Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast.
Today, you and I are tackling one of the most important topics, your health.
And we're gonna do it with one of the top spine surgeons and neurosurgeons in the world.
Dr. Betsy Grunch is here.
If you've ever felt stuck, overwhelmed or disconnected from your body, I want you to consider this episode your full body reset, because Dr Grunch is going to give you a step-by-step, simple approach that is going to help you take control of your health and your life once and for all.
She's also going to tell you that if you are in pain right now, there's still a lot you can do to take control of your health.
And what I love about Dr. Grunch is, yes, she's a board-certified neurosurgeon.
Yes, she takes emergency calls at a level one trauma center.
Yes, she's flying around the country teaching cutting-edge surgical techniques to doctors around the world.
But here's what I love most about Dr. Grunge.
She was inspired to become a spine surgeon because her mother was paralyzed in the line of duty.
And that forced Dr. Grunge as a high schooler into the role of having to be her caregiver.
And she's also going to tell you that, between being a caregiver for her mother going to medical school, having two babies, being a working mom doing all these surgeries that she let her own health go,
She's going to tell you the exact steps of how she lost 85 pounds after struggling with back pain herself because she refused to end up on her own operating table.
And today, she's here to hand you the simple, motivating, inspiring steps to take back your body.
Whether you're 35 or 75, whether you've let yourself go, you're recovering from an injury or you just had a baby, or maybe there's somebody that you love who needs a full body reset.
Dr Grunge will help you start where you are and learn how to move better, feel stronger and stay young.
Because this episode isn't just about improving your health.
It's about reclaiming your life.
It's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast.
I am so excited that you're here.
It's such an honor to be together and to spend this time with you.
And if you're a new listener, you're here because somebody shared this with you.
Well, I just wanted to personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins Podcast family.
I am so excited for our conversation today.
I'm so excited that you are here to listen to this.
I cannot wait for you to meet and learn from today's guest, Dr. Betsy Grunch.
Dr Grunch is here to teach you how to take control of your health, and she's gonna offer the protocol to help you look, move and age better.
Dr Grunch is a board-certified neurosurgeon who was named by Newsweek one of America's best spine surgeons.
Millions of people know her online as Lady Spine Doc, where her science-backed advice on spine health, mobility and pain relief goes viral every day.
I mean, she's got more than 185 million likes on TikTok alone.
For over a decade, Dr Grunch has specialized in minimally invasive procedures to treat everything from disc issues and scoliosis to spine cord and traumatic brain injuries.
She takes emergency calls at a level one trauma center and travels across the country teaching other physicians the latest, most innovative surgical techniques.
She completed both her residency and medical fellowship at Duke University, and today she practices at Longstreet Clinic and operates at Northeast Georgia Medical Center.
She's been featured on Atlantic Magazine's top doc list, honored in Women's Making a Mark and recognized in multiple 40 Under 40 lists.
She's on a mission to help you prevent pain, heal from it and to feel strong in your body, no matter your age.
So, without further ado, please help me welcome the extraordinary Dr Betsy Grunch to the Mel Robbins Podcast.
Thank you so much for having me.
It is an honor to meet you.
I'm so excited to be here.
Thank you.
Well, we are all super excited, and here's how I want to start.
Could you share how my life might be different if I take everything to heart that you're about to teach us today and I apply it to my own life?
What we're about to talk about is going to change every part of how you think about your life, to help you live a better life in your 20s, your 30s, but even fast-forwarding into your 50s 60s 70s, where you won't have pain.
You maybe have better health.
Better clarity in your vision of what you want for yourself is what we're about to talk about.
Ooh, I believe you.
Yeah.
I believe you.
What made you decide to pursue neurosurgery?
So whenever I was little, I think most young girls look up to their mom, and they love their mom.
And I was no different.
My mom was a cop.
She was just the ultimate badass.
I watched her get ready every morning, put the bulletproof vest on, and I thought there was no one cooler than my mom.
And I wanted to be a.
I was about two weeks before I was to start high school and I'm a big softball player, so I had tryouts for the junior varsity softball team.
