Discussing Arthritis

Dr. Clayton Roach: [00:00:06] So this was a question we got what are the different types of arthritis and can you talk about tri compartmental knee arthritis? So go ahead, Ben, and I’ll I’ll chime in as needed.

Dr. Ben Boudreau: [00:00:18] Sure. So maybe I’ll address the images that we see here. We’ll address tri compartmental knee osteoarthritis. So this is an issue that is commonly seen in individuals who have been suffering from arthritis for a long time. This is a fairly severe case. So when you do have tri compartmental knee osteoarthritis, that means that the three compartments of the knee joint are osteoarthritic decreased and joint space. The best way to visualize this is through an x-ray there. And so we can see on the left side of the X-ray that there’s really nice joint spacing there. You can see how it’s got and right where Clayton is just drawing those in there, you can see the dark spacing is beautiful, beautiful. So the medial and lateral compartments of the knee have great spacing.

Something that we can’t see here is the spacing behind the kneecap and the femur. So in tri compartmental knee osteoarthritis, that area as well would be osteoarthritic and would be decreased in spacing. And so a really good image is the right side there where you can see that there’s just no space there. And the bone is looking very white, sclerotic, which is a sign of arthritis and the joint spacing’s disappeared. So we’re essentially getting at this point, I don’t like to say it, but bone right on the bone. And so people of this issue know that it’s it feels like this cracking, popping, pain, swelling in the morning. And that would be knee osteoarthritis.

Dr. Clayton Roach: [00:02:00] Yeah, so basically try means three, obviously. At this point, obviously, this didn’t start this way. Typically the medial joint line, which is this one over here. So the other would be, let’s say this is somebody here when he was bad, the wound was good, medial is on the inside lateral is on the outside. Arthritis typically affects the medial joint line first and then the lateral and then into compartmental the thermal compartment, basically behind the kneecap. It can come in at any point. But typically when you’re talking about the joint spaces, you’re talking about the medial one being affected, the first one, which is why when this collapses on the inside, if it’s bad, you’ll start seeing people walk walking Bow-Legged.

All right. So the knees outwards and the inside is collapsing. So by the time that the three compartments are affected, you’re talking about either severe trauma or just something that’s gone on for twenty, twenty-five years. And at this point, if you’re looking at the right knee, this is a complete knee replacement for sure. Right.

Dr. Ben Boudreau: [00:03:21] Yeah, and so we did have a question about this, this condition, the most important thing to do if you are suffering from arthritis in the knee is don’t be afraid to move. Motion is lotion. And so the more you move that joint, the more it’s going to stay lubricated. The types of recommendations for exercises are low impact. Walking is still good, but they’d recommend a recumbent bike. So a bike where you’re not putting as much load on the knee joint as well as water aerobics or water exercise because it’s non-weight bearing in nature. Yeah, so you’ll find if you keep the knee moving that the pain will begin to subside just more than you move it around.

Dr. Clayton Roach: [00:04:01] Yeah, absolutely. We just had some of the comments. About the fact that they have this type of issue, can we send the length of the schedule Ben can you put that forward? So we’ll put the link for scheduling. So I think that that summarizes the compartmental aspect of the question. Hopefully, we answer that and then. The three types of our three times, there’s more than three types of arthritis, the first one we can talk about is degenerative arthritis. So a lot of times people talk about degeneration and they start to mention family members when we’re talking about degenerative arthritis. This is not hereditary.

Now, it is very common that mom can have it and the child has it, or the grandma and grandpa had it and the kids had it. But degeneration is from overuse or at one point, the other extreme would be lack of use. So very, very common to this generation. And you can see it in hips, you can see it in shoulders. Any joints can deteriorate over time. The bone scan at this point, when you look at the right knee, it could rub down on the bone. This is a type of degenerative arthritis, right? So what we call hoing osteoarthritis. So that’s definitely one of the most common ones that we see Ben. Go ahead with the other ones.

Dr. Ben Boudreau: [00:05:47] Yeah. And so there are over a hundred different types of arthritis. Degenerative would be the most common that we would see in the office-based on the population of people. Now, a lot of people say, oh, I’ve had a family history of arthritis. Well, here’s another thing. So today I saw a desk worker and she’s had the same changes in her spine as another desk worker. And so she says, oh, well, you know, this is just a normal part of ageing, but your environment has a lot to do. The environmental stressors, the stresses in your life have a lot to do with the way that the spine and the extremities degenerate.

