of what's important to you to get this better. So a drill I love to do with my patients. So if someone is there and they're in that level of just really sick and unhealthy, I call it why times seven. Meaning that if I ask you, why do you want to get healthy? They're gonna say, well, I want more energy. We both know that's not the real answer. So I would say, why do you want more energy? And they go, well, I want to be able to play with my kids. Why don't I play with your kids? And you ask the why seven times, and eventually you will get down to a very deep emotional rooted reason. Whenever that person is gonna start making health changes, it doesn't matter what the health change is. You can just tell them to start drinking more water. They will break out of that habit and not be consistent if they're not rooted to a very, very big emotional why.
- [20:09]
A
So, like that, what you just gave an example of, if you took that why seven times. I'm just being hypothetical. But, like, you could get down to their root cause. Reason is like, well, because, you know, I didn't have a dad that played with me when I was little. Something like that, like an emotional trauma type of thing. Yeah, yeah.
- [20:25]
B
So true story. My dad was so unhealthy. And I. I genuinely say this, that there's five, five times in my whole Childhood I can, I can remember my dad playing with me, throwing a ball, being outside, doing anything physical, engaging. And it was just, he was a good dad, but he just didn't have the health to do it. My deep rooted why is I saw what happened to my dad. I saw him be so unhealthy, he could not play with me and he had to say no. And then I saw him have the heart attack and what my family went through. And now I have three little kids, a beautiful wife, I have one more kid on the way. And I tell myself I will never, I will never put myself in that position where I'm not healthy enough to do anything with my children or anything with my wife. I will go walk over broken glass to make sure that I can get to that point. So now here's if that's my deeper rooted why you better believe that when, when my alarm clock goes off at 4 o' clock and it's time for me to go work out and my brain says you should hit the snooze button, that why will trump that snooze button every single time.
- [21:22]
A
For people just starting clean living, the overwhelm is real. What is the simplest place for someone to begin that won't make them quit immediately?
- [21:31]
B
God made food versus man made food. In my office we say God made food versus man made food. I think if we try to get super complicated and super over the top with it, then it gets hard and then when it's hard, we stop doing it. But with our kids, again, I have a six year old, a three year old and a one year old. And with our kids, we teach them, we put whole, real, unaltered, unprocessed food in our body because it fuels our temple, it fuels our body that God gave us. It helps us be stronger and healthier and we, we want to put those kinds of foods in. So at the end of the day, I would tell most people when they come in, don't get over complicated. We can dial things in more specifically when we get to that level, you know, if someone's competing for a specific event or something like that. But for the majority of people, I would just say start by just putting God made foods in your body over man made foods.
- [22:26]
A
How do you tell a beginner what information is actually credible versus fear mongering or corrupt?
- [22:31]
B
Go to scripture, go to Bible, go to like what does God say about me? What does God say about my body? And you can never go wrong. That's our ultimate answer for everything. When it comes to like Discernment. How do I discern if something is true? What does God say about it? Right? So if I'm looking at food or we'll just use food, right? Food or movement or fitness, I'm like, my body was created to move. My body was created to have food that if I put in, the goal of that food is to create nutrients and nourishment for my body and my cells so that I can then perform and I can serve God's kingdom. At the end of the day, that's what it's for. So all this other stuff that you're seeing in the social media, I don't have time, Alex, to research like who's funding that study and who's doing this. So I go back to saying what does scripture say about the basics? And I stick to, I stick to that for my discernment.
- [23:18]
A
Some people online, I think they're like, man, I wish there was just like a class that, that I could take about, you know, how to live this non toxic life or holistic healthy lifestyle. What would your class look like for beginners?
- [23:32]
B
Hypothetically, funny enough, you say that. So in our office every first Wednesday of the month, we do a Nutrition 101. In that Nutrition 101 class, we go through the basics of nutrition. We go through how do you identify God made food versus man made food. How do you look at grocery shopping, how do you look at label reading? We talk about that in our seminar. The first February ish of every year, we do a huge metabolic health seminar to help people kick off their year, correct. When it comes to goal setting, when it comes to knowing what food to put in their body, how to move their body, what dysfunctions they've had. We do a huge seminar followed by a 30 day challenge to then have me physically walk you through this for 30 days and help you get on the right path. So I think that when you look at a good class to help people get all these in, we call it a five essential equipping class. That would be those five things I laid out your mindset, understanding your body and understanding how you view health, changing the paradigm of how you view and manage health, looking at movement and making movement something that, you know, that we like to do, not something that we have to do. And we get, you know, frustrated with it. Food obviously we talked about toxicity levels and then again chiropractic care, showing that how when you're adjusted and well aligned, it brings all of this back into the same place.
- [24:47]
A
So you're a doctor who literally takes Your patients grocery shopping to teach them how to properly shop for healthy food. What are you teaching a beginner about how to read ingredient labels?
