Dr. Anthony Ratkovic often called “Dr. Tony” is a chiropractor in Upland California that specializes in family practice, scoliosis, child and adolescent care, nutritional counseling, and exercise rehabilitation. He is also known for his podcast “The Crooked Spine Show” that streams on the major platforms including apple itunes, spotify, and Amazon.
In this podcast, we discuss the benefits of chiropractic, among other things.
RESOURCES
- Visit Dr. Ratkovic’s Website EuclidChiropracticInc.com
- Visit Dr. Anthony Ratkovic’s podcast on iTunes
- Dr. Tony Ratkovic on YouTube
- Watch this episode on YouTube
- Listen to this episode on iTunes
TIMESTAMPS
00:00:00 Intro Snip
00:02:52 Why did Dr. Tony choose chiropractic as a profession?
00:03:57 Why did Dr. Haley quit golfing?
00:05:05 Why you should get fitted for golf clubs
00:06:44 Does chiropractic help your golf game?
00:08:25 How does breathing and “true breath” affect your golf game?
00:10:04 Are people in California more health conscious?
00:12:55 How is chiropractic philosophy like “functional medicine”?
00:14:10 How much of getting well is up to the pateint?
00:16:06 What part does medication play in getting well?
00:20:15 What is Chiropractic?
00:23:37 Have you ever had a patient with a “pinched nerve” that went to an organ?
00:25:58 Why does chiropractic sometimes hurt more the next day?
00:27:00 Dr. Haley tells a story of an infant with erb’s palsy getting well
00:29:05 What was it like giving your first chiropractic adjustment to someone?
00:31:20 How many chiropractic adjustments will seasoned chiropractors have given?
00:34:34 How often do chiropractor get adjusted?
00:35:55 What is a chiropractor feeling when they put their hands on you?
00:36:36 How is a chiropractor like an artist?
00:40:12 What do you tell someone that has never been to a chiropractor?
00:43:47 What is “The Crooked Spine Podcast” about?
TRANSCRIPT
I say chiropractic are more artist also because every artist is different, we can all move bones differently. Based on the chiropractor, based on the patient also. So how do you develop your art over time?
You are listening to the Dr. Haley Show, the podcast dedicated to helping you optimize your health. Each episode there will be an interview or a message to help you discover better health. We will be featuring health radicals on the show to bring new ideas to the table, as well as doubling down on key fundamentals to support you living your best life.
Your host is no other than the founder of Haley Nutrition Dr. Michael Haley.
This is the Dr. Haley Show podcast and today’s guest, Dr. Anthony Ratkovic. I hope I said that right out of Upland, California. That’s in the Los Angeles area. And
Dr. Tony specializes in scoliosis family practice. He’s, Let me see. Does some nutritional counseling and exercise rehabilitation.
A very full family oriented practice. And he’s host of the Crooked Spine Show podcast, which you can find streaming on all the major platforms like, iTunes. I saw it on Amazon. He’s on Spotify. Check out the show. He’s got a lot of episodes there, a lot of great
content. Also, YouTube, a very busy YouTube channel with a lot of health tips.
Dr. Tony, thank you for being sure. Dr, on the show, I saw some of your content. It’s great, I love it. Thank you, thank you, appreciate it. It’s been a long time. We’ve we around? I started practice when the Yellow Pages were still a thing back then, before there was need for a website or YouTube or Instagram and tic tac toe, all that stuff, too.
Before we had to, not that we have to. Now. It’s now it’s more, if you want to call it creative marketing or, it’s basic giving back in a way. And it’s everywhere, right? You have to find a way to connect with
my patients, future patients for one, two and just spread the word of health.
And then I’d be like, I want that. I notice, too, that you’re also teaching some other doctors and doing lots of lectures for them. Maybe. Is that continuing education hours for that? Yeah. To education. I did that a lot of last year. They kind of slowed down the program a little bit this year, but I’ll still be out there and move things around.
A lot of it is just what I’ve been practice for 23 years now. What have I learned? What have I learned? Good, bad, indifferent, and even from other doctors, too. I’ve. I’m always looking for mentors. When I first start practice, I had a great mentor, Dr Neave.
And since then even doc will tell you where I bought my practice into the partnership, about 20 years ago.
So it’s been great. That’s excellent. Why did you get into chiropractic to begin with? I wonder if your story is anything like mine. Mine was initially when I was going through college. Even after still want to find a career in health care. But I don’t want to wear a lab coat. I don’t want to work in a hospital.
I don’t want to see sick people all the time. And be honest with you, being selfish. I wanted to golf at least once a week, so I want to make sure I worked up maybe 30 hours a week, took home a good income, but didn’t burn myself out. So that was initial goal. Would say once I saw a chiropractor, I’m like, you know what?
Boom. Sold. Right? Right. Career path for me. And that’s what I like to be acted like, be healthy, like to have my time along with still helping people that want to get healthy and well, that’s my plan. That’s great. How’s your golf game? It’s getting there. It’s like the more you play, the more this goes even. Or, so I tell people, Dr. Haley another 100 Instagram videos, and I’m going to be an expert.
That’s the plan. You know, I want to get back to golfing. I gave up for a I think it’s a bad reason. Okay. And. Well, you know, I started playing and all of a sudden I was slicing everything and it didn’t make sense because, you know, I remember just being able to pound it straight down the fairway. And now recently I started following some of the golfers on YouTube.
