Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman
Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman is presented by The Mac Parkman Foundation
The mission of this show and the foundation is To serve as a source of information, resources, and communications to the community of parents, coaches/Athletic trainers, medical staff, and athletes that are affected by sports-related concussions and to raise awareness of the long-term implications of concussive and sub-concussive trauma to our children.
Broken Brains will also explore how Concussive Trauma impacts our Service Members and Veterans.
Join us every week as Bruce interviews leaders and experts in various Medical fields, as well as survivors of Concussive trauma.
Broken Brains with Bruce Parkman
Dr. Eric Reis: How vulnerable is your brain?
Ever wondered how an athlete transforms into a leading brain health advocate? Join us as we sit down with Dr. Eric Reis, who shares his compelling journey from sports fields to the forefront of neuroscience. Dr. Reis sheds light on the silent epidemic of concussions, debunking common myths and emphasizing the importance of brain health awareness. Listen as he recounts his personal experiences with sports-related concussions that ignited his passion for understanding and treating brain injuries, hoping to educate both the public and the medical community.
The vulnerability of the brain, particularly in children and veterans, takes center stage in our discussion. We examine how repetitive head impacts and blast exposures can lead to unpredictable outcomes, despite protective gear. Dr. Reis uses vivid analogies to illustrate the brain's fragility and stresses the urgent need for diverse therapeutic interventions. From the challenges of traditional treatments to the financial burdens hindering access to advanced therapies, this episode aims to inspire broader recognition of brain health's critical importance.
In our quest for comprehensive treatment solutions, we delve into alternative therapies often overlooked by the conventional medical system. Dr. Reis discusses promising interventions like ayahuasca, photo biomodulation, and vagus nerve stimulation, and highlights the systemic barriers preventing their widespread adoption. We also tackle the pressing issues faced by veterans and first responders, emphasizing the necessity for legislative changes to facilitate access to life-changing therapies. Concluding with a heartfelt exchange of gratitude, this episode underscores a shared commitment to driving societal change for better brain health.
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Welcome to another edition of the Broken Brains podcast. I'm your host, bruce Parkman, where we address the issues of repeated head impacts, repeated blast exposure, mild traumatic brain injury and their impacts on our brains, our children's brains, our veterans' brains, our athletes' brains and the ties to mental illness that we're just uncovering. And by reaching out to researchers and veterans and people who have been suffering and people that bring scientific awareness to this podcast, to you, our audience, is what we're all about to educate, to advocate and make you aware. So today we have another amazing guest on our program, dr Eric Ries. Welcome to the show there, dr Eric Ries, and a little bit about Dr Ries.
Speaker 1:He received his doctorate in chiropractic from Northwestern Health Sciences University and he has an emphasis in human motor performance in both athletic and therapeutic sessions. And chiropractic from Northwestern Health Sciences University, and he has an emphasis in human motor performance in both athletic and therapeutic sessions. He currently holds a diplomat in functional neurology from the American Chiropractic Neurology Board and is a certified brain injury specialist through the Brain Injury Association of America, which we'll be talking a lot on that subject here. He's completed thousands of hours of additional postgraduate coursework on using clinical applications and therapeutic interventions in the neurological and nutritional rehabilitation of traumatic brain injuries, which is what this podcast is all about. He's also a lecturer for Erconia, a cutting-edge medical device that has a boatload of patents to approve, patents for low-level laser therapy and photobiomodulation devices, which is some of the new techniques to treat in the brain that we are very, very interested in, as a lot of these are out of pocket, not covered by insurance. So, dr Reese, welcome to the show man. I cannot thank you enough for coming on today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Bruce, thank you for allowing me to come on and thank you for what you're doing for the community as a whole. I think that it's powerful and this needs to be shouted from the rooftop. So I'm grateful to be joining you. I really appreciate that.
Speaker 1:So let's start, man. I mean, how did you get into brain health? I mean, you started out obviously you've got, you know, a doctorate in chiropractic. You know, uh, you know, you know treatments and stuff. But what got you into brain health? Cause you've got an amazing represent resume. When it comes to, you know, dealing with our primary issue on this show, which is how do we heal the brain, is how do we heal the brain?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, all of it started just growing up. I mean, my story was my first love was sports. So I played ice hockey and soccer, football for those who are watching throughout the rest of the world for most of my life. And so playing contact sports, taking hits to the head, having those subconcussive hits and having that essentially be most of my life really had an impact on me, right. So I learned so much playing sports, winning as a team, losing as a team, winning individually, playing individually and I'm so grateful for those.