- [24:58]
B
This is my favorite tip for reading an ingredient label when I turn it over. Now, granted, I. I like to lift heavy weights. I like to move and exercise. So you get a lot of people who are very caught on macros and calories and all that stuff. And this is what I teach my kids. Um, they can't read yet, but I'll. I'll read to them, right? So when I take my kids grocery shopping, when you look at anything, you flip it over, the first thing you look at is the ingredient label. So what I teach people is the ingredient label tells you, can you eat the food. The macros tell you how much of the food to eat. Because I don't care how much protein's in it. I don't care how much calories are in it. If the ingredient is processed and chemicals and bad, then that does not go in my body, plain and simple. So when you're looking through the grocery store, I literally will pull things off the shelf with patients and I'll show them and we'll read the ingredients together. I say, is this something we put in our body and. And then collectively we'll learn to say yes or no and go, great. If it's yes, great. Now we'll look at, is this. Is this macro friendly for me or whatnot? But if it's not, goes back.
- [25:59]
A
People wonder if organic or natural are just marketing buzzwords. What do you tell your patients?
- [26:06]
B
I would say that when something says all natural, I. My head goes, yeah, just because I don't know anymore.
- [26:14]
A
But it just says natural. And then the packaging is green, and that's all it says. Like, no.
- [26:19]
B
They'll usually have some, like, picture of a girl in prairie.
- [26:21]
A
Yeah.
- [26:22]
B
You know, I think marketing is smart. And they know that we. When we see a farm and we see, like, natural thing pictures on the thing, then we're like, oh, this must be good. But again, I think when something is certified organic or certified non GMO and they've gone through the testings, is it going to be perfectly clean? Like, probably not. Is it better than the stuff that's not?
- [26:43]
A
Yes.
- [26:44]
B
Yes. So for me and my family, we buy organic every chance we get because it's better. Anything we can grow or make ourselves ideally better. That's always the better option.
- [26:58]
A
Here's something nobody tells you. Your body already knows how to heal. It just needs the right signals. Acupuncture works by activating specific points that communicate with your brain, your spinal cord and immune system. It increases blood flow, reduces chronic pain, improves sleep, supports digestion and helps balance hormones. That's why it's been used for everything from burnout to flipping breech babies. California Mobile Acupuncture delivers this care in your own home. They are Christian owned. Every visit is customized acupuncture cupping, gua sha, holistic body work. You don't need a babysitter, they'll do it right there even with your kids running around. Whatever your system needs to calm down, reset and stabilize. This isn't a spa gimmick, it's whole body evidence based care designed to get you back into balance. They've become one of the most trusted mobile acupuncture teams across Southern California and Arizona, with patients consistently reporting better sleep, less pain and a calmer baseline. Celebrities love California Mobile Acupuncture. Booking is simple. Just text or call 949-228-9588. That's text or call 949-228-9588 or visit californiamobileacupuncture.com or arizonamobileacupuncture.com you will get $50 off your first treatment. When you mention culture, apothecary, California mobile acupuncture.com or arizonamobulaacupuncture.com you can text or call 949 228-9588 True story. A 59 year old father of three with stage four lung cancer was approved for a potentially life saving double lung transplant. Praise God. Bags were packed, family ready. And then at the very last second his insurance company reversed the approval and denied the claim. Same diagnosis, same doctors, same urgency. The only thing that changed was someone in an office deciding you know what? This is just too expensive. That's when you realize that this system isn't just frustrating, it is totally broken and evil. Health insurance feels like trying to solve a Rubik's Cube blindfolded underwater. And when your life actually depends on it, the answer is still no. Last year alone, 1 in 5 Obamacare claims was rejected. These companies are incentivized to deny care and raise premiums. They are not on your team. So I talked to my friend Andy. Who's Andy? He's the CEO of Crowd Health. Crowd Health was built by people who see this insanity for what it is and said there's got to be a better way. And there is. Crowd Health is a health insurance alternative. By joining Crowd Health you get access to telemedicine, discounted prescriptions and a database of cash pay doctors. No networks, no middlemen. The best doctors that you guys say, well, this isn't in my network, so I can't go see this functional medicine doctor you can. Each month, members help fund one another's medical needs or home births or whatever it is. And when it's your turn, the crowd steps in. No insurance, just people helping people like crowd health. Help with your health care needs. Get started today for just 99amonth for your first three months by using code culture@joincrowd health.com Crowd health is not insurance. Learn more at joincrowdhealth.com that's joincrowdhealth.com Code culture is going completely non toxic realistic. If not, what is a realistic goal to aim for?
- [29:55]
B
So what I teach my patients is this, when it comes to the toxic world, look at everything that you're exposed to the most on a daily basis and start changing those things first. For women, for example, I would say look at your, look at your products you're putting on your body. If you're putting a product on your body every single day, start changing that product first, right? That's like your shampoos and your makeup and your deodorants and stuff like that. Like, start changing the things that are going to be on you and in your body the most. And you start there and then you start to work your way. There are some people out there, they're going to be like, yep, I'm changing the whole house tomorrow. That's me. Yeah, right. And I had a lady one time, I did a seminar, she came the next week with a black garbage bag full of toxic stuff. And she goes, we cleansed everything and it was awesome. But then there's people who, again, if you're someone who watching this and you're like, hey, that's overwhelming. Like, I need to start small. Great. Pick your bathroom. Start in the bathroom, start changing all your bathroom products. And then once you've got that turned around, then maybe go to the laundry room. Then we start changing the laundry room. Then we go next to the kitchen. So pick a room and start cleaning out all the chemicals out of that room and then move to the next room.
- [31:06]
A
I think people want a timeline. Like they want to know, you know, when can I expect to start seeing real changes if I start a holistic health journey? What do you say?