Got it. Got it. Okay. Which to me it’s more fun than watching the PGA. And you know Sunday afternoon with all the greats out there it’s more entertaining. There’s you know you’re getting to know the person on the Golf Channel. And as they’re talking you kind of pick up some tips. There’s this one guy I’ve been watching.
I can’t think of his name offhand, but one of the things he tried to do is, you know, break par with a cheap set from Costco, and he would whack the ball, and I would see it, you know, maybe break to the right more than he anticipated. And he would explain it. He said, these are cheap clubs and they’re flexing too much.
And you can see by the line on the, on the club head that you know where it hit the ball. The shaft was bent like this. And that’s why it, you know, sliced. It’s like, okay, I’ve been swinging. I didn’t know clubs had different flexes. Okay. Now I want to go get a stiff shaft and see if I can smack it down the middle again, because I’m probably just, you know, swinging rubber clubs.
That’s the thing is, when you have when you have clubs, I won’t say even fitted for you just for your average swing speed and what you want to do, it plays a lot easier even. It’s like I said, it seems I play a lot of
senior golfers too, and they have the flexible senior flex, but they’re working with ones that the able to get the whip out of it too.
So just how you play golf is everyone’s different. There’s no like one way to play golf. I didn’t know there was a thing getting fitted for clubs. Yeah, yeah especially golf I want to try. We’re known for its there’s probably one place every ten miles here. get Fitted for clubs. Yeah. Well I, you know and I just want a driver and I’ll go to top golf and that’s it.
Yeah. I don’t, you know, just build my self-confidence up that I’m a decent golfer. I’m good to go top. Golf is fun for me because, you know, you just you get to hit it and sit down and then laugh at the next person, and you don’t have to go find your ball and it doesn’t matter. But I don’t know it is.
Maybe someday I’ll get one around the corner here too. This opened up about a year and a half ago. Two years, so it’s been busy all the time. People love that place. Yeah,
it’s a good time. It’s not the same, you know? You don’t know. Yeah. You know, it’s not the peaceful get away, but it’s a different environment.
And it’s your chance right now where it’s going to, it’s going to rain all day to day. So even tomorrow maybe. So if it does mean on Thursday, it’s maybe a golf day, I’ll head there instead because it’s covered. Very cool, very cool. Well, Fun discussion. I’m going to get fitted. Okay. Let’s talk about chiropractic okay. And does that help your game?
Can you tell when you’re out of, spinal function? It’s more mobility biomechanics and how the body should move versus the way we sometimes want to make a move. So it’s and work with the patient all the time about posture position. Line up with just your swing, I guess. Want to call it circle. How you rotate your body for one, two.
So I see some golfers, outside because they’ve lost they may have a stiff low back. Boom. They go to swing and try to talk their body and boom, all sudden it pops on them or spasms on them too. So again, golfers are my job security. Perfect. I love it. Yeah. I do feel it’s like one of those things where, you know, it’s something if one joint isn’t functioning correctly because it’s a little stiff or a little tight or a little locked up.
Yeah, all the others make up for it. But if you’re off this much, you know the ball is off tremendously. Well, you know, wherever you’re not. So balance two you can that can happen to you the how fast you swing. If you have a nice rhythm, swing too. So that where your hands are it’s a lot of it is it’s once you practice enough it’s still up here.
I mean, I know some guys that are that are 4 or 5 handicaps and sometimes you’re up to 10 12 because their head gets in the way. They can’t figure it out, you know? And for me, if I start taking it too seriously, Dr. Haley, I put the club away for a couple weeks. Don’t even look at them, touch them.
And then I get the it’s a go play again. No, if it’s not fun. Why you. I had a guest and I talking about the up here. I had a guest on my show. He was talking about, getting in the present and, you know, in this case, he was talking about his son golfing,
and something that he developed called true Breath.
And he said, we’re going to use True breath. And it had to do with essentially before every swing, taking a nice deep breath and hold it for a second. I forget the exact technique, but it was kind of reconnecting with the body and, you know, getting rid of that. You know, everybody’s watching thing,
and just settling in and the letting it out, everything starts spinning in your head.
So and he explained the difference between, you know, the score before and then the next time he played practicing that and how tremendously different it was. So yeah, there’s
one of my, a guest on podcast show, he had mentioned that, Jeremy, the about doing a breathing exercise
with his clients, how to relax the body and when you have it, like, for example
So I think I said 4 or 5 breaths, five seconds in, and then 10s out allows reset the system. So you go into that, that rest relaxation state versus the fight or flight or stress state. Exactly. Yeah. Just worded differently. exactly. Yeah. And in this case he had called it True Breath. And Andrew Block was the person that developed it.
And it was very similar to what you had just described. And a lot of things, as we know, Dr. Haley, they’ve been around for thousands of years. We just bring them up once in a while to make sure people know that the human body physiology, how the body works. You want to call a body heals the body.
A lot of it has been around for those are just different languages that that we’re trying to get people understand how to stay healthy, simply. Yeah. Yeah. Now I feel like people in California are maybe a little more in-tune to things natural. I could be wrong. I happen to have an aloe vera company. All right. If you if people are watching on YouTube behind me right now, there is a picture of a field of aloe vera.
Fantastic. And we ship it all over the United States. But, you know, California is about as far away as you can get from Florida. And we literally ship more to California than we do to Florida. People want to stay healthy.
what is the benefit that you would tell someone looking to aloe vera? What’s the what’s the benefit that Californians would want?