Speaker 2:But what I realized over time was the fact that I was relatively fortunate and the fact that I had friends and colleagues, individuals that I was playing with, who had concussions that were season-ending, career-ending, life-changing in some way, shape or form. And so playing sports and eventually going to undergrad, getting a degree in exercise science. I was fortunate enough to do research in a neuroscience lab for a couple of years looking at movement disorders, and right away I knew that the brain, for me, was the final frontier and that's what I wanted to study and understand for my entire life. So I went to chiropractic school. I learned a lot about the brain and the body and went straight into neurology, because I knew that being a patient first and doctor second, and now an advocate third, would change the way that I treated my patients, and so it's kind of been a lifelong journey and a self-fulfilling prophecy for the lack of better term.
Speaker 1:You know, and it's so important because when you talk to neurologists, you know they're like, hey, do your kids play contact sports? You're like, oh hell, no Right, I mean they, you know they're, they, they know what, what happens, or they know how to make it safer. Yet it's so hard to get them to shout from the rooftops as you, as you said a little bit earlier. So, uh, you know what, what's you know outside of the experience with your friends, um, you know how have you shouted from the rooftops? I mean, you've been out there, you speak, you've, you've done a lot of public speaking. Um, I mean, I think it's amazing. Uh, what, what motivated you to get out there and and and, uh, and start, you know, bringing attention to this issue?
Speaker 2:I think one of the things I realized in practice right away was the fact that there are a lot of people who are struggling with this silent epidemic that is concussions, brain injuries, mental health, whatever you are dealing with or whatever you want to label it. A lot of people are struggling and they can't necessarily do the passionate caring, shouting from the rooftops that they want to do themselves, and so to be a vector or a vehicle to help those individuals have a voice and have a say was something that I became very passionate about early on, and I also realized, too, that a lot of people who even are in this space are also relatively uneducated about the subconcussive impacts Every one of the things you have to hit your head to have a head injury right. We know now that that's actually not true. People think that most head injuries happen in sports and sport events. We know that that's unfortunately not always true.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of kind of myths that we thought about head injuries and concussions that have kind of been disproven, and I think the science is still relatively early on really what we're truly dealing with, and so I was just motivated just to be a resource and somebody who was out there, hopefully taking the lead on communicating and educating, but also challenging the way that we think and what I've realized is being out there on the forefront and communicating and being an educator. I've learned so much in the process as well, too, that have challenged my thoughts and my beliefs, and so that, once again, has been something that's been a really interesting feedback loop for myself. So I just realized that if there weren't many people out there talking about it, we had to change that mentality, and I was ready to be a part of that.
Speaker 1:Well, that's so exciting because we need that. We need more voices out there. We need more people, you know, talking about, you know this issue. Now, while we're on this issue, you know, a lot of our listeners are parents, they are soldiers, they are whatever, and, and they and they are, just like you said, right, the science is, is, is, is is just new, which is kind of to me appalling as the father of a lost child to know that. You know, my son's condition was prevented, right, it was if I was aware, if I knew what I knew. Now, like our motto, we should have known, right. Yet the science is, you know, relatively new.
Speaker 1:We start talking about this. So the you know, but a lot of it is like. So explain to our audience how vulnerable is the brain, because everybody thinks like, ah, you know, but a lot of it is like, so explain to our audience how vulnerable is the brain, cause everybody thinks like, ah, you know, it's in a, it's in a hard bone, he's, I'll put a helmet on my head, you know, no problem, man, let me get out there and just get some right. But you know, tell parents you know about, you know your position on the brain from the point of vulnerability, fragility and the importance of that brain to their child's future.
Speaker 2:It's an interesting conversation because when I grew up and playing hockey and soccer, you know, in the nineties, early two thousands, you know there were these things that came out where you'd have new mouth guards, you'd have new helmets and they were touted to do exactly what you had alluded to, which is that they would eliminate your chances or they would decrease the probability of you having a concussion, and unfortunately, what we found is that actually didn't pan out and it wasn't factually true. Now, helmets are absolutely invaluable, without a doubt, for stopping you from smashing your skull open. If you're driving on a motorcycle or even playing ice hockey, right, taking a puck to the head, it's probably a good thing you're wearing a helmet.