If you do the same occupation as somebody else and they have a shoulder issue and then you begin to develop shoulder and you’re not going to say that, oh, you know, they’re shoulder issues in my family. Well. A large impact of that comes from the type of occupation that you do, and so keep that in mind when you have headaches or you see changes happening in your spine. So another type of arthritis is inflammatory arthritis. So a healthy immune system is protective and it generates internal inflammation to get rid of some of the infections that it finds and the diseases. But with inflammatory arthritis, the immune system isn’t working properly and mistakenly attacks the joints with uncontrolled inflammation.

And then what happens is it causes the joint to erode. And so inflammation can also attack your internal organs, your eyes and other parts of your body. So an example of inflammatory arthritis would be rheumatology or rheumatoid arthritis or psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, gout. These are types of examples of inflammatory arthritis that attack the joint.

Dr. Clayton Roach: [00:07:38] Another one would be lupus. So when you do your typical CBC, complete blood count, your typical blood work, a lot of times they’re not going to check with. So it is something that you have to request. If it is a concern of yours to do a specific penso for rheumatoid arthritis, you want to make sure that they check their checking for what’s called the rheumatoid factor and for something like lupus, ankylosing spondylitis, that’s the one where people are hunched forward and the ligament on the front part of the spine has started to ossify. When you’re talking about lupus. One thing that you want to check when you’re doing your blood work is for what’s HLA B27 Ben let’s say it

Dr. Ben Boudreau: [00:08:26] HLA B27 is for anklyosing spondylitis and it’s the antigen

Dr. Clayton Roach: [00:08:31] And antigen. Right. So basically they have to screen what’s called the HLA B27 antigen. If you have that. And that could be a telltale sign that you have an inflammatory art applied by lupus, not psoriatic right Ben.

Dr. Ben Boudreau: [00:08:49] No, not psoriatic.

Dr. Clayton Roach: [00:08:50] So HLA B27 is ankylosing spondylitis, lupus and which one else? Reactive arthritis. That’s right. So again, not part of your regular blood panel. So you might want to request that. That’s that could be hereditary for sure.

Dr. Ben Boudreau: [00:09:10] Yeah. And the most important factor with those is it attacking the joint is one thing, but the fact that it can attack your internal organs and influence and from that way brings it to a new level of severity. And so whenever we recognize a spongy Lathrop on our property, we’re always very cautious. OK, well, should there be more investigation here?

Dr. Clayton Roach: [00:09:34] Absolutely, yeah.

Dr. Ben Boudreau: [00:09:36] Now, I was just going to introduce the next type of arthritis, right? There’s such thing as infectious arthritis. These can come from bacteria, viruses or fungus and they can enter the joint and then trigger inflammation and then arthritis ensues. Examples of these types of infectious arthritis are salmonella, chlamydia, gonorrhea. So some of these STDs. Right. As well as hepatitis C. And so if you do have any type of bacteria, fungus, virus, it’s always prudent to have the joints checked afterwards because you could have suffered some damage during that bout. Yeah.

Dr. Clayton Roach: [00:10:17] And then lastly, we have metabolic arthritis, which is the most common one is going to be gout. And guilt basically is your body’s inability to break down the uric acid and or the rings. Sorry. Basically, you end up with uric acid in your joints, which is very, very, very painful actually, to see patients that just got out. I had at one time when this guy had these wrists and was just bright red and you could feel the temperature and you just had a telltale sign of an infection. And definitely, at that point, you need to.

To treat pain-wise, a lot of times will be anti-inflammatory colchicine as one of them allopurinol. So there are a few things you can do medically to try to alleviate it. But the cause usually comes from certain foods as well. You’re looking at red wines, red meats, any hard liquor, shellfish are on the do not eat this when you’re susceptible to gout.

Dr. Ben Boudreau: [00:11:28] Great. So I think that’s that address. Question number one, so thank you so much for the individual, I think, who submitted this question. Jeanette might have been Ginnette. So thank you so much.

PRP Injections

Dr. Clayton Roach: [00:11:44] Right on. Yeah, that was a loaded question with a great question. The next question we had was about PRP. I’ll gladly talk about that because I’m actually a patient and I had a lot of at one point pain in my thumb. It was the saddle joint right here. Probably from treating as many patients as we treat the thumb got tired and started to get painful and saw many people, including chiropractors and all the stuff that wasn’t getting any better. I started wondering, you know, what am I going to do?

And I had read a lot about platelet-rich plasma and whether or not there was a lot of research and stuff and realized through my connections that this is something that’s really well, researched it wasn’t at the beginning, which is why sometimes you read stuff on PRP and they question whether or not it’s helpful, but now it is. There’s a lot of research on it, which basically the process is you have your blood drawn. It ends up in a vial just like this. And then they what’s called a centrifuge. So what happens? The red blood cells follow the bottom. You have your platelet-rich plasma, then you have your white blood cells that are in that area as well.