Yeah. Well, for me, most of our business is focused on a better immune system and a healthy gut. And you know, everyone wants that because it applies to everything. Exactly. And Californians want to be healthy and they’re willing to pay for it. They understand that. They may see there a lot of people that have older parents or older family, that weren’t healthy.
And they’re going, okay, how do I avoid that? By doing something simple for my health on a daily basis. Take supplements, take some that’s going to affect you long term so your body can stay healthy for longevity and look good, too. Right? Man’s part of it is you want to make sure you look good, feel good. And Californians can they.
They’re willing to spend their money and work hard for their money, but spend on the right things, such as health versus the next toy. Yeah, yeah. I’ve grown up with that mentality, but it’s I’m not surrounded by it. Here in Florida. There’s a lot of, you know, I’d rather get my face tightened up than, you know, there’s a lot of people are more concerned about how they look, but not their health on the inside.
They want to look healthy, but not necessarily be healthy. When people are looking to go, how do I live in my stick into my 60s, 70s and 80s, even 90s in a healthy quality of life, right? I even do. I do some other side work too. A lot of it is want to people to stay healthy, you have to take care of your health now for the next 20, 30, 40 years.
And people understand that they want to look good. That’s fine. But what do you do on the inside? So you can stay independent? You can maintain your own health once you get to the point where and realize health care. California is expensive for people individually because of copays, deductibles, they’re they know they’re going to pay out of pocket and why would I pay out of pocket for medications just to block the symptoms of feeling good or bad.
Sorry feeling bad versus actually heal the problem, make my body feel bad. Find the underlying cause through Aloe Vera through supplements through vitamins. If you ask me one time, what to take on like you get what’s best for you at that point. Not only take it today, but take it long. Run. That point your body can stay healthy.
Don’t matter what state you’re in health, state, mental state, physical state, anything. Yeah, I kind of feel like chiropractors have been on that line of thinking far before the term functional medicine Really medicine. Yep. Exactly. Both. Yeah. And it’s, thinking, okay, this is your symptom. And if I treat this symptom, I could make you think you’re healthy because you don’t have the symptom.
Or I can find the cause of the symptom and figure out how to address that, whether it’s getting something out of your life that’s causing it or, you know, rehabilitating, strengthening, improving, making it more flexible, work like it’s supposed to. Well, a lot of it is. I think people
once they see chiropractor, their chiropractor as getting them out of the chronic pain, which they’ve had to take medication
for sometimes weeks and months.
then you have a chance to open a window. Okay, what else? You want to get healthy? Let’s find out what the cause of your chronic pain was. Let’s fix that posture issue, if that’s what it was or how much you don’t do or increase your stretching and increase flex bending or what else can I do?
And it’s almost continuing to fine tune, fine tune their health. once you give them that that bit of hope medication isn’t always the answer. I can actually do things to my own health, walk, stretch, exercise on a daily habit basis to me to get my health better and stay. But that’s why patients come in to my office for last.
They’ve been to my office for 15, 20 years because they see the benefit of chiropractic. But also me being there just they’re verbal guided coach. Hey, what are you doing for your health? How’s your diet? How is nutrition? Well, you stretch today. I’m like, yeah, because I know you’re coming in, but are you stretching every day that I don’t see you also?
So I try to make them more accountable for their own health was I can’t diet for you? I can do I do my own stretch, I can time for your stretches. Can you make sure you strengthening for you? And
I’ll give you the tools. I’ll send you videos how to stretch, what to do for your body based on your xrays based on your lifestyle.
What’s going on for one two. But you have to do the work. Yeah, I completely agree with that approach because I don’t feel it’s my job to get the patient well. If it was well, you’re going to have to come three times a week forever because I have to make sure your spine stays functioning at its maximum potential all the time.
And if you’re not doing anything to maintain that, you know it. You’re going to need me before two days from now. And part of it, too, is
you go to your doctor sometimes takes 2 or 3 weeks just to see your doctor. So that just a video call I had a patient here yesterday and goes, yeah, I’ve been seeing my doctor for about 3 or 4 months now.
Postpartum, had a baby back in October, and he doesn’t want do anything about my back pain. I go, well, it’s not bad enough yet. And he looks at me and she says, I don’t want to Take medication well
he has no answer for you then. Until you have neuropathy down the leg where you need PRP shots, cortisone shots, maybe surgery.
What do you want them to do?
that’s not what they do.
I told my patient before. Let’s fix your back. That will calm the chronic pain down. So now your body and your mind can handle more stretching work says get yourself healthy again versus the short term. We’re going to go back and forth, back and forth.
to your doctor and get no results. Yeah. And for people listening, you know when we talk about medications, it’s not that we’re 100% against medication. There’s a time and there’s a place for it, but if you’re using the medicine, you have to say, okay, why do I need this medicine? Because we need to address the problem. So you don’t need it anymore.
You know, if you’re on to something that’s lowering your blood pressure. Well, why is your blood pressure so high? Do we want to just take. Is it because you have a, a lack of blood pressure medicine, and therefore you’re supposed to be taking this the rest of your life? Let’s do what we need to do.
Make sure your weight is proper. Let’s make sure
your spine is functioning like it’s supposed to. Make sure you’re getting good rest, good nutrition, exercise. You know, let’s figure out what’s lacking in your life and get it fixed. What I always ask a patient first thing before that too Dr. Haley is, do you want to change something?