Speaker 2:But the hardest part about that is the fact that when you're dealing with the brain, the brain is suspended in cerebral spinal fluid, and what happens when the brain is suspended in that fluid is it's encased in a bony shell called your skull. Now, unfortunately, we thought that by stopping those forces from coming in, things would change and to a point they can right. There are some things we can mitigate, but overall, what we've realized is that the brain is a bit vulnerable inside that skull and we use them interchangeably in the research and when I lecture. What we know is that when you have a traumatic event and you have these forces that go into the brain or even the spine, people can sustain concussions from falling and slipping on ice and falling on their butt. Unfortunately, that's one of the things that actually happens far more often than we've been led to believe. But what happens with the brain is the brain is suspended in cerebral spinal fluid inside the skull and when you have a traumatic force going through the spine or the head, the brain twists and shears and rotates on itself, and what happens with that is you essentially have trauma or damage to nearly any and all areas of the brain within itself. It's not as easy to say oh, I got hit on the left side of the head, I'm going to have left-sided frontal lobe damage and I'm going to do rehabilitation for the left frontal lobe. That's not true. If it was, my job would be a lot easier. To be fair, the brain is relatively vulnerable from a standpoint that there's only so much we can do to eliminate those stressors and those vectors going inside the skull. And what that means is that anything and everything is relatively a possibility to be an outcome for a concussion.
Speaker 2:The way I equate it to patients is essentially getting a concussion is kind of the equivalent of me pouring water on my laptop. I can't tell you exactly what's going to happen to my laptop with that water. Maybe my internet browser works well, but my Microsoft Word doesn't, and what I have to do is I have to go and insert myself and say what works well, what no longer works as well, and is there something that I can actually do to try and update my software? That's always the question I need to ask. But I'll never know. And it's the same thing for 20 kids who are playing the same sport, have the same hit. They can have completely different outcomes and that's the hardest part about concussions is that the brain is vulnerable. We just don't always know or understand what's going to happen as a result of that and that's what you know.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, when we do have injuries and they, you know they result in mental illness over time, even from one concussion, you know it's. You know the the. Uh, you know the. The. The problem that we have is that you know the only. You know the treatments that are out there is drugs and therapy, and we need to open up our aperture into these other modalities that you are a part of right now to make these available to you know, moms and their kids and veterans and athletes that are out there, and we've got to get them recognized because they're all out of pocket right now. I mean, every one of them is out of pocket. So talk to me about the therapeutic interventions that you're using right now to go ahead and address the problems of neuro information and damage to the brain from repetitive impacts or repeated blast exposure that kids and veterans suffer from.
Speaker 2:There are a lot of interesting potential options out there, and my ballpark, you know, dr Coppott answer is that it always depends on the patient in front of me, based on the treatments that are available. Right, but here's what I will tell you, because it's a really good question, bruce, and most people want this question to be answered. Is are some large overarching aspects to what we can actually do for concussions and brain injury. But I think to kind of backtrack a bit, we have to really understand what the brain actually does. The brain is this master computer and it's full of all of these neural networks that communicate and talk to each other and they're all dependent on each other as well.
Speaker 2:Inputs kind of need to come into the brain, they need to be processed appropriately and then you need to have adequate outputs. Same thing for me checking a reflex on your knee right. I need to give the reflex as an input and I should see an output of the reflex come out. A lot of those same systems and checks and balances need to exist and, with that being said, you have to understand a bit about how the brain works. All these sensory things coming into your brain give our brain information about the environment, and then the brain has to answer the question what should I do next? How can I navigate the world? Should I respond to this?
Speaker 2:And so, with that being said, there are some hallmark outcomes that we know that happen with concussions and brain injuries. There are, relatively speaking, three major systems that we rely on as humans, especially within the concussion and brain injury realm, and I equate those to kind of like the three friends that go to the same party. You'd expect them to tell you the same story about that party, right, what time it was, who was there? I always want to know what kind of food was going on.
Speaker 1:Sounds like the questions I asked my daughter to know what kind of food is going on. Sounds like the questions I asked my daughter.