Dr. Clayton Roach: [00:13:08] They take your plasma and then they inject it into the joint. So what happens is you have your growth factors and you have your stem cells that will be in this yellowish plasma liquid. And what happens when you’re injecting that in the joint inside the synovial joint or whatever joint you’re injecting, then it’ll create an acute inflammatory process which will get new blood cells to the area and the stem cells. What basically the stem cell is, is an undifferentiated cell, meaning that wherever you planted it will become that tissue. If you did stem cells in the liver, that undifferentiated cells become a hepatocyte. It becomes a liver cell. So it has the ability to become whatever Sofra Joint, it has the ability to become cartilage.

Right. So that is very, very important. Now here in Nova Scotia and actually in all of Canada, we cannot. Load the plasma with stem cells in the US, what they can do is they can take some stem cells, you can freeze them, and then they can basically put it in the plasma. So they stir in your stem cells within the plasma and the results are actually augmented. But here in Canada, we can’t do that. So we can only do the plasma injection. I have to say that since that injection and this was now about two years ago, I have never noticed my thumb again. And I’ve had many patients get PRP injections in their knees and hips with phenomenal results.

And I’m talking about the inability to do a squat more than like 20 degrees coming in the next day, literally the next day and going all the way down and coming back up. This is unlike cortisone. For those of you who’ve had a cortisone shot, there are no side effects to PRP. It’s your own blood. It is not a medication. Cortisone has the ability to leach calcium away from the bone. So there are dangers to that because you can actually get regional osteoporosis in the area of the injection. So cortisone all it does, it’s like, an anti-inflammatory inside the joint and wipes out the inflammation. And then down the road, you have the problem once again. And if you don’t, great. But that’s just not the odds.

The odds are that you’re going to have it again. So basically, the PRP is very, very helpful, specifically for knees. What I will say is that if your x-ray says severe, you are probably not a great candidate for PRP. We need a little bit of spacing there and some cartilage left to work with. So mild to moderate is what we look for in terms of the level of joint problem that’s there on an x-ray. You definitely need the x-ray depending on where you’re injecting the PRP. Sometimes you can do it with ultrasound where you actually see where the needle is going so that you can be even more specific with the injection site. So my experience with PRP has been fantastic and I at times recommend it for patients that are Prime candidates for PRP.

Dr. Ben Boudreau: [00:16:24] That’s a great question, because I was also wondering what’s the severity level and is it moderate or severe levels of arthritis? Can we recommend PRP for most patients? And so that’s great. I was curious about that as well.

Dr. Clayton Roach: [00:16:40] Yeah, yeah. So that was the PRP question. And if there are more questions around that, we may actually do an interview with someone who does PRP injections. If you’d like that, just give us some thumbs up and we can definitely hook that up. I was thinking about that Ben other today, so I’d be able to talk about that in as well as what’s it called Needles, not acupuncture, but dry needling dry needles. Yeah, so we can definitely incorporate that and talk about acupuncture as well. Yeah. All right, next question. So, guys, if you’ve learned something so far, let us know.

Dr. Clayton Roach: [00:17:26] I hope you’re enjoying at this point, not a bad time to share this episode. So hit the share button, get this out there. And is PRP expensive. It’s not cheap for giving or take. If you were to do the knee, not uncommon for you to need two times. So two injections and you’re probably looking at about. It’s a guess, but you’re going to pay anywhere from a thousand to fifteen hundred dollars for injection or two. Right. That’s including two give or take a thousand to fifteen hundred dollars. But better than having pain every day.

Dr. Ben Boudreau: [00:18:05] Yeah.Yeah. Organic gluten-free alcohol is better to reduce the chance of gout. Yeah. So definitely better to, to have something that’s free of gluten and that’s organic, something that’s a little more natural if you already have, you know, they say if you already have gout and you’re drinking alcohol, it won’t spike it, but it will probably increase the pain. It’s not going to increase your chances of getting gout. But if you already had, it’s been increased your pain. So that’s the way I’m going to answer that question.

Dr. Clayton Roach: [00:18:41] So, Janet, sorry, just one more thing regarding gluten-free. I think any time your body is sensitive to anything, not just if it’s dairy, egg, albumin, whatever it is. The bodies of the body’s response to that are going to be inflammation. Right. So if you’re gluten-free, but your body does react, gluten may not have a big reaction with you. There is a big effect. But for somebody who is sensitive to gluten is going to have a huge effect. So it depends on what your sensitivities are.