- [31:14]
B
I say be attached to the journey, not the destination. Like fall in love with the journey, not the end goal. Because at the end of the day, if I, if I am in love with the Everyday process of waking up and reading my Bible, moving my body, eating something healthy, connecting with my kids. If I am in love with the daily habits I'm going to be doing, then you can make it consistent and sustainable because you love every single day of it. Versus if you're just always looking at the horizon. If you're always looking at like, okay, I know that this will be six months and you're just, your mind's on six months and you're, you're always focused on six months and you're never fully present and engaged in the today.
- [31:55]
A
How do you know if your nervous system is completely fried? And how does chiropractic care help with a messed up nervous system?
- [32:03]
B
So I think there's a lot of symptoms that can look at chronic fatigue or something like, you know, fibromyalgia, where it's like your whole nervous system is just on sympathetic overdrive. And when you think about the nervous system, let's, let's talk it this way. There's your sympathetic nervous system and your parasympathetic nervous system. And I think that we like to live in today's culture of like all or none. And we believe that God gave us both for a reason. There's moments in my day when I want a sympathetic nervous system. The other day I walked in the room and my one year old had a marker walking towards the wall. I want a sympathetic nervous system to give me energy to run towards him and not let him color on the wall, right? But then there's a moment when it's like, okay, I don't wanna live there. You shouldn't have your body staying in that state. It's not healthy to have your nervous system firing on all cylinders all the time. But I think today a lot of us, that's where we live, we go to bed looking at emails and then we go to sleep and then we wake up. More emails, more social media. Do I feel validated by my likes? Oh my gosh. And then we go into work and then we're always on something and we're just so driven all the time that you can see someone, they're just like their shoulders are so stuck here and they can't even relax. And we look at this, it's like they don't know how to breathe. Like they've lost the art of belly breathing and calming their body down because they're just stuck like this all day. I do think it's healthy to have moments of both, right? Like you want to have both, but you don't want to be in the state where you're constantly just like, in this fight or flight zone. Like, is the tiger coming for me?
- [33:38]
A
So how does chiropractic help you get there?
- [33:40]
B
When you come in a over sympathetic nervous system that if that's where you're at when you get an adjustment, when an adjustment actually does, the way I like to say it is it recalibrates the nerve system to then calm it back down. So with babies, for example, when a baby comes in, it's constipated. This happens all the time. Their nervous system is so fired up because what's the first trauma a baby goes through?
- [34:03]
A
For example, going through the birth canal.
- [34:04]
B
Just coming out, right? Just being born. In fact, all three of my kids, I adjusted them 30 minutes after they came out. We were so blessed. God was so good. We had three water births at home, all natural. My wife is a queen. And on top of that, I still checked their nervous system right away to make sure everything was good. But with a baby that's constipated, their nervous system is fired up. And when you're in fight or flight, right, you're not thinking about pooping, you're not gonna go poop if you're running from a tiger. So if their body's stuck in fight or flight, they're constipated. So when you do an adjustment, you bring balance back into the alignment of their pelvis or their spine, you take pressure off of the nervous system, you bring the tone down in their nervous system, and then they start to regulate. And this is why they get blowouts on the way out of the office.
- [34:48]
A
If an adult is struggling with chronic constipation, obviously one of the first questions I think you would ask, knowing you is, is what are you eating? Like, what's your diet, how much water are you drinking? Etc? But also, are you suggesting you need to have an adjustment?
- [35:00]
B
Totally.
- [35:01]
A
Do adults tell you that you've helped them with constipation?
- [35:04]
B
All the time.
- [35:04]
A
Really?
- [35:05]
B
Yeah. I have testimony boards left and right in my office. And in the first month, we do a questionnaire and we ask people, what health changes have you noticed in the first month? I would say that digestion and energy are the top two things that get better within the first month of care.
- [35:19]
A
What is one product swap that delivers more health impact than anything else?
- [35:23]
B
I mean, the air quality matters so much, obviously. So having a good air purifier in your home is really important, number one. But when it comes to food, if I had to make one food Swap that people would make. I would say that they would change the quality of their meats. I would say that you would change the quality of meat because I believe that there are so much more chemicals, hormones, vaccines that are pumped into animals. And what we need to remember is that we are not what we ate, but what our food ate. So if you're eating a cow that's conventional, you're getting so many more inflammation in your body than you realize. So I would change the quality of your meat to be grass fed, grass finished, pasture raised, like very clean meats.
- [36:03]
A
Can chiropractic care cure disease?
- [36:05]
B
Chiropractic doesn't cure anything, but chiropractic does. It brings harmony back to the nervous system, and then your body heals. My first patient ever in my clinic seven plus years ago was a young lady that called in and she said that she was suffering with ulcerative colitis. Ulcerative colitis, for those that don't know, is a condition in your colon where you start having, like, ulcers and lacerations and excessive bleeding. And according to the medical model, it's incurable. And when she came in, I remember my wife and I were like, our first patient has that. Like, couldn't you have a headache? Like, that's a lot, you know, we prayed that God would bring sick people in, that we, that he would help them get well in our office through us. And when she came in, I remember I told her very clear, I said, listen, I can't promise you that this adjustment's gonna fix it. Your colitis. Here's what I know. When you deliver an adjustment, when you bring alignment back to the body and the nervous system, the body will begin to heal the way that God created it to heal. So I believe that what I can do is I can bring alignment back to your body. I can allow the nervous system to come back, and we're gonna pray healing over your body. And within three months, her symptoms started to go away. And now she still comes to my office seven years later, and she is pretty much symptom free.