Speaker 2:It's the truth, right? And these three friends have to go to the same party and tell you the same story. Those three friends, for you specifically dealing with concussions, are number one your muscles and joints, so the head and the neck, especially for those who are vulnerable for concussions. You're always fighting gravity. Gravity is always giving you feedback and therefore your brain is always being activated. So one of the reasons why astronauts can't go to space and stay for very long is they need that feedback for their brain to function. So muscles and joints are a really big deal. But what does that look like for therapy? It could be manipulations, it could be soft tissue modalities, it could be injections, it could be myofascial release. It kind of just depends, once again, on the patient and what they're dealing with, because a lot of people with post-concussion symptoms will get things like headaches, could be cervicogenic dizziness, could be visual strain, could be loss of range of motion. So you got to look at it from a standpoint of okay, well, what is that friend doing? What kind of therapies could we use? Friend number two, from a clinical and a treatment standpoint, are your eyes so outside of looking at your actual eyeball itself, which is what optometrists look at. We're actually looking at all of the software, from the retina all the way back to the back part of the brain into the brainstem. These are simple things you and I take for granted, bruce, until we lose them. Simple things like being able to park your eyes on a target track, that targeted space, judge depth and distance and even say I want to look at one thumb versus the other. These are well-documented outcomes, clinically from a visual standpoint, that become dysfunctional with individuals with concussions, and so using treatment modalities like visual therapy, visual neuro-ophthalmology, using different aspects of vision and visual rehabilitation to actually treat and correct those deficiencies can be really valuable for a lot of patients, especially if they've never actually had that before. So the third friend is actually your inner ear system, and this is the system, bruce. Let's say I put you on an elevator and I had you close your eyes and you didn't move your head or your neck, but I put you up 20 stories. You'd know that you moved in relation to gravity in some way shape or form. This is the other system that's a little bit vulnerable, not that well developed, but it can actually be implicated with concussions and brain injuries, and that's your inner ear system. So inner ear systems essentially help us to navigate the world, help us with balance and stability, but they also have a heavy input into the tone of your neck and into your eyes. So doing things like vestibular rehabilitation, visual and vestibular integration, utilizing these different head, neck, eye movements to rehabilitate the brain, can really be powerful, and that's clinically what we use in our office.
Speaker 2:So outside of those modalities, people are always asking what about technology? What about other tools and therapies? So things like light therapy, photobiomodulation, low-level laser can be very impactful and very therapeutic. We're deploying a lot of technology integrating vagal nerve stimulation. So there's a device called the GammaCore, which is a phenomenal device that you can use non-invasively over the neck of the carotid artery. That can help balance out different neurological systems. We also use a lot of functional nutrition and metabolic work because unfortunately, a lot of individuals who struggle with concussions and brain injuries can develop autoimmunities, polyautoimmunities, gut issues, gut motility problems because of that gut-brain-brain-gut connection. So it kind of gives you a ballpark of what to look at, but once again, every person will be different, every patient is different, but there are a lot of really interesting tools that we can use clinically to help people, metaphorically speaking, update their software. It just you know it's crazy.
Speaker 1:You weren't even talking about treating the brain with all that. For the most part it was all how the brain interacts with the rest of the body and what you have to treat there just to get to it. So you mentioned a post-concussion survey or post-concussion syndrome survey, pcss. You know, when my son had his three, two and a half concussions, you know, years before he passed, we never were required to get one, but yet they're now that, now that we understand how critical they are, and yet still to this day, most parents, once that kid is two weeks or up, return to play man or back on the field, do not follow up with that. What is your perspective on that? And from a you know, from a, you know from a perspective of importance to identifying, you know, the potential for your kid to keep going and maybe give you some warning signs that they shouldn't be playing anymore yeah, uh, I think that there's a lot to be said about that.
Speaker 2:I like I always I always resonate with the nasa quote um in god, we trust all others bring data.
Speaker 2:That's pretty cool I really believe that if you don't measure it, you can't track it and you unfortunately therefore can't change it, and data does really tell us a lot about what we can and can't observe and what we can and can't change potentially.
Speaker 2:Now, it's not perfect, right?
Speaker 2:You take a look at the impact testing, the scat testing, some of these different baseline, fundamental, post-concussion or neurocognitive based assessments that we use in schools today.
Speaker 2:There are a lot of athletes who gamify that, who will say I'm going to score 20% lower than what I would normally, so that if I have a concussion, nobody will know the difference. And what's important for that is to understand one, that nothing's ever going to be perfect with this, but two, this is one of the reasons why, for me, I'm really focused on bedside neurological testing and examination techniques, because I can look at your balance and I can quantify your balance. I can use different things like video nystagmography and put you in goggles, and I can watch you track eye movements and graph out those eye movements and objectively make sure I have a baseline of what's actually going on. There are things that we can't gamify when we're actually doing baseline assessments, and so assessments are really important. It's just whether or not we use that data and we compare that data from a baseline following after an injury and, more importantly, as we go through treatments and treatment protocols.
Speaker 1:Wow, I mean and you're right, because they do gain those. I mean that's a big problem. That's been a big problem with the subjective tests is that the athletes will you know kind of you know, you know gain them because they want to stay on the team, and that's one of the issues we deal with is the stigma. As a hockey player, you know you'll do anything not to let your boys down and hang out there, and quantifying these issues are so important. And you mentioned a lot of technology.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of us haven't seen. You know, is this you know technology I think a lot of us haven't seen. You know is, is this, you know? We're, we're kind of facility I mean would, would have these tests that you know. Parents that are concerned that maybe their kid might not be telling the whole truth on their impact test or whatever it is right Can can take their children to get them checked out, cause you don't, you don't find these like in an ER or something right can take their children to get them checked out, Because you don't find these like in an ER or something right?