Sjogren’s Syndrome

Dr. Ben Boudreau: [00:19:17] All right, good. Sjogren’s syndrome. This was a great question. So Sjogren’s syndrome is an autoimmune disease and it attacks the glands that make tears and saliva. And so individuals who have Sjogren’s syndrome have very dry eyes, very dry tongues. So as you can see in the photo there, the tongue is cracked. So it’s very dry. You may experience dryness in other places that need moisture, such as the nose, throat and skin. You also may experience the pain of the joints, swelling stiffness and swollen salivary glands. And so these glands are just behind the jaw anterior to the ear in this region here. And so they may be very painful and swollen. You may experience fatigue as well. And so most people with this disease are over the age of 40 and mostly women.

Dr. Clayton Roach: [00:20:21] It’s something about women like frozen shoulder. Yeah, yeah, we get off so easy being guys.

Dr. Ben Boudreau: [00:20:28] We do. We do. And so some of these conditions may be linked with something like rheumatoid arthritis or lupus. And so you have to watch out for a condition such as this. There are some scientists who aren’t really sure why this happens or people develop this syndrome. But the triggering mechanism, what they’re finding is that it’s linked with these viruses and bacteria. So.

Dr. Clayton Roach: [00:20:58] Yeah, and vice versa. You’re seeing somebody with Sjogren’s, you get to ask the question, is there an underlying arthritic component because they’re linked That may be a good clue as to checking in for the rheumatoid factor, checking that they have lupus Ben you remember when the lupus is on the face?

Dr. Ben Boudreau: [00:21:20] Yeah, it’s a butterfly.

Dr. Clayton Roach: [00:21:22] Yeah. So basically around right underneath the eye, you’ll kind of have like a butterfly type of your call a rash.

Dr. Ben Boudreau: [00:21:33] Yeah. Butterfly rash.

Dr. Clayton Roach: [00:21:34] Yeah. So you’ll see that. And people that have lupus, it’s not always present, but it’s very, very common. Kind of like a bull’s eye rash for ticks. They’re not always there and it’s not you can always go by that, but you’ll definitely have that Rash on the face.

Dr. Ben Boudreau: [00:21:48] Yeah. And so for those of you who are wondering, you know, what does this look like? The singer SEAL had lupus and so he was left with this scarring after getting the rash. And commonly people who have had it will have this butterfly-type rash scarring just below the eyes. So some natural remedies just to end off with Sjogren’s syndrome here. Some natural remedies use artificial tears or lubricants to help keep the areas filled with moisture. Increase the humidity in your home, don’t smoke because that dries you out, increase your fluid intake by drinking more water. You can also get artificial saliva. Never heard of this until I looked it up, but you can get artificial saliva to help moisture the mouth and you can also try a nasal saline spray to get the nostrils lubricated as well.

Dr. Clayton Roach: [00:22:41] There are also certain medications that are known for creating a dry mouth and dry eyes as well or symptoms of Sjodren’s. So. Sometimes if that’s happening, you might not have Sjodren’s, but definitely check the list of side effects from medications and that could be the case as well. Hmm. Great question. And we have to dig back to our Chiropractic National Board days to discuss.

Dr. Ben Boudreau: [00:23:12] Take me right back to diagnosis class.

Dr. Clayton Roach: [00:23:15] Yeah, I think that was Diane. So hopefully we answered your question. So, all right.

Exercise and Pregnancy

Dr. Ben Boudreau: [00:23:23] This is a really fun topic, and so exercise in pregnancy, there was a question about the exercise that you can do to help ease the pain during pregnancy. Yeah. And so basically, we’re going to do a more in-depth jump into this topic later on. But just to sort of getting people going on this very controversial topic, which I mean, it’s controversial when you get down to the nitty-gritty, but it’s about exercising during pregnancy. And so there is a lot of research that was devoted and put into this to determine, OK, is it safe to exercise during the first versus the third trimester?

What can we do? Just to get things started? Pregnancy generally is measured by weeks. So there’s 40 weeks or just over nine months. The first trimester is weeks one through 13. The second is 14 through twenty-seven, and the third is twenty-eight through forty. So changes happen and that’s why we have to keep moving. Right. So you have increased in weight. You’re carrying, you’re carrying something on you now and so the body is going to take on that extra weight. So there’s going to be increased joint forces. Right. And so what we want to do is be able to distribute those forces properly, balance changes, because now you have increased weight in the stomach.