Do you want this to come back, or do you want to get better so it stays better? There you go. I want to get better. Good. Do you want to do the work? There you go. What’s work going to be? it’s going to be this, this, this and this. And slowly, over time, build up a habit of doing it every day.
So does become work. Are you okay with that? What’s the time frame? I’ll go usually about three months now. Not just seen chiropractic, but as you get better again, back up chiropractic as you do the stretches. Exercise, strengthen, change your diet. If you need to. That point is going to be your job. to do that. Are you okay with that?
They go, wow, I’m like, no sir, that’s fine. Just to keep taking the meds when you get tired. That medic another med for one two, but keep refilling your stuff
and I always ask them, we you go to the pharmacy, how people looked. They look healthy or they look sick. They go to kind of look sick. I’m like, well, that will be you.
And if I say, if you’re 30, that’ll be you. In ten years when you’re 40, there you go. Really? I’m like, it’s up to you. I said, I look, I do what I have to do to get healthy. It’s not easy. It’s work. It’s like you said, getting up early every day. You workout in and watch your diet, watch your water, everything you got to do.
But it’s life.
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And no, absolutely. Have Arnold Schwarzenegger didn’t get, fit in.
one visit to the gym now hours I remember I watched this. He had some short videos couple years ago. He’s like short videos on Instagram or
Facebook. It’s like, oh, poor baby, you’ve got your earbud. You can’t go to the gym today. It’s too cold outside.
Oh poor baby. Then don’t get strong. Just stay home and do nothing. You know it’s putting the work in no matter how you feel, because your body requires it. Yeah, but it takes time to get to that point based on how severe someone is away from health. Then getting back to what they require to maintain, I don’t want to see you every day
once you’re healthy, you have the better state of health.
You’re going to know when to come and see me. You know, when something’s off. And I, as you know, doctor everyone,
has different symptoms. It might be their neck gets tight, their back gets tight. They had a little numbness in their fingers, you know, or their toes. So the, you know, your symptom when it was gone.
I want to make sure my patients understand, how to help them learn how to become their best doctor themselves. So they don’t have to see me. Yeah. Yeah. So what is chiropractic for the layperson? That doesn’t really get it. How would you describe what it is, what it does, and why people would need it? Good. Chiropractic as a treatment allows adjustment of bones.
I just keep it real simple. Adjustment of bones allow relief of nerve pressure. Increase muscle flexibility, increase ligaments flexibility, make your body obviously feel better and over time reset your nervous system so it stays in a relaxed state. Instead of the stress state where your body always tenses up, maybe throughout the day.
your nerves affect your mind also.
So at that point you have more of a positive outlook of what you have to do to get yourself healthy that day. And over time, as you maintain chiropractic, with stretching, with exercising, you maintain a healthier state of overall health so your body can
Stay healthy, avoid arthritis, avoid neuropathy. Avoid long term physical conditions by doing that for years and years, years and even decades.
Yeah, and let’s dig a little deeper on that. And I’m reminded of a comedian that I went to see when I was in chiropractic school. So. And which means we’re talking about 1990. Yeah. And I’m completely entertained by this guy. And he’s talks about when he went to the doctor and the doctors, you know, tapping on me and stuff.
What’s he doing? You know, we call out to poke-man and what kind of doctor are you? You know, I’m studying to be a chiropractor. He says, oh, chiropractor? You guys think you can heal a heart attack with stretching exercises? And everyone laughed. And I did too. Yeah. Like. Yeah. That’s, because it’s not stretching exercises. The chiropractic adjustment.
Well, there’s a difference. Not that we can heal the heart attack, but the chiropractic adjustment is much bigger than, popping, cracking noise. And you had mentioned numbness. Some people will have numbness or tingling or a little less sensation and their fingertips or their toes, or maybe in the back of their head or wherever the case it is.
And that’s a slight interference with a nerve that stops it from functioning as it should. So that sensation is actually missing. It’s being blocked, the signals not getting there just because of a little tension. And I’ve had that, I don’t know. That’s why I became a chiropractor. I was a just bad chiropractor, when I was working as a chemist and healed my back.
Yeah. Now, as a kid, when I experienced it, it was because my, you know, legs were crossed funny or something like that, or I, you know, was resting my arm and there was being pressure put on that particular nerve. And I, you know, lift my arm up and shake it off. And then eventually the feeling would come back.
Yeah. But now that I’m older and we’ve had our history of injuries and stuff, sometimes we get that tension in our spine and the nerve is being irritated and we get that numbness. And for me, if I have that and I get the chiropractic adjustment, it’s an instant release of that nerve pressure. But I bet you have a story or two where a patient had maybe a nerve that was pinched, possibly going to an organ.
We mentioned even the even the heart attack too. I had a patient, actually, two patients come in and they said, I have chest pain. I’m like, okay, first of all, have you seen a cardiologist? Have they cleared your heart issue? Yes. Not my heart. I go, fantastic. You know, it’s not that. So I tell them when do you feel the chest pain is and they go when I’m stressed I’m like perfect.
You’re perfect. Chiropractic candidate booms get you adjusted so
we’re able to reset like I talked earlier, reset their nervous system to a lower, healthier, relaxed state so they don’t have their symptom of maybe neuropathy, numbness, tingling, burning, sharp pain down the arm, down the leg, or in her sense was more the chest pain. So it’s finding out is there is there a link between their stressor and their symptoms.