- [37:19]
A
Why did you tell me when you found out that I had Hashimoto's, that there was a certain adjustment that you should start doing on my neck to help with autoimmune.
- [37:27]
B
So if you look at the body, there's nerves that exit every single part of the spine, for example, right? So there's nerves, and this is anatomy and physiology that if you go in the spine, there's nerves that exit and they go. And they control organs, they control muscles. Well, specifically, the thyroid is in the very center of the, of the neck between C4, C5. Well, what we see commonly happen, you look for patterns. Well, a pattern that we see very commonly in the office is you should have a 45 degree curve in the neck. Again, this anatomy, when that curvature goes straight, you put so much more pressure and stress on that center of the spine, which is where the C4.5 is. And what we see with patterns that when that nerve has misalignment or that nerve has pressure, whatever that nerve goes to is now going to start to have dysfunction to it. So patterns that we've seen in chiropractic is that when somebody has a misalignment to an area and all of a sudden that area is no longer functioning well, whatever that nerve communicates to can no longer function well also. So with a thyroid, I believe that there's a lot of things that we can do and need to do to help the thyroid heal. But I go back to if the nerve communicating to the thyroid is being pinched and isn't getting proper signaling from the brain for healing, you're missing a big starting piece if we're not addressing that first. So I always say with anything in the body, address the nervous system first, make sure the nerve is properly healthy, going to that area, and then do the other things. We need to make sure we're going to capitalize and support that.
- [38:54]
A
When people come into your office and they're like, I want to get off a certain medication, how do you assist them in doing that?
- [38:59]
B
Short answer is this. I don't. Here's the longer answer, is that when somebody comes in, they're on a medication. The only reason you're on a medication is because your body is expressing some level of dysfunction and disease. High blood pressure is not a normal function of a normal healthy body. So if somebody has high blood pressure, for example, your body is expressing disease to some degree. So we don't pursue how to get off the drug. We pursue health. We pursue what would it look like to help the body regulate blood pressure, what controls blood pressure. And we start taking the right supplements, we do the right adjustments. Meaning this. There's a study that was done to the atlas bone, the number one top bone that can, that regulates around the vagus nerve. And this study found that it looked at adjustments to that atlas bone versus taking lisinopril and hct, two blood pressure medications. And the adjustment to the atlas had better outcomes in reducing blood pressure than both of these medications. So when we look at getting off A medication. You go back and say, well, where is the dysfunction? And if we can pursue helping the dysfunction to heal, then the body no longer needs the medication. So in our office, we celebrate people coming off drugs all the time. But it's not because I told them to come off a drug. I never tell them to come off a drug. I say, hey, where's the dysfunction? We're going to help that heal through good nutrition, through good chiropractic care, through good movement, through good supplementation. We're going to help this thing heal. And then you're going to watch your body get so well that it doesn't need the medication because it's internally healing the way it's supposed to.
- [40:35]
A
I was in line for coffee the other day and I watched a dog order a latte. Not metaphorically. The dog looked that barista dead in the eye, ordered an oat milk situation, seed oils. By the way, that dog didn't know. And then he flirted with her. There was a little tail wag. There was eye contact. There was confidence. There was a number shared. And that dog has a skincare routine. You could see it. And that's the energy I want for the winter. Healthy, glowing, unbothered, immense confidence. That's why I'm obsessed with primally pure in skincare. For people who don't want to torch their endocrine system in the name of peppermint cheer. It's genuinely clean. This is what gifting should be. Their barrier. Supporting tallow balms are elite. My skin drinks it up and I know dry. Okay? I live in the desert. Their award winning face masks are incredible. The lip oil is glossy. It's nourishing. No weird chemical aftertaste like you just licked a candle. If that barista and that dog go on a date, they decide to have a first kiss. She's going to like his lips. Okay. I keep it on my nightstand so it does the work as I sleep. They even have limited edition sets. Cranberry red lip balm, Vanill body care. All the festive nostalgia without synthetic fragrance. It's all authentic, real. When in doubt, gift. The favorites. Body butter, body polish, clean candles. This is skin care that feels good to give and even better to use. Whether you need a Valentine's Day gift for your Galentine's day. Your mom, your sister, your single best. Who feels left out? Or maybe you're just a dog wanting to impress your favorite barista. You want this set for yourself, that's okay too. Use code Alex Clark to get 15 off@primlypure.com that's Primly. Pure.com code Alex Clark for 15 off your entire order. Growing up, my dream was always to be a horse dentist. Yeah, I thought I'd spend my days poking around giant horse mouths. Maybe invent some equine braces. That dream stupid. I have a new dream. A dream to suffocate under 5 trillion pounds of masa chips. Not stupid. Masa chips are made from real masa stone ground. Authentic, perfectly crisp, totally organic. And they're fried in grass fed beef tallow. People. Grass fed animal fat. Grass fed tallow is nutrient dense. It's full of healthy fats and amazing for your brain, your energy and your soul. It's basically like giving yourselves a spa day. While they crunch, every chip hits like perfection. Corn, organic texture. Crunchy enough to make you question why you ever ate vending machine chips in your life. Salt. Real ingredients. Transparent, wholesome and honest. This is the snack that your ancestors would approve of if they weren't already dead. Go to masachips.com use code real Alex Clark for 25 off your first purchase or buy in store at any sprouts nationwide. That's masachips.com code real Alex Clark for 25 off or grab them at sprouts. Why is one of the most important things a new mother can do is to get her baby adjusted right after birth?