Softball was my life at the time, and I went to bed that night, and she was on the night shift.
She worked night shift.
She told me she was going to take me to practice the next morning to tryouts.
And I went to bed, and when I woke up, she wasn't there.
My aunts had woke me up, and they told me that something had happened to her.
And I could tell by just them being there that something was not right.
And they said she had been in an accident and we needed to go to the hospital.
So...
We went to the hospital and I'll never forget the moment of getting there, going up the elevator and her doctor walked off.
Her neurosurgeon walked off the elevator and he said I'm sorry, she's broken her neck and she's never gonna walk again.
And then he walked off.
And that was it.
And I just saw her intubated in the ICU.
And we were just like, what's happened?
I can't believe this is happening.
And that experience, that moment of just your world being completely turned upside down.
I thought you know, softball was my life.
Now everything had just caved in.
And just going through the rehab experience with her, seeing the teams, the healthcare team, the doctors, the nurses, the therapists, and those months of recovery were really, really powerful and impacting how I saw the world, how I saw my life, how I wanted to help people like her.
This experience that I had and how I felt like I'm going to cure spinal cord injury.
I want...
I want my mom to walk again, and by God, I'm going to figure it out.
How did she break her neck?
So she was driving her police car down in a semi-dangerous part of our town.
There's a lot of gang activity in that part of town.
And she got called to some people that were on private property.
And when she drove by the property, it was gang members and they shot at her vehicle.
And she tried to veer off from the bullets and hit a tree.
And the roof kind of caved in and broke her neck.
And she laid there for probably 15 minutes because it was... two in the morning.
No one saw her.
No one knew the accident happened.
The people that shot her car drove off.
And just a bystander drove by and saw the vehicle on the side of the road.
And thank God they did.
What was it like to just go, okay, you know what?
I'm not only going to go into the medical field, but I am going to go into one of the most male-dominated fields in medicine.
What was that journey like?
Growing up with my mom being a female cop, she always told me, you can do anything a man can do.
Women can do everything.
Women are strong.
And that's how I was raised.
And so neurosurgery, 219 board-certified neurosurgeons that are women in the U.S. out of 3,500.
So there's not many of us.
So that space isn't really built for us.
It's a space where you walk into that you automatically look around and maybe feel like you don't belong.
But I just told myself, I do belong.
I can do this.
She did it.
I can do it.
There's nothing that they can tell me.
I'm going to work harder.
I'm going to be stronger and outperform any of the guys.
And that's what I did.
Now, how did the experience of caring for your mom, and also the experience of being in the hospital as a caregiver to somebody with this kind of injury, how did that shape the way that you approach medicine, the way that you treat your patients?
I think when you're on the other side of the table, as a doctor, we see things totally different.
But as a patient, it's an experience that can be very traumatizing, very overwhelming, very over-stimulating.
And I think once you've had that experience of being on the other side, it makes you more empathetic.
It makes you see the patient differently.
What are they going through at home that may impact what I say to them?
Who's there to help them through this?
How can I make their experience to where, when they go home, they can deal with what is happening to them?
How is their family handling this?
How is this going to impact their career, their job, their ability to feed their children?
So I think those are all things that are incredibly important as healthcare professionals, to have that kind of empathy, to be able to give us better care to our patients.
Well, part of the story that struck me is when you said you walked in, the surgeon walked out, said she's never gonna walk again and walked away.
Yeah, I'll never forget that moment for the rest of my life.
How did that change you?
I mean, the things that we see as physicians are devastating.
I see people that don't deserve the things that happen to them young people that get brain cancer, traumatic injuries, death.
And I realized going through that that those 60 seconds that I deliver that news is something that's gonna be ingrained in their brains forever.
So how can I take that moment and not make it as traumatizing?
How can I make it better?
How can I make them experience this in a way that it can deliver the news in a matter where they can handle it and process it a little easier?
Now, your specialty is back in spine.
What do you wish people knew before they ended up on the operating table?
I wish people knew that there are things that you can do in your life that can change your future and keep you off of the operating table.