So when I adjust you does your heart feel better? Yes. I always clarify because the nerves from your back I something the back T3, T4 go into the heart. Even
your vagus nerve too
from your cranial nerve ten goes to your heart. Also making it relax.
So maybe just your symptoms, your heart, but your overall body, all your organs, all your muscles.
Now get to relax state. You mentioned you when you get adjusted
It goes away immediately. I always clarify I go, that’s why it’s neuropathy. Because if it wasn’t we’d have to do massage, physical therapy, stretching exercises to release it. But that one adjustment instantaneously, as you told me, patient number one would ever at that point. And I said that automatically went away.
I said, that’s neuropathy. We adjust the spine release to this pressure. Nerve calms down immediately, may not stay there, but we can get it started. So we know we are on the right
approach to getting you healthy. Yeah. Now it doesn’t always go away with one adjustment and sometimes it might even be worse the next day. And a lot of it is you have to explain to them that’s what he’s asking.
Go. You’re go. You’re maybe okay now. I mean, I feel good now. Let’s say the next 24, 48 hours, it’s your work pops up
sometimes overstretched ligaments or muscles like the first time working out. And you might be a little sore because things are so tight. Can release that pressure over time.
So as you know, you want to get health. You want to get better. Now, over time, you’ll get better. You know, be a quick fix for you because it’s been so bad. So make sure over time you improve so your health gets better and stays better. Yeah, I’ve always felt pretty good about it. And I’ll tell my patients, you know, if you feel a difference in this exact area where you’re having a problem, whether it’s numbness in your fingertips or pain in the neck or whatever the case is, and I make a change to the spine and that exact symptom is changed.
Well, now, you know, I adjusted exactly the right place. If I took something that was so stuck and released it and almost had to tear through scar tissue, there might be some new inflammation in there that takes up space. It takes up space, swelling takes up space, and it could pressure that nerve. But now you’re moving and I give you the exercises.
We’re going to pump the inflammation. Get it out of there. You’re going to do better I think when given that that step by step process,
you’re being transparent with the expectation of how the body’s going to heal for them, not just everybody, because you know their body better than anybody else. Yeah, it’s definitely a fun thing.
I remember one of my earliest patients and it was, an infant, and a friend of mine who was, dating someone that had a young infant, and she was completely skeptical about chiropractic. And this friend, he was really actually a patient. And you kind of become friends with your patients, get to know them. Personal. Professional. Yep.
And he convinced her to bring this infant to me. And with Erb’s palsy, from a from a difficult birth and she was very skeptical and. Well, let me let me see
your baby. And I remember putting her on my shoulder like this. And my hands immediately went to palpate the atlas. And I felt an immediate like giving away just through palpation.
It was like, oops. Oh, I feel a little because you paused like, okay, what happened? Yeah. Well, no, I knew I did it exactly right. But I know this is not going to look good for my skeptical mother here. So it’s like I is like, you know, instantly, like within a second I handed the infant back and I said, she’s done.
Yeah. And
she’s like, oh yeah. And that’s going to do something, you know, and looking at her boyfriend is this, you know, guy’s crazy. She called back a couple hours later crying because Ashley was using her hand for the first time, not doing push ups or anything like that. But you know, she sees her starting to use her hand as she’s, you know, trying to crawl around.
And the physical therapist, what did you do? What’s going on? You know, but for me, it was awkward because it was it was accidental that in palpation that I actually adjusted and I could tell it was perfect and I knew it was perfect. And I was a young chiropractor. I’d only been practicing by that time, like, maybe two years.
Yeah. Yeah. Now, what’s it like now compared to back then? Do you remember, like, trying to feel things and figure out a what the problem was my first adjustment. Was my roommate.
not a chiropractor. Chris Eden and I had him. I had my portable table. I well, I had portable tables back then. Go practice at home when your friends down there won’t see you, hopefully.
And I and I hit his back really hard just with a passive form contact. Boom. And it popped. I ran in the room for like, maybe a minute. Says ran on like, yes, I got my first one out of the way. Now it’s like I do now between 67 people a day. I’m like, yeah, no, it’s my normal day, remember one?
story to the same thing. Moms and babies are great. I’ve seen the moms either pre-birth or
even after birth too, one of my first ones. When I bought into a practice, I adjusted a mom in the morning. Husband came in, also had not slept basically since their baby was born. Probably a good month or so.
So I adjusted her and her neck popped really well. Or no, I adjusted really well
and also I said, go home, relax, put some ice on it. And here’s I always say, here’s my number. If you have any questions, call me or call the office. That point I want to make sure the first 24 hours or 48 hours they have access to.
Now ask the questions they may have forgot to ask medical amnesia. When they leave the office within two hours, the husband calls. It goes, husband calls me and goes, my wife can’t wake up. I’m like, crap, what’s my malpractice insurance coverage again? What’s my what’s my name? And I said, well, you. She was catching up on her sleep.
Yeah. yes i said, okay, did you try to wake her?
is she breathing? he goes Yeah. What happens? if you try to wake her. She’s real grouchy. Then let her sleep. She’s exhausted. But when you’re first in practice, you’re like, okay. Because in school they at least out here, they always go if you do something wrong, give you this.
They almost like, scare you to even address somebody. That’s why I had good mentors. They say, don’t worry about it, be fine. But a lot of it is you get those and then like, what’s going on? I even had people before too they’re two weeks past their due date of delivery. Come in for the adjustment. Boom. That day they had their baby.