So your center of gravity is going forward. Ligament laxity due to a hormone known as relaxin. And so the joints become very loose and then an increase in lumbar lower doses. Just because you’re carrying more weight in the front, your lumbar spine, your lower back is taking way more pressure than it normally would. Couldn’t you have any comments so far?

Dr. Clayton Roach: [00:25:01] Yeah, not a whole lot. One thing that I will say is that because of the change in balance, it’s very common to hear pregnant moms falling. So you got to be very careful, like your proprioception, your brain’s ability to detect where your joints are is different, right. Your center of gravity changes. As Ben said, a lot of people retain a lot more water. So one of the very common conditions we see in pregnancy is going to be, you know, I hate to call carpal tunnel syndrome, but you’re getting carpal tunnel-like symptoms because of the inflammation around the wrist area, the feet. You can also get tarsal tunnel syndrome. Where are you getting done this and tingling in the feet as well? So a lot of changes definitely happen in a short period of time, i.e. the nine months.

Dr. Ben Boudreau: [00:25:51] And so the benefits of exercise and now this is something that’s new, right? Because we weren’t sure if it was OK to exercise or not during pregnancy. And this is like new stuff. They have pregnancy guidelines now. So aerobic fitness is really good because it helps encourage the fetal heart rate response. You can also control your body fat. And so this will also reduce fetal stress during labour. It can prepare. You can also prepare yourself for childbirth by doing exercises pre childbirth known as kegel exercises, for example. And a lot of women out there are familiar with kegel. You can also prevent gestational diabetes.

Keeping yourself active is going to prevent that gestational diabetes from developing in the child. Improves circulation, posture, core strength, muscular balance, which is super important and increases in postpartum recovery. Just like post-op pre have like we call our pre before your operation, before pregnancy, doing some pre-pregnancy exercise to help prepare the body for after birth.

Dr. Clayton Roach: [00:27:02] A question for all of you guys and even listeners that are thinking about having a child and how many of you would go out and decide tomorrow that you’re going to run a marathon? And just say, I’m tomorrow, I’m going to run forty-two kilometres. Well, it’d be ridiculous, right, so to go into pregnancy and go through labour, which is literally a marathon. Been there, done that. So my wife does it. I’m like, oh, my God. To not prepare for that and not do exercises is really like asking yourself to run a marathon tomorrow without training.

So absolutely, you need to prepare for that and do the things needed in order to put the odds in your favour to have a natural pregnancy and have no regrets down the road, saying I should have done that and know deep down that you could have prevented a C-section or any of the interventions that could happen while you’re delivering the baby.

Dr. Ben Boudreau: [00:28:05] Yeah, yeah. Definitely, it helps to have this research put out. It’s helped so many women because now they know exactly what exercises they can do and at what point during their pregnancy. And so women can do cardio during pregnancy. OK, and some of what’s recommended is one hundred and fifty minutes per week of moderate-level physical activity. And for those of you familiar with your vote to Max, that’s 70 percent of your vote to Max. So examples would be a brisk walk, water aerobics, the elliptical.

They also say that you can run. Now, they recommend this only for women who have been running before their pregnancy. And so they say don’t get into running when you’re pregnant. Get into it after. OK, yeah. And then as well, stationary cycling is also recommended. We’re going to be doing a more in-depth launch into this later on. But, you know, just to give everybody an idea, the biggest takeaway would be to perform kegel. So if you want to be able to help yourself with urinary you know, a lot of women experience urinary incontinence, especially after pregnancy. Kegel’s are a way to help with that, to help create strength in your pelvic floor.

For those of you who don’t know what the pelvic floor is, it’s the muscle group that basically retains all of the inferior portion of the pelvis and all the organs in that area to help keep it together. And so the kegel exercises, which are an example, the way for the elevator, it’s to help tighten and strengthen that area up. So you can do that before pregnancy and postpartum. Yeah.

Dr. Ben Boudreau: [00:29:50] And actually, at one point we might be able to interview somebody regarding pregnancy and exercise. Yeah. Wink, wink, wink, wink that you’re listening to this. I think she always listens. So, yeah, we’ll be able to do a more in-depth conversation on this topic. But as you can see, there’s definitely a lot to talk about and there should be a lot of questions here. And if you do know someone who is going through pregnancy and isn’t sure about the rules and regulations and what it is that she can and cannot do, this would be a conversation for sure, because we will be doing a more in-depth dove into this topic and see a chiropractor.