- [43:12]
B
30 minutes after birth and you'll go to their house. I do all the time. The way I look at it with my kids, the moment that baby is born, I want nothing more than a hundred percent of their brain function giving perfect signals to their body, allowing perfect coordination so that health can have a perfect start. And when they're born and they have that trauma. In a couple of the cases that, that I had now, there was one, one baby trying to be born. The doctors were using a vacuum suction on their head. Seven times, seven times they put this suction on this baby's head to pull off. When the baby came out, the poor baby's top bone was twisted and their, their head was rotated and the baby wasn't latching. So if they weren't able to latch, then that's a huge problem. So they called me, ran over the hospital, took me 15 minutes to work on this baby's neck. And then right after that latch, no problem. Everything is good.
- [44:07]
A
Do you think there's a lot of mothers who are struggling to breastfeed and if they were to just get their baby adjusted at a chiropractor, that problem would be Solved.
- [44:15]
B
I'll tell you this. We see it happen so often in the office. We actually have a nursing room that we put in the office because so often babies will come in and they're not able to properly turn their head to latch. It's a big piece of it. Like, there's tongue ties and lip ties and things. But a big piece of a baby being able to turn their head properly to latch is one of the biggest things I see. So when we correct that, I tell moms, hey, go in that room and go try to nurse. Because we see it happen so often that I literally have a room for that.
- [44:46]
A
That.
- [44:47]
B
And then they'll go in and then you'll hear them yell, yay.
- [44:51]
A
Okay, if somebody is totally out of shape, they have never exercised, what is the first movement that you'd have them do? And how do you get them over the intimidation factor of starting to get physically active when they never have?
- [45:02]
B
So my favorite fitness tip is do whatever it is that you love to do. I think we can both agree that as Americans, we just need to move more. Like, we're not moving enough, period. Right? We gotta move more. So what I tell people is, do whatever you love. If you love to Zumba dance, go Zumba dance. If you love to go on walks, go walk. If you love to hike, like, whatever you love to do, don't get caught up in the specific. Like, I have to do this one thing, because here's why. If you. If you're someone who is so out of. Out of it, you haven't done it a long time, you just got to get back in it. If you love it, you are going to be so consistent in it. You're going to want to do it every day because you love it. So, like, find a routine. Find something. Whether it's Pilates, CrossFit, whatever it is, find something you love, and then just go and start there. And then once you get in, back into the habit of movement and the habit of exercising and the love of that. Those of you guys who. Those of us who exercise a lot and just fall in love with it, and we know this is a passion now, once you have a goal towards something, if someone's like, hey, I want to train for blank or whatever, or I want to put more muscle on now, now we can get specific and then move towards training routines. But I think the first thing I tell people is, like, whatever you love to do, to move your body, go do that. And go do it over and over.
- [46:15]
A
With patients that struggle with sleep, what has been like the number one tip or tweak that you've seen work for those patients.
- [46:23]
B
So here's what I noticed that go back to like, we'll say 100 plus years ago, right when the sun was setting, the rays of the sunset coming in your eyes began to tell your body that it was time to wind down. And we're getting ready for bed. And then what we would do is we would have a fire, very low ambient light that would give off light. Now we have so much overhead lighting all the time that right before we're going to bed, we have overhead lighting, we're brushing our teeth. It's all this bright daylights, and your brain never knows that it's nighttime. So then you go lay in bed and your brain is like, oh, is it supposed to be going to bed now? And we're never priming our body for bed. So one of the things I would say is if you can get outside and catch the sunset, like get the sunset rays in your eyes, number one. And then what our rule of thumb we try to follow, we're not perfect, but we try to follow is once the sun goes down, so does all the overhead lights. Now we just use lamps, we use ambient lights, we use red lights. Make the atmosphere help your body know we're getting ready for bedtime. And then there has to be a consistent routine that you follow into that you're telling your body that, yep, up, it's time to sleep, and we're no longer triggering our phone before bed or screens or stuff like that.
- [47:35]
A
A huge topic people argue about. Do supplements actually work?
- [47:40]
B
Yes, because people are deficient in their minerals all day long because of a, again, overstressed environment. We're not have. If you're not having good water, if you're toxic because of different things. Let's say that you were grown up like me and you had a ton of antibiotics in your whole lifetime. Right. Like, we are so deficient that. Yes, people need to have specific minerals and vitamins to help bring balance back to their body.
- [48:04]
A
So I have a little bit of a nuanced answer compared to you on this. I would say the answer is yes and no.
- [48:09]
B
Yeah.
- [48:10]
A
Yes, you're. What you're saying is totally right. I would say also some supplements, though that doesn't mean any supplement for any person.
- [48:18]
B
No.
- [48:19]
A
You have to get your biomarkers tested to see what you specifically are deficient in. Because if I take what you're taking or you take what I'm taking, you could get really sick. You could actually end up worse because it's very, very powerful stuff.