Yeah. It’s just amazing how
chiropractic help someone release that stress that tension. So now they get back to normal state of health and instantly, yeah, yeah, it you know, seeing that many patients today, for those listening, do the math with each patient you might move more than one bone neck, mid-back, low back, boom boom on both sides.
But sometimes you want the neck. That’s fine. That’s almost like so you know, if you did five different adjustments per patient, they’re keeping the math easy. Let’s say 50 patients. Yeah that’s 250 adjustments in a day times maybe five days a week, three days a week. Keep three days. We’ll say four days a week. We’ll just say a thousand adjustments per week.
And let’s pretend there were only 50 weeks in the year because, hey, we, you know, round. Okay. Round five. Yep. Well, you start thinking about how many adjustments per year and that you’ve been practicing over 20, 25 years. Something like that. Yep, yep. All right. Mathematically, that’s an incredible number of chiropractic adjustments. And I think it’s funny because on YouTube, you know, people will critique the chiropractor.
Oh they’re doing the same thing to everyone. It could look the same. Yeah, it could look the same. But when we’ve moved that many bones, it’s instant. Our hand goes to the right place because it’s feeling everything at the same time. And, it pushes very, very specifically and accurately. It’s a, you know, a seasoned professional, like when we see people on, you know, YouTube performing their skill, that that’s all they’ve ever done, whether it’s cutting coconuts or stitching on, patches on shirts, you know, or whatever the case is, it’s like, well, how do they do that?
They’ve been doing it, for years, unconsciously.
when you walk in a room, you know, the person ready, you can see their spine, your head, it just the file opens up for me. Boom. Okay, I can go here, here, here. They had this last time. Headache. Here. Occiput. Their side joint dropped on the left for one two.
You have it in your head.
what the steps are.
and I do a leg length check. I do a shoulder check for one, two. I do other things and sometimes every time based on their leg length, what they have going on. But a lot of it is okay. I know the person. Everything you’re going on, cool, lay downs, get you adjusted,
make sure I got everything.
I’ll double check everything. let me know, if it feels good, boom.
We’re done in less than five minutes. When you have that
you want to call that recall, you can do. But again we talked about earlier it’s waking up early getting exercise and do your stretches. Get your body read your mind ready to. So now
you’re ready to walk in the office and boom knockout 50 people in three hours.
Just knock them and go, man, you know, a new patient here. Boom boom boom. It’s almost like you when I expect that
I’m more like, why am I sitting down right now? I should be standing seeing another person. Boom. It’s something you have to. And again, practice. What is it being an expert. It’s time knowledge and that’s combination.
So as the more time you have with people, seeing patients gives you that expertise to now know, even though you helped Johnny six months ago okay. What’s going on with Johnny boom? I got him. Let’s get him treated. Boom. Get him out here. You don’t have to waste time. You know I do. My course, too. When I do my lecture, my speaking, it’s the adjustment technique.
But part of that is the pre adjustment Take care of yourself first, that point, you can take care of your patients. Yeah. Now, when’s the last time you got an adjustment? A week ago. I do, once a week, minimum, based on my workouts. Sometimes more based on my goals. Help my mind out, based more. Yeah. But minimum and I to work with a partner too.
So makes it easier for me. Hey, doc. Boom! Let’s get me. Let’s get each other adjusted. Yeah, yeah. Now you know who Sid Williams is. Yes. Sid Williams, one of the most, vocal chiropractors. Yeah. Very known in the up until the I don’t know, I think he passed maybe in the late 90s or early 2000 I think.
Yeah. But you know, author and, Speaker two A lot of the chiropractors teaching them chiropractic philosophy. I do remember seeing him at one of the chiropractic conventions where we were getting our CIUs, and one of the older guys was adjusting Sid Williams and, you know, Sid Williams’s face down. And it was humorous because we’re all gathered around watching Sid Williams, the master, get adjusted.
And he asked the guy, he said, what are you doing? And the guy goes, I’m feeling for a hard spot.
And Sid said, well, what are you going to do if you find one? He said, I’m going to push on it, which was hysterical because it kind of dumbs down chiropractic. But the reality is, a seasoned chiropractor,
when he puts the hands on anyone you know without moving a hand, you could say, what are you feeling right now?
Well, I can feel your shirt. I can feel your temperature. I can feel the tone of the musculature. I can feel the your heart beating. You know, there’s a lot I can feel. Movement from your breath. You know, you feel all of these different things. And part of your hand could feel one tension. And part of your hand can feel another tension at the same time.
And you’re processing all of this instantly because you’ve done it thousands and thousands of times. And I think
I say chiropractic are more artist also because every artist is different, we can all move bones differently. Based on the chiropractor, based on the patient also. So how do you develop your art over time?
I’ll look at, for example, football players. It looks like they’re doing like just their every day daily drill. But they’ve done it again thousands of times. They work on their body every day. It looks simple and easy.
any sport, even golfers to but for but they spend hours and hours and hours of not developing their craft but maintaining that practice, keeping their body and shape to be their mind.
The goal set
sports psychologist in general. They’re so busy now because people want their head straight to realize most of the problems are between your two ears not in your swing, not in your throat, not in your not in your biomechanics.
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who are some of your favorite guests on your podcast?