Dr. Clayton Roach: [00:30:32] Right. I’ve seen so many pregnancies and most of them after the pregnancy they’ve gone through with chiropractic care, say they will never do it again with chiropractic care, just knowing the state of the pelvis, the alignments. I don’t know how many of you know this, but there is a ligament that goes from the uterus, the sacrum called the uterus sacral ligament. And if your pelvis is talk, you may not even know you have a pelvis that’s out of the line because you might not have any back pain. But all of a sudden the pelvis is torqued and the uterus is growing. But the uterus ligaments are forcing the uterus to turn, which forces the baby to turn. Now you have a breech presentation and you’re heading into your third trimester.

And here they are, one to do every intervention in the both to try to turn the baby. And the cause of it was a sacral alignment that could have been fixed way before. So it would have avoided all the panic and all the chaos that goes into what I call a medicalized birthing process. So see your chiropractor and definitely be proactive with this and put the odds in your favour to have a natural birth, because the benefits of that are just unreal in terms of what can happen to a child versus going to the whole medical process and a C-section and not just the child, but the rehab afterwards. You know, the recovery is just brutal after a C-section versus a natural birth. Great question. Yeah.

Allergies

Dr. Clayton Roach: [00:32:01] All right, yeah. And so it’s allergy season, this is a great question. Yeah, allergies and the sinuses. And so one of the most common allergies that we’re seeing these days, and I think this is a really relevant topic, is something called hay fever. And so allergic rhinitis occurs during a particular season and it gets its name from the season where you’re cutting hay. So cutting hay season occurs when your immune system overreacts to outdoor allergens like pollen, and it releases histamines, which are inflammatory antigens. Into your bloodstream, and they produce the chemical symptoms, the symptoms that you feel like a runny nose, stuffy nose, watery eyes, itches, et cetera.

Dr. Ben Boudreau: [00:32:54] So in this process, we have what’s called mast cell activation, and these mass cells are what actually produce that histamine. So the over-the-counter drugs, the histamine help mitigate this whole loop of activity that happens chemically in your body. But definitely this year people are saying that they’re a little bit worse. Right. So I’m not one that suffers from allergies, but I’ve definitely had some patients say that they’re struggling this year a little bit. Obviously, the areas of pressure are going to be those sinus areas, sometimes with allergies. Typically they go together with sinus problems. And analogy’s that the allergen, the response tends to affect the sinus cavities.

Dr. Ben Boudreau: [00:33:45] So great question, the treatment for this is to avoid your triggers, there are medications out there that can also help regulate some of these responses. But the best trigger that we can recommend for you guys is to avoid your allergen if you know that it is a very gusty windy day. Make sure you close your windows so you’re not getting any of this pollen inside of your house. Just ways to avoid it. Yeah.

Dr. Clayton Roach: [00:34:13] Yeah, one of the things that I’ve read lately, and this is something that we had to go through with one of our children, is that with massive activation, sometimes what can happen is you could be responding to certain foods as well. So at times, going on a Carnivore diet where you’re not taking any plants at all for a short-term period of time can stop that mass activation as well. And you guys can look up another conversation for another night. But the Carnivore diet can be done on a short-term basis to stop that massive activation. And you might find that, yes, allergies are affecting you, but there could be other things that are creating that massive activation that’s become chronic over time. So just no pun intended, but food for thought.

Dr. Clayton Roach: [00:35:10] Great. Can chiropractors help with allergies at all? Well, here’s the thing. We do not treat conditions. Have I heard patients anecdotally say that their allergies are not as bad as what they used to Yes, and I think that’s a reflection of their entire body being healthier, so along with chiropractic care, we will recommend certain dietary changes and stuff like that? So it is a multifactorial approach and I think that’s the result.

Sorry, their allergies not being as bad as they used to as a result of the many things that we may have been telling them to do and not just the chiropractic alone. I want to make sure that I stress that we don’t treat allergies. But yes, I have noticed that certain patients have said that their allergies aren’t as bad as they used to. And I attribute that to chiropractic care. So great for them.

Calcium

Dr. Ben Boudreau: [00:36:10] Yeah, that’s a great, great answer, I think we’re going to move on to the next one. So question number six, great question. Is it a good idea to take calcium supplements the same as vitamin D? So I’ll just sort of start it off just by doing a little intro. So calcium is a mineral that the body needs for good health. It’s found naturally in some foods and it’s available as a nutritional supplement, which we’ll get into. How calcium gets absorbed into the body depends on the form of the supplement, how well the calcium dissolves in the intestines and the amount of calcium that’s in the body at the time, because if you already have enough, it’s not going to absorb too much.

The two most common products of calcium are calcium carbonate and calcium citrate. So calcium carbonate dissolves in an acidic environment. So it dissolves when your food is calcium citrate. You can take it at any time. You don’t need acid to dissolve it. There are different types. Is it a good idea to take calcium supplements the same as vitamin D? And Clayton, I’ll let you take it away from here.