Speaker 2:No, you don't. You are most likely going to find them in specialized head trauma or concussion-based clinics. Unfortunately, Now the impact tests, the SCAT tests some of those are baseline tests that high schools, middle schools, are using these days, depending on the school districts where they will have children, and kids take baseline examinations and athletic trainers will initiate those and provide the data and the feedback. But some of the clinical tools that we're using are not that prevalent and we really are kind of a hyper-specialized organization and clinic because of that, unfortunately. But I love to have a majority of doctor's offices know exactly what's going on with concussions and brain injuries.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, because we need to. When you take a look at the statistics, when you take a look at the recidivism rate of individuals who've been imprisoned, who've actually had blunt head force traumas and unfortunate experiences as well that have changed the trajectory of their lives from a mental health and a physical health perspective, it is quite startling, especially from a societal outlook as well, and so, unfortunately, the following and the awareness is not there, but I do think it is growing and I do think people are realizing that when you do have a head injury, things are becoming more important for us to assess and to have early interventions with, because I think a lot of people are realizing that this is far more reaching than we had originally thought. I just wish the technology would catch up.
Speaker 1:And to your point, doc, I mean I honestly believe that if we treated every potential brain injury or you know whether it's sports, a car accident, you know domestic violence If we treated all these victims I'll just say patients out there and we looked at them from a functioning brain health perspective and we got their brain health right, I do believe that we could greatly lower the recidivism rate or the incarceration rate per se. We could lower the amount of guys and girls that have to leave the military because their brains were never treated, despite their service and their occupation. We can address this with our children and get them, you know. You know by evaluating the brain. You know we've talked to, you know, dr Gordon and Dr Bonner. You know guys that look at, you know panels and blood tests in order to, you know, address from a nutraceutical perspective. You know brain health. But I think you're absolutely right. I mean, how much of this do you feel that society just doesn't want to know? Right, they're like they're afraid to open up this box.
Speaker 2:I think people have a hunch. I don't think that they're fully ready to open.
Speaker 1:I would absolutely agree. I was at an ayahuasca treatment center for veterans and I was just watching 12 men and women just deal with the most. I mean that medicine has an unbelievable capacity to bring out trauma that if you deal with, I mean, you're so healthy afterwards. You still have a long way to go. And I'm sitting there going, man, these people did not commit a crime. I mean, they joined the military and this is something I bring up in all of my podcasts and they're suffering to a point and they're not getting any help.
Speaker 1:A lot of these folks have tried to commit suicide multiple times. They're snorting heroin, they've beat their wives. I mean, they are literally on their last leg lit. And why is it that the modalities that you have, you know photobiomodulation, low level, low level laser therapy, you know vagus nerve stimulation, right and and others plant medicine stuff like this why are these not available? Why, after 20 years of a suicide rate that hasn't changed right are in these?
Speaker 1:You know you're sitting here as a doctor. We've had numerous doctors on this show talk about things that can help heal the brain, which then helps with mental illness. It helps with their life. We got to get these folks back right. Why is this not available? Why do we have to find not that we don't want everybody coming to your hyper-specialized clinic, I mean, that is absolutely. We want people to find the specialists, but they're not available. The treatments aren't available. Why is this? Is this like a big pharma, you know conspiracy, or what is it? Because this stuff is not expensive, right, I mean, it's your time and the treatments you have. Why is this not?
Speaker 2:available. Well, I'll keep my tinfoil hat off for a little while. I love it.
Speaker 2:I really believe we've all been sold a false bill of goods from a standpoint that over the last 30, 40, 50 years of medicine, we've been told that we can find solutions in a bottle, a surgery procedure, and unfortunately, that has been proven to be quite ineffective. Now, medications can absolutely, without a doubt, change somebody's life and be very impactful, but they're not a long-term solution and they're not a cure. We've been looking for a cure for cancer for decades, if not hundreds of years, and we're a lot closer to being able to help people in those situations. But the biggest way to get rid of these cancer rates is to find out what's actually causing them in the first place, and I think that is the outlook that we actually have to take is how do we actually find ways to not only decrease symptoms but help the brain and help the body actually heal? Well, we know we can do that by helping people improve their sleep, which 30 to 70% of people who have a concussion or brain injury struggle with as a result.