I think a lot of people just live their life thinking it's going to happen.
It's fine.
I'll just deal with it when it happens.
And that's not always true.
There are things that we can do to make your life better.
And And that's what I'm hoping to really relay to people.
Also, just surgery isn't a cure.
I think people think, okay, problem's broken, this is a fix.
And then they go back to how it was.
And especially in spine surgery, things that we do in the OR can really change the rest of your life.
The things that, if we fuse your spine, for example, you might have up to a 25 30 chance of having another back surgery in your future.
So making that decision is not just black and white.
So what are some of the things that you can do in terms of ways that you can be healthier that keep you off the operating table?
Making sustainable change.
So that means, you know, doing diet plans aren't just something that you can live by.
You really have to kind of change your life in a way that you can live things reliable and sustainably.
Crash exercise, you know, it's the beginning of the year.
I'm going to...
New year, new me, you know, I'm going to get in the gym every single day.
That's not realistic, right?
So you have to decide what you can do in your day-to-day life, that you can continue in this journey of life to make yourself better.
And you can't push yourself too hard because you'll give up.
And I've been there.
And I think that's really important for everybody to know that we need to make changes that you can live with.
Well, what have you learned after 12 years as a spinal surgeon?
What are the most important things about living a healthy life?
I've been through all the things in my life, in my training being overweight, being out of shape, having kids, having back issues actually.
So those things and then seeing what my patients go through injuries that they sustain earlier in life to their back and then how that might transform they are when they're 50 60, 70 years old.
Those things that we can do in our life that can make us better for ourselves and show up every single day as a better person, as a stronger person, will make you into a person in your future that you want to be.
You know, you were talking earlier about how you became the caregiver for your mom.
Then you're pursuing a career as a neurosurgeon and you yourself were not taking care of yourself.
Can you just kind of talk a little bit about what your state of health was, how you let yourself go?
Because I think we can all relate to this.
Absolutely.
I mean I think When that happened to my mom.
Obviously when we have something happen in our life that kind of uproots everything we know for me, I became very much a stress eater.
Food was my coping mechanism.
Food was my joy.
Would come home from school every day and drink a Mountain Dew and eat some Reese's peanut butter cups.
That was my kryptonite.
And you do that over and over again, and it changes you.
So fast forward through residency, med school, all those things, that's how I dealt with stress.
And I became very unhealthy.
And so here I was, this very unhealthy person, dedicating my life to improving the health of others.
So it was like, what am I doing?
I knew what I was doing, but I couldn't change it.
And I was just in this cycle.
And it wasn't until you know I really had a moment in which I injured my back that I said okay Betsy, things we've got to change.
So...
It's, I don't know, it's definitely eye-opening.
And I want everybody to know that that's how all of us are.
We all have these moments where we think that we aren't in control, but you can change it.
So for the person who's listening, who either is nodding along going yep Mountain Dew Reese's yep stress eating.
I'm with you, Dr. Grunge.
Uh-huh, uh-huh.
I see where this train is headed and it is headed for a train wreck.
Or they're thinking about somebody that they love deeply, who is stress eating and caring for everybody else but not taking care of themselves.
You said I felt like I couldn't change it.
But what do you know now about your own physical transformation?
That you would say to somebody who's chugging the Mountain Dew or they're just stress eating and they're saying I just can't get control of this.
What do you want them to know?
I want them to know that in order to care best for others, you have to care for yourself.
And if I could go back and tell my younger self one thing, it would be that it's okay to love yourself.
It's okay to take time for you.
We put so much time in our life to caring for others or to trying to do better for others, especially as physicians or as caregivers.
We're all in that situation.
And I never thought that taking that time for me.
I thought of it as taking away from what I wanted to do, which was take care of other people.
And I wish I could go back and change that.
What was the thing that finally snapped you into place?
And you're like, I got to change.
I'm treating myself terribly here.
Yeah, I think it's the mental stress that we undergo as caregivers.
So we have this focus towards if we're doing something, it diverts our attention away from the obvious right.