- [48:31]
B
I would 100% agree with your answer. Because then it's like, oh, well, we Google, I can't sleep good, so I'm going to go take sleep supplements. It's like, well, hold on, go back and figure out what's actually not right and then fill out, fill those buckets, if that makes sense.
- [48:46]
A
But there are a couple different minerals or vitamins that I would say basically every single American is deficient in that can benefit from. What would your answer be for that?
- [48:57]
B
We call them everybody every day. And I would say magnesium, fish oil and vitamin D. Why fish oil? How many people do you know they're just over inflamed?
- [49:04]
A
Everyone.
- [49:05]
B
Everyone. And if you can get a good healthy fish oil to help bring down inflammation in a good way, that's a huge one.
- [49:12]
A
Some people have this fear like, well, if I switch to clean living and then I get sick anyway, does that mean that none of this stuff is working? What's your response to that?
- [49:21]
B
If you say a prayer to God and you don't get your prayer answered, you stop praying? I think it goes back to what is my foundation. But my foundational belief is if what I'm doing is rooted in this is good and whole for my body, because this is. These are things of things, of God, right? God made things that are whole, real things. I'm knowing that regardless of the outcome, I'm committed to the process that like I committed to this is what is whole and real and good for creating a healthy body. I'm not sitting here like, oh, it didn't give me the answer in a week. So I give up on it. You stay, you stay. You stay committed to whatever is whole and good and real.
- [49:55]
A
What is your most counterintuitive or hot take that you have about getting healthy that would make conventional doctors roll their.
- [50:03]
B
Eyes, just get adjusted. Like the fact that just people getting adjusted to get better ticks off medical doctors. Because there was a study done that showed that people who are under consistent regular chiropractic care, 85% less pharmaceuticals, they don't want that.
- [50:19]
A
Is it ever too late to start getting healthy? Is it possible to actually reverse damage? Or at a certain point is it like, sorry, you're too late.
- [50:26]
B
So here's what I fundamentally believe is that if there is air in your lungs that God has not done with you yet, I believe that to my heart. There is a guy that came in my office one time, it was a patient of mine, it was her dad. And he was 78 years old. And at 78 years old, he had been on three blood pressure meds for 34 years. And at this point, 78, he's kind of like giving up, right? And he was like, hey, I'm just gonna have to be on these beds forever. And I said, I don't put a ceiling on your healing, right? Like, only God knows what, what we can do. And we started getting him adjusted, we started putting him through our corrective process, we put him through good supplements, we changed his diet, we pretty much, like I said, hey, if you want to go after this, we'll make small, consistent changes. And he started doing that. And in six months, we had him off all three of his meds.
- [51:09]
A
When it comes to a health journey, should people start slow or should they do what's going to shock their system into, into place?
- [51:14]
B
Is this the average person or Alex Clark?
- [51:18]
A
Average person.
- [51:19]
B
I always say, you and I are similar. Where for me, I'm like, yeah, give me 75 hard tomorrow, right? Like, that's just kind of how I'm wired. I think that for most people, do whatever will help you stay consistent. So in the past, again, consistency is going to be a word you're going to hear me keep using because I think, think at the end of the day, what I, what I tell people is what you don't want is for you to go through and then to quit like a month later. I think I don't know the exact day, but I think it's like January 19th is like national Quitters Day, because they say that up, like 80% of people by the 19th will have quit on their New Year's resolutions. So the reality is that so many people start stuff and then they stop it. They start and then they quit it. So what I would say is that whatever it is that's gonna help you be consistent if you need to just cold turkey and go for it, or if you need to baby step it. I think each individual person needs to know themselves well enough to say, what do I need to do to make sure that I'm going to keep doing these things and it's going to be sustainable.
- [52:15]
A
You also don't have to wait till January 1st of a new year. You can say the first of any month is, I'm starting over. This is my start of my health journey, like July 1st. I mean, it could be anything.
- [52:25]
B
So full transparency. When, whenever I have a baby on the way, I always, like, get my, my head back in, like, zone mode. And I started a New my own personal, like, little health get back on Focus Challenge. And I did it on November 28th.
- [52:40]
A
Why?
- [52:40]
B
Because November 27th, I thought about it. So I start tomorrow?
- [52:44]
A
Yes.
- [52:44]
B
I don't care what day it is.
- [52:45]
A
For somebody who has never been to the chiropractor, it can be kind of freaky. Like, you're like, does this hurt? What does it feel like? It sounds scary. All of those cracking noises. What do you tell first time patients when they're scared to get an adjustment?
- [52:58]
B
So one of the things that we have that helps is if you come in our clinic and you go into our office. So I want to say about 40% of our office is under the age of 18. We have a very big pediatric office. And when you look on our walls of the adjustment rooms, there's little pictures of kids and babies getting adjusted, smiling and laughing all throughout because, number one, we want them to know that it's important for kids and babies to get adjusted. But also, if an adult is nervous, which is totally reasonable, I mean, I was nervous and I had my first adjustment, Right? But when you see. And we can walk them through, like, hey, like, this is a gentle thing. This is not what you see on TikTok. Like, this is a gentle thing of just restoring alignment. And then when they get their first adjustment and we talk them through it, everyone's response is like, oh, that's way better than I thought.