Speaker 2:Improving things like nutritional panels right. Unfortunately, we know Ambien doesn't actually do much for people. It gives them short-term memory loss, it doesn't help their sleep and it takes away their rapid eye movement sleep patterns. So doing things like helping people eat better, sleep better, move better, be around individuals who can help change their psychology, these are things that are genuinely changing the brain and optimizing neuroplasticity, and that's the whole model of what our clinic is based off of. We're not doing transmagnetic stimulation. We're not installing computer chips like Neuralink is into the brain. We're using the body. We're using this functional sensory-driven system we've all been given to help people update their software. And, to be fair, I think a lot of people just think I have a headache, I should go take a medication for it. I'm not saying that that's a bad idea, but it's not the only option out there and there are a lot of organizations that are financially incentivized to have that be the only option.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so when people come to you as a specialized clinic, are you able to leverage any insurance or coverage for them at all, or is this all out of pocket due to the novelty of the approach that you have?
Speaker 2:Yeah, majority of our patients are out of pocket.
Speaker 2:It depends on their insurance rates because we will give them reimbursement opportunities to submit to their insurance, and we have had patients in some way shape or form get partial Some have gotten full, some have gotten none.
Speaker 2:It just depends, and it's hard because what we're doing is so clinically effective. It's just unfortunately not insurance reimbursable. From the standpoint that an insurance provider like Aetna or UnitedHealth Group is going to say this is exactly the care we want to support you on, and it's not just with concussions. I mean, you take a look at a lot of modalities and a lot of procedures or even diagnostics. A lot of insurance companies are now no longer reimbursing providers for those because they're just choosing that they don't want to, and so I do think that there are good people out there in the world who want to do well. I think as I get older and I spend more time in practice, I do get a little bit more frustrated and I get a little bit more of a chip on my shoulder about the frustrations that do come from the current establishment of the medical institutions that do run our medical systems.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't blame you, man, it's just that do run our medical systems. Yeah, I don't blame you, man, it's just, it's what we're working on right now, and I think you just invited yourself to our new scientific panel that we're working on building right now, because we are getting support for legislation that would allow veterans to select from a list of non-approved modalities, because our problem is either with kids or with veterans. Is that whatever we're doing right now to address mental health and suicide with our veterans, obviously that isn't working. I mean, our suicide rate hasn't changed.
Speaker 1:The mental illness level of our population has gone up, and between you and me and the world because we're on a podcast this is not about them being a different generation. This is a generation that has trained harder than any other military generation and I am a Cold War guy ever because after 9-11, they were given all the money to train like we fight. So they go to combat, they come back, they train like they're combat and their repeated blast exposure or their amount of something customer exposure never ends, and it is that level that leads to the neuroinflammation that you are addressing through. You know treating the body, and it pains me to think that you know you are, obviously you're in business, you're profitable, you're making money and you're only doing that because you're benefiting the patients that come to you. So, instead of looking at, you know, and the other part of that I'll say is that if you got a concussion, you definitely need a chiropractor, because I'm a rugby player and there are parts of your bodies that need fixing for sure, after anything of which you got a concussion, so there should be another.
Speaker 1:You know, take another, look at that piece, but it just pains me to think that people have to find you and define your level of expertise, which you know. Hats off to you for building this, for creating this. But you know, at the same time, you know they got, they got to pay, and these, you know, I just don't. You know and this is one of our battles that we will continue to fight with the insurance folks, because sooner or later, when you look at folks that come to some, you know clinic like yours and the other clinics that we talk to that are specialized in brain health and brain treatments, and they leave and they they are not, they're not on pharmaceuticals or they're not taking their lives. How much is that worth?
Speaker 1:It's worth every dime that you should be reimbursed for the for your time, so you know talk about the tell us a you know a case or two where somebody has come in that's obviously been severely impacted by their lifestyle military, sports, whatever and the results that you've seen when they go through your treatment and modalities.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, serendipitously enough, I have a case right now of a woman from Michigan. She was in back-to-back auto accidents back in 2022, and her life completely got flipped upside down. I think this is something that is quite interesting to note is the fact that the third leading cause of traumatic brain injury in the United States is auto accidents. It's not sports, it's not, you know, blast wounds, and those are top of top ranked as well, but auto accidents are a massive, massive source of people getting concussions and brain injuries, and I don't see that on the front page of the New York Times or in CNN or on Fox, and so what we're realizing is there are a lot of people who are struggling in silence, who don't think they know what to do, have no idea where to go, and so this woman back-to-back concussions and auto accidents in 2022, flipped her life upside down.