Dr. Clayton Roach: [00:37:21] Well, there’s you know, there are definitely some issues with taking calcium, you know, I’ll get the question. Sometimes people will combine, I’ll get from for now, but many times calcium is combined with magnesium. So people take a CalMag. If the reason you’re taking the CalMag is to get some magnesium. There’s definitely not enough magnesium in CalMag supplements to get the effects that you want from magnesium. For me personally, there’s been some research that says that taking calcium can be a risky thing because it does affect the prothrombin, which basically is what is prothrombin. And it’s it helps with clotting.

Yeah, I’m trying to think of what it is, though, I guess it’s not an antigen, but protein. Protein. Yeah, the best basically affects your clotting time, so. So basically what can happen when you take too much calcium is you can have an issue with your heart. So it’s something you want to be careful taking. My take is, is that there isn’t any research that says that you can take too much calcium from food. And the issues around calcium with the heart are from taking calcium from supplements, so it’s always safer to get your calcium from food versus taking it from a supplement.

Dr. Ben Boudreau: [00:38:58] Yeah, and that’s and that’s exactly what the current research is saying now and it’s important to have that taken of calcium because when we think about how important calcium is in maintaining healthy bones and strong teeth, it helps protect against osteoporosis. But it also plays a key role in helping activate your neuromuscular junctions. So it influences the way that your heart and your muscles contract and beat in addition to nerve conduction. And so it’s a very important mineral to have in your body and and and be able to to take in. Now, one thing is, as well as that, if you do have low levels of blood, calcium, and so if your blood calcium levels are low, when you go to get these levels checked, your body will react and release something called parathyroid hormone released by your thyroid glands.

This will cause the calcium from your bone to then enter your blood more readily. And that’s how this process of osteoporosis starts. When you have low blood calcium, all the calcium from a bone goes into your blood and gets used up there. Then there’s a loss in the bone and osteoporosis ensues. You always want to check to make sure that your blood calcium levels are at a normal, normal level. And if they are, you want to get that backup.

Dr. Clayton Roach: [00:40:23] Yeah. One thing I’ll say is that calcium has been over advertising in terms of bone density. You got to realize that there are 13 minerals in bone. Right? Calcium is just one of those minerals. Just Google and say, OK, well, you know, I’m going to take calcium because I have osteoporosis is it’s not the whole picture. Taking your calcium from dark leafy greens, like if you take a look at this chart, most of the things a lot of things you see is dark green. So you’re your collard greens, your broccoli, your kale. And I know sometimes some people don’t like kale.

You got to kind of hide it in certain shakes or whatever, but this is where you are going to get your biggest source of calcium. And I know some of you might like milk, but milk is not the best source of calcium. You have to realize that milk is the number one allergen on this planet and we’re the only species that drink milk after being born and being breastfed. We go to the water. Every species on this planet goes to water.

We’re the only species that drink milk. And not only do we drink milk, but we drink from another species being cows and cows proteins are very big and they don’t cross our membranes very well and can stimulate our nervous system, our immune system and specifically our mucous glands. So we’ve got to be careful with milk specifically if you have an intolerance to milk and not just the lactose intolerant, but the actual milk protein. Right.

Dr. Ben Boudreau: [00:42:05] Yeah, and it’s definitely one of those things that have come up in the recent literature, especially with this food movement that we’re going through, where milk, just dairy just isn’t what we thought it was. It’s just like I was going to say, it’s just like in COD, you see that photo where it’s like in cod, we trust it. Let’s see that in milk. We trust It. Yeah, but yeah. So great question on calcium. So always check with an expert before you take any supplements. That way you are 100 percent understood and you know what it is that you’re taking and that it’s the right quality. And we talk about this all the time with the quality of the supplement will determine the quality of the effectiveness. And so you have to be able to know that.

Dr. Clayton Roach: [00:42:55] And no, we do not get enough magnesium. Magnesium is the one that’s really being promoted right now. We’re kind of depleted at all levels right now with stress and everything. Magnesium is winning the race right now in terms of the most popular supplement out there. And again, we talk about the quality of the magnesium getting. A lot of people are taking magnesium. So I didn’t notice anything. And we think a little bit more. We find out where they bought the magnesium and then that kind of answers the question as to why they didn’t get the results.

Quality is everything with magnesium and magnesium has made me look very well many times in my patients that I’ve recommended. They’re like, oh my gosh, energy is up. Mental clarity is everything focused. Magnesium is phenomenal and can’t really you can’t overdose on magnesium, but the only effect is going to be loose stools. So if you get a little bit of diarrhea and you’re taking too much magnesium because it’s going to basically it’s a natural muscle relaxer and it can have that effect on digestive muscles as well as the muscles.