There’s one, a Dr. Bryan, chiropractor. He’s in his late 70s now, down the street from me a real local guy. He has been practice for over 40 years, so he’s more of
like someone we ever know. Someone who’s older, like in their 90s, but they’re healthy physically, mentally. I go, what’s your secret? What do you do that made you maintain that passion of being a chiropractor?
Healthy, healthy guy.
He rides motorcycle all the time to what is your secret? So I can take notes and then hopefully get to your point of view. You know, happy guy wants to retire,
his wife just retired a couple years ago. He’s like, I love my practice. She wants to travel more, so I kind of want to sell it to move on next thing.
But he has been there
for 20, 30 years. It just follow him because his personality, like yourself too. It’s the positivity of being a chiropractor and helping people long term so your body can stay healthy. When you have that passion, people know you’re being genuine. If you’re going in for the money, doing PI or whatever you want to do or whatever, but you really want to help people.
I call it a family practice because you can help the family generational over time. So you see the parents, kids, grandparents, great grandkids for one two, you’re seeing everyone line up to get healthy for the long run. I think that’s the goal is
that was probably my recent favorite one. I’ve had other ones who have been great.
It is something to wear. I always pick something from someone, even if it’s not chiropractic. Well, how are they helping people? What’s their what’s your goal? And they always talk about to the autonomic system how the nerve system works, even their own field for one. But it’s almost like
that carry over to chiropractic is really about just true health.
How do we get there, maintain it at that point, make sure other people know how to get it to, you know, that’s what it comes down to.
Number one, of you patient, if you want to call it source is just referrals. You know, you take care of people.
They’ll send there because
everyone’s going to have back pain, neck pain. Right. Sometimes in life. Where are you going to go?
where you do you trust someone or you know someone who’s gone somewhere they can trust? Like a mechanic you want the person referral to. They can get that trust. Yeah, yeah.
What would you say to someone that’s listening but has never been to a chiropractor? Maybe they were told, you know, I’m. I went to a chiropractor and he hurt me or something like that. I always ask them, what I was ask them. What? What do they do? What kind of problems you had? Did it require in our mind, an x ray, something that kind of diagnosed probably.
Maybe. Maybe severe neuropathy for one two. But it’s almost like find someone and find someone that, you know, you can trust
and give them a quick checklist. What does a chiropractor do? Does he take X-rays if needed for one two? How long do you spend time with the patient? How long is the initial exam?
So you get an idea of who they are, you know? And by putting videos out like this to we understand we you get the sense of that doctor’s personality. And do they really care what it comes down to. And it’s
a lot of is darkness very questionable. But
can the patient see that doctor he cares about getting you there?
Even in his office, but getting you better no matter what’s going on with your body? Yeah, chiropractic is one of those things that, you know, even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good. You know, it’s one of the safest healing professions, which is why our malpractice insurance costs, you know, a pinch compared to what medical doctors have to pay.
It’s like it’s like anesthesiologist the highest malpractice because they have the highest risk so correlated with the lowest I’ve had. So we have the lowest risk. And
I think sometimes chiropractors when I talk about seminars too is the communication isn’t there. That’s not taught in schools out here on the West Coast. It’s about passing the boards, get your boards done.
Good luck in the world. You know, it’s almost like you have to learn communication on your own, which is fine. But doing it early enough interns in my office from the local high schools and colleges, they come in to learn the bedside manner. How do you get that down? So no matter who walks in the door, an angry patient, a happy patient.
Whatever’s going on with their life, you can help them realize, hey, this is just going to help you with your what you feel stressed about right now. Yeah, yeah, it’s a good word. It’s communication.
It’s not that they got hurt from a chiropractor. The chiropractor explain. It can like we talked about earlier, it can make it sore to where we have to break things up.
It has to be communicate that way. Yeah. I didn’t quite have that bedside manner when I first started either, for sure. Me either I didn’t want to get the phone. I’m like, just lie down. I don’t know, just lie down. But the thing is, it’s almost you have to develop that to be communicating. Look at practice, and again. 2025 it is right now people still don’t know what we do and why.
Because they’ve been down the medical route now. They’re desperate. That hasn’t help them. They want relief. Now that point they’re desperate to see a chiropractor finally, you know, I show them an x ray. They go, is that the back?
So we’ll have to explain exactly what the bones are to you.
Now, you know, but something where I want people to spend the first visit actually remember what the problem is, where it’s coming from. So they get a sense of being respected to, you know, versus going to your medical doctor especially here in California, you have five minutes. You have 5 minutes to tell doctor everything. Okay, okay, here’s the pill. I’ll see you in three months.
You know, they want someone to listen to. They want something to build trust with. And I may see someone maybe just once, but I gave the best I could as a new patient. Because you’re traveling or something. Because now, you know, chiropractic is. Yeah. How did you come up with the show name, The Crooked Spine? I don’t remember.
Maybe I saw a spine somewhere, maybe, something like that. As an inspiration, I woke up, I’m like, Crooked Spine show we’re good, you know? But a lot of it is. It’s maybe could be something else. It’s just doing it and doing it over and over and over again. So it’s on. I’ll mention something in podcast right now or YouTube, YouTube videos, from my podcast.
It just it’s adding more and more to whenever I can being on shows. I have my own show for one, too so people understand what health care is. I’ve done well enough. I, I could not retire tomorrow, but practicing solid. But how do I now give back to people that want to get healthy, don’t know how to get healthy or
as a host of a show?