Speaker 2:Chronic pain throughout the neck, the back, the shoulders she essentially has loss of sensation on the left side of her body, on the left side of her face. She's got blurred vision. She's got fatigue. Metabolically. She has underlying autoimmune conditions. She has a couple of hereditary things that have come about hemochromatosis, which is an iron problem of offloading iron. She also has polycythemia, which is a red blood cell condition, and so she has a lot of stuff going on. She's been seeing doctors left and right in the system out of the system for the last two, three years and it's been a struggle. I started with her on Monday of this week and today is Thursday. Within the three and a half four days that we've been working together, she's regained sensation in the left part of her leg back to nearly having full sensation back there.
Speaker 2:Her range of motion in her cervical spine went from essentially being 20 degrees of rotation here to probably about 75, 80 degrees of rotation by working with the neck and working with the eyes. Her balance and stability has vastly improved. Her energy levels are significantly increased. Her speech has also improved as well which was not the intention but kind of a nice outcome and her happiness has improved. She's feeling better, she's making progress, she's optimistic and, lo and behold, some of her sleep has actually changed.
Speaker 2:Now I'm not saying that that's for every patient that will ever come into our office, and I'm not the only doctor that can ever fix somebody, but I do think that there's something to be said about getting somebody into your office and looking at them from a comprehensive and integrative approach. We looked at her structurally, we looked at her neurologically, we looked at her metabolically and nutritionally, but I also tried to understand her emotionally and build trust and formal relationships so I can understand what she wants to get back to doing. She misses hiking, she misses being back outdoors, and so that was always a motivation for me to use for her and, I like to think, a motivation for me to use for her, and I like to think that we're slowly getting her on her way. So, with the results that we've gotten over the last four days, I'm excited to see what happens with her as she does home therapies and protocols for the next four weeks, four months, and years.
Speaker 1:I mean that's amazing and I think one of the things that we're pushing for right now and this was actually brought up to us by a judge who has suffered her own trauma. But her partner is a retired Navy EOD guy that's had years of blast exposure and two car accidents that have really changed his life and she's just wondering why the lawyers don't include, like, when they settle right, they settle for the money because they want their chunk, but when they settle, they just settle for money. They don't look at treatments like yours and get that included as part of the settlement, so it's covered. So what happens is that the girl, the guy who got the check well, now they got to use that check to pay for the treatment that should have been covered by the insurance company in the first place but can't be because it's not approved, right, craziness. And all it would take is to and this goes into my point about, you know, education is that you know the issue of subcustive trauma and MTBI and lifestyles, like you know, repeated blast exposure is absolutely untrained in our medical, clinical nursing, psychological, suicide prevention, parental coaching, communities Like this is like the coming of the Lord, right, it's like we know it's there, but you know and we don't want to see it right now. We know it's there, but you know and we don't want to see it right now. And in your mind, if people were educated, they could find you faster. And we actually want to talk to you. We're releasing the first actually we call it the concussion app right now and it's coming out in Michigan right, and we are going to have locations for concussion specialists on the map that people can draw a polygon in their area and we definitely want to talk to you about including you on that, because this is what people have to find.
Speaker 1:But, in your words, what is this problem with education? Why is this problem that you know? We knew about it back in the early 2000s. Then we found CTE and we've been so focused on dang, concussions and CTE that we have not looked at kids, we have not looked at lifestyles, we've not looked at mental illness. And here we are with the largest preventable cause of mental illness United States RHI exposure but, more importantly, the treatment for it. How do we fix this in your works? How do we get going? How does everybody start thinking about this like seatbelts and smoking with their kids and all this stuff. You probably took rides in your dad's pickup truck back in the years. Right, you can't do that no more, because we're smarter, we're more aware. How do we get to this point with our society where we now understand that this is an issue and we need more Dr Reeses, we need more clinics? How do we get there?
Speaker 2:I think we have to take the first step and admit that there's a chance that we may actually have been wrong about what we thought we knew. There are a lot of assumptions that have been made in this space. There's a lot of assumptions that have been made about mental health, different diseases, chronic pain, you name it and in a lot of those situations it has progressed the agenda. But it's also caused us to think that we've got it all figured out already.
Speaker 2:Frontier always has been, always will be, and the fact that it's 2024 and we still can't fully explain consciousness to me tells me that we've got a lot of humility to face Right, and so what I'm going to say is that the reason I love what we do is because it keeps me humble and keeps me honest. I mean they call it clinical practice for a reason. I am always learning what works and what doesn't, and the day I think I'd have it all figured out, I really believe the big man upstairs kind of keeps me honest and gives me a challenge that challenges my thinking on that. So I think as a whole, we really have to realize that what we thought we knew in the 90s could actually be considered malpractice today. That's true in breast cancer and mammograms, that's true in prostate cancer and PSA screening.