- [53:47]
A
I'm a crack addict. I am obsessed with it. When I can't see Dr. Mike, I'm asking my boyfriend to adjust me. Like, I'm like, I constantly need it. Which you hate. You hate that I do that.
- [53:58]
B
Call me instead. I'll come over.
- [54:00]
A
Why do chiropractors tell patients when they first become a patient, like, you have to come in three days a week. Like, is that a money grab? Is that a scam?
- [54:07]
B
So I don't think that that's for everybody. I think that whatever frequency that you get from your doctor is dependent on two things. The state of your current health and the goal of your outcome that you're wanting to get. We take X rays and your health is like, really bad. But you're wanting to, to have this big change. Well, consistency is gonna breed quicker results. So when we look at, what is that? What's the outcome? The outcome is that if we see somebody three times a week, if that's again, necessary for what your spine has going on, we're gonna help retrain the muscle memory in your spine. We're gonna help retrain the patterns that you've had over all these years. And we're gonna retrain it faster so you're gonna get quicker results. And then as your body adapts and your body holds the adjustment better, then we taper them down and have them come less and less. But ultimately, the goal is to get your body to hold that adjustment as long as it can. And that's what consistency does.
- [55:01]
A
You've got three kids with one on the way. Have your kids ever taken antibiotics or conventional medicine?
- [55:07]
B
Never.
- [55:07]
A
How is that possible?
- [55:08]
B
They have a clear, regulated nervous system.
- [55:10]
A
Because their dad's a chiropractor and their mom.
- [55:13]
B
The full story here is that because me and my wife were both very unhealthy kids growing up, and I knew what it was like to grow, to grow up unhealthy. We asked when my wife got pregnant with my son, we prayed this. We said, God, if it's possible to have a child, never need the medical model. Help me give clear direction on what does that look like? And I audibly heard the lord say, if you want to keep your kid out of the medical model, don't introduce them to the medical model. My wife's also a chiropractor, and she was, like, on board fully, and her. And I said, okay, we're gonna avoid it at all costs. And so she birthed all of our children again at home, all natural. And the five things that we shared. Mindset, nutrition, toxicity. All these things. Those are just the five principles that we've done with our children from day one. Toxicity. We don't vaccinate them. We don't put antibiotics in them. They don't get any medicine. When they need something, we get them adjusted to regulate their nervous system. First, we give them vitamins to help their body. We make sure that they're out in nature getting exposed to stuff so they can build a good, healthy immune system.
- [56:20]
A
What about scary high fevers?
- [56:22]
B
A fever is a good thing. This is another, like, principal thing to understand is that a fever is a normal, natural thing that your body does on purpose to heat up and kill off a parasite or a virus or something. If God designed your body to heat up and kill this thing, and then you said, I know better. I'm gonna take a drug to.
- [56:40]
A
To.
- [56:40]
B
To lower the fever. You're going against God's natural design. So when our kids have a fever, there's a. Tons of. There's tons of really natural good things you can do to help support the fever, to do its job. So skin to skin time is really important for moms. If your kid is still young and nursing, nurse that baby because your milk is going to give them a lot of antibodies that they need to help fight that off. Making sure that they're well adjusted so their nervous system can regulate what's going on and help their body to process through. Here's what's really funny. I have three kids, they've all had fevers, and we've all done these natural processes to help them throw. We don't even own a thermometer because I don't want to be swayed by the number on the thermometer.
- [57:21]
A
But isn't there a certain type of fever that is like, scary high, dangerous?
- [57:25]
B
Now, if you even look at the. I think it's the American Pediatric Association, I believe they even say the answer is to do nothing. They've now come to their senses and said, do nothing. And a fever can get up to 102, 103, and. And it's not dangerous for your kid. Now, I think what parents fear is the febrile seizure. When your fever gets so high, it puts you into a seizure. A febrile seizure is your body's basically mechanism to reset the nervous system to reset their body back down. We've not had to go that, that way yet. But I think if you help the body again, doing these natural things right away and you're just supporting their nervous system, then I think you don't see that happen. What I've seen happen a lot is that when kids already live a very unhealthy, toxic lifestyle and they're really unhealthy already, then you try to just all of a sudden try a natural thing, their, their bucket's already overfilled. And I think that's where you start to see that happen.
- [58:20]
A
What is the craziest transformation that you've seen in a patient that's come to your office?
- [58:25]
B
We've had a patient come in one time who was overweight, kind of like what you mentioned, like as sick as we can get. They were overweight, they were unhappy, their hormones were shot. They had. I think she was on 17 different medications.
- [58:39]
A
Oh, my word.
- [58:40]
B
And the 17 medications were a accumulation of anxiety drugs, depression drugs, sleep, sleep drugs, stabilizers. I mean, she was on all kinds of stuff. And we sat her down and I said, if you were my sister, what would I do? And I gave her the full layout of recommendation of like this, this what I would do to help you get your body back on track. It was a year's time where it was fully resolved, but every month it was better and better and better. After one year, she came off all 17 medications. She dropped 40 pounds. The biggest transformation of this whole story is that she gave her life to the Lord.
- [59:20]
A
Amazing.