Dr. Ben Boudreau: [00:43:59] Most people don’t get enough votes up a lot of the supplements that they need and mainly is vitamin D. And so making sure that you’re getting enough sunlight and you don’t have a lot of positive effects and they’ve seen a lot of people have the seasonal affective disorder are reduced in their vitamin D intake.

Dr. Clayton Roach: [00:44:18] Yeah, absolutely, so let’s pause right now and give people a chance to pay their admission fee to this show, which is sharing this episode. So if you haven’t done so yet, please go ahead and share this episode with people. We appreciate that very much to get the word out there about what chiropractic care could do and not just chiropractic care, but some of these questions that had nothing to do with chiropractic but might help some people with some of the things that they’re experiencing. So thank you for all your share so far.

And we really appreciate this. Go ahead. Yeah, I was I was just going to say, you know, some of these topics, what I really love about Question Night is that it gives us the opportunity to talk about things that we don’t normally get to talk about. And you just never know who the next person is that might see Sjogren’s Syndrome, you know, and might say, oh, I have that knowledge. I’ve never heard anybody go alive and talk about that condition. And, you know, you’re really doing something special for people out there and maybe looking for questions to be answered or just looking to know that there are people out there.

We’re talking about the conditions that they have. Before we did these Humpday conversations. I don’t think there was really anybody else on your Facebook feed that was doing these types of conversations. And so it definitely gives us the opportunity to open people’s eyes to maybe the conditions that they have or something that they’re just curious about. Yeah.

Dr. Clayton Roach: [00:45:58] So we’ll win tonight with CoQ10 nice, you’ve got a few questions this week regarding CoQ10. And there is a couple of them. We talked the last week about anybody who’s on statin drugs. Statins have a very common side effect, one which is muscle tightness and statin drugs and Crestor, Zocor, Lipitor. And one of the things that they do is they basically messed up your part of the mitochondria, which is the energy-producing part of your cell, and CoQ10 helps replenish that. So a lot of research on CoQ10 and the effects of statin drugs out there. So this is not something new. It’s something that most medical doctors do know because it’s been literature that if you are on statin drugs to take your CoQ10, it’s a very, very, very potent antioxidant.

And antioxidants mean that through redox reduction, the oxidative reaction has the ability to kill free radicals and free radicals lead to cancer. So antioxidants in the number of antioxidants that we take in either through food or through a substance called CoQ10 are putting the odds in our favour. We’re doing what we can to minimize potential problems down the road. So a great, great antioxidant you can. I can’t say more than that. It’s it’s it’s great.

Dr. Ben Boudreau: [00:47:31] Yeah, I mean, I recommended this one today to patients as well, so I just love the way that how supplements just complement what it is that we do as chiropractors. So, so well. And and and that’s why we’re always on the search to find the best, the best supplements out there.

Dr. Clayton Roach: [00:47:53] So again, we want to thank you, guys. If you haven’t shared the episode yet, please go ahead and do that. Thank you, Kathy. Share, share, share. We can’t see that enough. And if you’re watching us on YouTube, make sure you hit the subscribe button. And that way you can be notified when we have a new episode that we posted. This episode will be posted tomorrow morning on YouTube at 8:00. So we love you and appreciate you as always. And as always, Ben. Any final thoughts? Keep on rocking in

Dr. Ben Boudreau: [00:48:22] The free world.

Dr. Ben Boudreau: [00:48:24] We are doing great. We’re almost at the end of May. We’re into June soon. So guys keep moving forward. Keep making the little steps towards a healthier lifestyle, healthy life, creating healthier lives for yourselves and for others around you. Yeah, so that’s my final thought. We were getting through this, guys. Pretty soon we’ll have summer. We’ll have people that we can hang around with. So, again, thank you so much for being live with us. And we look forward to seeing you again live next week on Healthy Conversation number twenty-six at nine o’clock next week on Wednesday. Take care and have a great night.

Dr. Clayton Roach: [00:49:06] What’s up? Listen, if you like this episode, you’ll probably like the other ones, chances are pretty good. So here’s what you need to do. You need to like us and follow us on Facebook. Following means, you get notified when these two guys are alive. Next, family, friends, you need to share these episodes because you never know. You might help them because they need this information as well. And guys, if you ever miss an episode, make sure you subscribe to us on YouTube. That way, you can watch the episode over and over and over again. Guys, we love you and appreciate you. Take care.