Speaker 2:Why is that not true in mental health? Why is it not true in concussion treatments?
Speaker 1:It is we just haven't crossed that chasm yet. And admission is such a powerful, powerful thing, admitting wrong but we're just not going to get the government, the military, parents. I mean I had to admit I made a mistake with my son. I mean, I always research things, but because I've had so many concussions from rugby and you know, this last concussion was last year I'm like all right, let's get them. I never thought about the repeated pounding. And you're right To your point. I mean, doc, you said it perfectly we have to admit there's an issue and then we have to address it. And that's where you know covering these treatments, you know educating our people and finding I mean, oh my Lord, I mean, when I start thinking of all the suicides we've had and how many of them could have been, you know, you know, you know, you know could have been caused by nothing more than a military service person's job, how many?
Speaker 1:We have One I've heard we have one million incarcerated veterans in the United States country today. Right, none of them have ever been assessed for a brain injury, and you brought this up earlier on the amount of TBI-related mental illness in our prison populations, which is probably why they're in there, because you're mentally. You're regressive, you're hostile, you have rage, you do dumb things, you're impulsive, right. We haven't even looked at that from society on. Where's the liability? The liability is with us. We have cops out on the streets, we have firemen picking up bodies. We have EMS people picking up pieces and dealing with kids that have been traumatized. We have veterans that are out there doing horrific things in the name of this country coming home and we have kids playing contact sports and taking their lives. We have a lot to atone for and thank God that there's folks like you and your clinic that are able to help these people while we work to make this right. So you know, tell us I appreciate that.
Speaker 2:I think it's amazing, I have to just say, though, you know as much as we're doing, the things that you are doing for this population, this vulnerable population that doesn't have a voice I just have to throw that back at you is that you've taken an experience that you didn't sign up for and have turned it into something that is going to have such a massive ripple effect, not only locally and throughout the United States, but hopefully globally as well. I have to applaud you for being able to take what you've experienced and what you've learned and being able to share it with the masses, because this is how movements actually start. They start by having conversations. They start by having discussions, they start by challenging thinking, and, over time, they amount to massive, massive momentum and a complete shift in societal norms, and so I have to just remind you that you are doing that work right now. It just hasn't manifested.
Speaker 1:I appreciate that it's hard sometimes, but we got to keep moving. Man, you're doing your job, I'm doing mine. This is what God put me on plan for. The only thing I know how to do is take care of people, and now I know I got so many people to try and take care of and do the right thing, and I can only do what I can do, but I'm doing the best I can. So tell us.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:And so, as we get right in, tell us how people find you, how they find out about you, your services, this device that you're talking about. Give us a little bit on that. What is this device that you got that? How's it changing lives? And then, you know, tell us talk about yourself for a bit before we close up.
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, well, to be fair, the easiest way to find us is our website. The Neural Connection is the name of the clinic. The neuralconnectioncom is the name of our website. We have tons of blogs on there, a ton of research, a ton of education, just to tell and educate people how to take care of themselves. What are signs and symptoms to look for, what are possible therapies, what are things you should be thinking of.
Speaker 2:Am I crazy for feeling this way? We're used to getting the patients that have been to the major medical institutions that have been told, hey, it's all in your head or hey, there's nothing else that we can do, and we are just bullish enough and driven enough to try and just see if there's a way for us to have an impact in some way, shape or form. So the easiest way is to find us on our websites. All of our information's on there. Best way to contact us is through the website as well.
Speaker 2:We've got other social media. We're on Instagram, we're on Facebook, things like that but our website really is the home for us to be able to educate and for people to reach out to us, and we're quite responsive. We're always looking to educate and do more lectures, and we've got a lot more conversations that we're being a part of as well too, and so we're just we're keen to be a part of the conversation and have a seat at the table. We think that not only have we had the clinical experience that's relevant to have these discussions, but we really want to give hope to people and show them that you know, regardless of what's happened to you, you're not broken, you're not stuck. You didn't sign up for this and I promise you this probably wasn't on your bucket list, but that doesn't mean that you're going to have to live that way.
Speaker 1:And people. You're giving people hope and that's what they need more than anything. I mean, dr Reese, I hope the neural connection is in every state here in about five years and I bless the work that you're doing.
Speaker 2:And we do too.
Speaker 1:And I thank you for it. Thank you so much for coming on the show. We're going to make you part of the conversation and thank you so much for what you're doing for our folks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you, bruce, thanks for having me on and thank you for what you're doing. I'm a massive fan and any way we can help you, just sign us up for it.
Speaker 1:Thanks a lot, sir. You take care. God bless you.