- [59:20]
B
Out of all the transformations I see in my office, the ones that make me the most emotional and the most happy are when somebody comes in. And we are a very openly Christian office. We don't hide that we have scripture on the wall. We play worship music, and we speak health through the lens of Jesus and we pray over our patients. And when this lady came in, she was a very firm, like, hey, I don't know about all this. And when she came in, she just saw the loving care that was poured in and her one year transformation. She invited me to her baptism. She gave her life to Jesus.
- [59:52]
A
And I said, how cool is that?
- [59:53]
B
It's the most important thing that I think anybody can do.
- [59:56]
A
Wow. Okay. What else?
- [59:57]
B
We've had little kids come in with really bad scoliosis, and we've been able to help straighten that out through structural corrective chiropractic care. That's amazing because now you avoid spinal surgery in a kid.
- [60:11]
A
Does an adult with scoliosis have to have spinal surgery or can they also heal from adjustments?
- [60:16]
B
So I think the longer it goes, the harder it becomes to heal because your body becomes so much more ingrained in. In what? What? Like the patterns that you've been through in life. Right. So the sooner you can get it worked on, the better. But no, there are amazing structural corrective chiropractic clinics around the country that can help straighten out and help naturally correct the scoliosis in your spine.
- [60:38]
A
Do you do that?
- [60:39]
B
So we are a structural corrective office. Yes. We are limited to some degree. So for us, we get someone in, we X ray them. If it's within our range that we can help, we let them know if it's something that needs more intense care. We have a Max Living clinic that is in Florida that literally he specializes in scoliosis and that's all he does. And they just like, he's like the best scoliosis person to go to.
- [61:05]
A
What town in Florida do you know?
- [61:06]
B
Celebration.
- [61:07]
A
Florida Celebration. That's kind of neat. If someone only remembers one actionable step from this conversation, what do you hope it is?
- [61:14]
B
If I'm gonna go through life and I like, if I had to boil everything that we do down to what's the most important thing, it would be that you have an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ and that you would search a life of alignment, that your life would be consistent of alignment and that you would hope that your actions, your everyday actions are going to help bring all this into a coordinated stress like free life where your nervous system is functioning and healing and you do these, these five health principles consistent for the rest of your life.
- [61:47]
A
If you could offer one remedy to heal a sick culture physically, emotionally or spiritually, what would it be?
- [61:52]
B
My one remedy would be that you would have a weekly wellness chiropractic adjustment for the rest of your life to help bring balance to your nervous system so that every other system in your body could do its job the way that God designed it to do.
- [62:06]
A
If somebody wants you to be their chiropractor and you're in Chandler, Arizona, what do they have to do to become a patient?
- [62:11]
B
Call the office, tell them that you want to get in and depending on again age. Sometimes if you're, you're bringing in a child, there's no X rays. If you're someone coming in and you want to get a full evaluation, we would sit down and do that full process to make sure we're getting your health goals, current state of health and figure out what the best plan of action is to help you achieve the best health possible.
- [62:33]
A
What's it called?
- [62:34]
B
Empower Family Chiropractic.
- [62:35]
A
What events do you have coming up? Because your office does tons of cool events for the community, so a big.
- [62:40]
B
One would be coming up. February 22nd, we are doing a Saturday. We're gonna do something called Pure Energy. We do this every year. It's basically a metabolic reset seminar. Anybody who has any type of metabolic condition which 92% of people now are struggling with a metabolic health issue. So basically everybody, right, comes in and it's a three hour event that we put on. And in this three hours I cover everything that we do and have done that have led to metabolic disease and dysfunction. We cover what are the healthy alternatives that we need to do to start heal our metabolic issues. And then I launch what this is, I think the most transformative. I launch a 30 day health challenge for the month of March where me and my team literally walk you through steps to make sure that for the next 30 days we kickstart health back in the right direction. And on top of that you mentioned me taking people to the grocery store. I do that. That's a part of this whole 30 day thing is I walk you through the grocery store and then we understand how do we make sure we maximize this life.
- [63:41]
A
If somebody is going to be in town and really wants to get adjusted by you, is it possible, like can you do an X ray and adjustment in the same day or, or they need to have an X ray from another chiropractor sent to you?
- [63:53]
B
No, this happens a lot. And what I do. So I have a lot of patients that have kids, for example, that don't live here and they trust, they trust my discernment of what we're going to do with their body. So what they'll do is they'll fly their kids in and then I'll X ray them, I'll adjust them and then I'll basically help send their X rays to wherever they live. If they're gonna go to a chiropractor where they live, I'll send their X ray films to that chiropractor and then I'll get on the phone and help that chiropractor understand what I'm seeing so that that person can still get a very holistic, good, neurological based approach to their spine.
- [64:25]
A
Where can people find you on social media?
- [64:27]
B
Empower Family is our Instagram or we're also on YouTube. Empower Family Chiropractic.
- [64:33]
A
Cool. Thank you Dr. Mike for coming on Culture Apothecary.
- [64:35]
B
Thank you.
- [64:39]
A
If you live in Arizona and you want to attend Dr. Mike's Pure Energy seminar, click the link in the description. You can also find all the info for his practice if you'd like to become a patient. Don't forget to leave a five star review for this episode. Let me know if you love your chiropractor and where they're at. New episodes with different experts working to heal a sick culture air twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays at 6pm Pacific and 9pm Eastern. I'm Alex Clark and this is Culture Apothecary.