Bring someone on that can help promote their book, their business, meet a lot of chiropractors too. What you do in their office to get them the exposure for their people. Like you know, being a podcaster, people from all over the US through Europe. I had a show lined up for Thailand, but there’s so much power issues there.
I was like, they wouldn’t have never happened for one two, you know, it’s expands your ability to help more people. They may not want they might not even need chiropractic, but they know where to do other things. And I’m learning to wright I learn more things from my sometimes my guest, based on what I can incorporate in my practice and my own personal health, to now live a healthier life and be example for my patients.
Yeah, if you ever want to be a master of something, teach it. Yeah, yeah. And you learn as you go. But Is also people that I think about doing podcast were made then 1 or 2 shows and quit. It’s going to take time. You know, it’s not the ROI is going to be low. It always is. But are you happy doing it?
If there is no ROI? I personally I definitely enjoy, podcasting. I love having guests on like yourself where, you know, iron sharpens iron. Yes. And you get to learn from every single guest some little nugget. And for the audience who maybe can’t tune into every podcast, every podcast, they’re getting tons of nuggets. So hopefully and all it is,
it’s when someone needs a chiropractor or health advice, they’re going to search a podcast or YouTube channel or some platform.
So when you’re on there consistently, then you can reach them when they need you. You know, that’s what it’s like to be a good are you a consumer of podcasts or other? I have my own. I use overcast as my podcast app and I do. I do everything from health care to, history, to finance anything. I like to go for long walks and or play golf, like you’d said at that point put a podcast on, I’ll go for a drive, put podcast on.
Yeah. You know, I’m not one of those guys in the gym. I always have my headphones in, but they’re not actually in there like bone conduction. So they kind of sit on the outside. Got it got waterproof, which is great because you can swim with them. Yes. But I’m always listening to a podcast when I work out. But it’s not like listening to music where if someone talks to you, you have to turn it down.
Yeah, yeah, you can hear everything around you still. So you’re taking in the podcast, but you’re not, you know, shutting everyone else off. And it’s kind of obvious when you have the little white things dangling out of your ears. It’s like, oh, no, you know,
I’m not here right now. And for me, I like to work out, like, just get in, get out for one.
Two had on earbud, then boom, get in and get out. Go. No, no. But it’s something everyone has their own little taste to it. But when can you learn something new or anything? I tell people to
my students, my interns is you have to listen to an hour of a podcast to get maybe five minutes out that can be useful for you many times you come to my office, we’re not seeing a patient actually rotate them.
Here’s a podcast. Here’s a YouTube video to watch. And
what are you going to get from it? Give me a give me a one minute spiel of what you got from it. So I’m learning. I’m helping them learn how to learn from different people using my guests that they can pick stuff up. So learning that versus just book knowledge.
Yeah, yeah,
we got some book knowledge but let’s apply it. It’s nice, it’s nice. But
how do you implement it into your life at that point. Make it part of your life. So you can enjoy that benefit long term and give yourself time to I said
it’s not a race. I people actually do the marathon this weekend.
But for something to work you take time to train your brain how to learn. And again, you’re in school, so focus on that. People that are I have two that are thinking about being become a chiropractor, and will work in my office down the line is to getting them to realize, do your book knowledge. Now get out of the way.
Get the boards out of the way. Then when you get close to that, we’ll talk about in the office more what things you read on your own. I even wrote down when I had a mentor, that we really paid for. I have like 3 or 4 notepads of information
that I just wrote everything down. And I still repeat myself these days.
Live is mindset, but still coaching programs for one. And how do you get people to again communicate with the next patient?
how they can chiropractor help them over time and then learn and do that daily and daily basis. But takes time doesn’t happen overnight, takes time. It takes time. Well, hey, Doctor Tony, I want to thank you for joining us today and imparting your wisdom, to my audience for those that want to get in touch with, Doctor Tony, I’m going to make sure I have links.
Good. Either, you know, in the description of whatever platform you’re on, you’ll be able to visit the website. What’s your website? Website is euclidchiropracticinc.com And you’ll have my links to my Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and just my cell phone number two on my office cell phone number. And I give every my patient my cellphone number, but no one calls me Dr. Haley.
I Think they don’t like me, that ‘s what it is. I don’t know. Well, I love to communicate a patient. I’m Southern California, I’m in upland, you know, Ontario airport. That’s our kind of our base, for one. But if you had needs, if you need help, find a chiropractor, your area or health advice. One, two. I’m all ears. I like helping people internationally if need be, just to get people healthy.
Yeah, yeah. Check out the, The Crooked Spine Show on Apple, on iTunes, on Spotify, Amazon, wherever you absorb your podcasts. I listened to one this morning when I was working out nice. And, it was, with the Dr. Vrzal the headache. Yeah. Yes, I did interview with him, from my podcast. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Good.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then hit and then Doctor Crippen afterwards, too. Real good guy in the Midwest. He has a new book out and he’s younger doc too. Really good guy. And the philosophy of just
how health should work. So he was a good one. Listen to also I just my recommendation I’m chiropractic subjective. I guess that’ll be my next one.
Good. Thank you. For what. Listen it yeah it just it’s very good to information out there. People will find when they’re ready for one two.
but do it more because you like to do it podcasting YouTube whatever it is. Two videos because you should benefit your patients. Really want to help them get healthier? Yeah. People get adjusted.
Yes. Thank you Dr. Tony. You’re welcome back. Keep up the good work on your end, my friend.
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