So if I am caring for my mom, or if I'm caring for whoever that person may be, I can then divert my mind to focus on that task instead of opening my mind up to think about what's going on with me.
And that's the change that has to happen.
I think in most people that we don't want to think about that.
It's overwhelming.
It's stressful.
And whatever that moment is that you say to yourself it's time to, That's the time where that mental focus shifts and then you realize that to be your best self, you have to make that change.
You know what was going on with Betsy at that point, as you're caregiving and going through school and trying to grind it out through life and just getting through it and getting through it.
And the Mountain Dew and the Reese's and the food becomes these small moments of joy.
Like, what was the thing you really needed to look at that you can see now was the issue?
It's the cycle.
So I didn't want to look in the mirror because I was getting fat.
Everyone in my family was focused on my mom and not focused on me.
No one was asking how I was doing.
I was a smart, fat girl, so I didn't get asked to prom.
I didn't get asked to go do the fun stuff, but I did ask to get help with the homework.
And so all these things like I became everyone's outlet for help, but then no one asked me how I was doing helping myself.
And that was what you're taught, right?
So no one is asking me, so I must just internalize that behavior.
And it became, how can I find joy?
And for me that joy was unhealthy and finding ways to make myself happy.
That just propagated the cycle.
Put me at the moment where you're like, I can't do this anymore.
I'm carrying too much weight.
I've now hurt my back.
I'm in spinal rest.
And it's like, what was the moment for you?
Because you let yourself go for a long time while you were caring for everybody.
And nobody's going to blame you for doing that.
Yeah.
I mean, I can't even imagine the amount of pressure and sadness, and just maybe even loneliness, you were feeling in what you were dealing with.
For me, the aha moment was I got the residency, started my job, still living this life married, my amazing husband had our first child and I was changing the diaper.
My first child was a boy, so you know, pee goes everywhere a diaper comes off, pee everywhere.
So he like peed all over the the bassinet and so i was leaning down to try to wipe it off the floor and then, all of a sudden, like a knife went through my back like, took me to my knees the most incredible, intense pain I've ever experienced.
And I couldn't move.
If I moved an inch of my body, this pain was so incredibly intense.
So I screamed for my husband.
My son was two months old, like screaming his head off.
He couldn't hear me.
My phone was on the other side of the room.
And so I kind of like military crawled to the chair and I knew I hurt my back.
I knew I blew out a desk.
My knowledge of being a spine surgeon already for three years through all residency, three years of being attending, and I was like my mind was spiraling.
I knew what happened and what this could mean for me.
And it was that moment that I knew I had to change.
What could that have meant for you?
So a disc injury can be something that and I know many people that are listening have experienced this kind of pain, because it's very common.
80% of people will have some type of back pain in their life.
And often it's this exact experience that I'm describing.
And it can go many different ways.
I mean, luckily, most disc injuries kind of heal on their own.
Most people don't need back surgery.
But my mind went like oh my God, I'm going to be on the OR table and I'm going to have a discectomy, and then I'm going to go down the road and then fast forward 10 years, I'm going to have a bad disc and then, when I'm 50,
So all these, my mind just went like all these different ways.
And so I wanted to take that moment and really, you know, make a change.
What did you do in that moment?
I...
Called my doctor, got on some anti-inflammatory medications.
God help for my son, obviously.
My husband, my family, everyone's close.
And took a few days of rest and then really started making that change.
So I was postpartum, overweight, core is destroyed.
It's had a C-section, pelvic floor is destroyed.
And my son was almost 10 pounds, a massive baby.
Wow.
You basically had a basketball.
Exactly, exactly.
And he still has 10 years later.
But yeah, I knew that I needed to kind of get my body back into shape.
I needed to change the way I eat, to change all the things I tell my patients to do.
Why wasn't I doing that?
I want to know what were the first simple steps you took and how much weight did you tell yourself you had to lose?
I wanted to lose 100 pounds.
100 pounds?
At the time of my heaviest, I was 260 pounds.
So I was at a point where I shouldn't have been.
I should have never have gotten to that moment.
And I...
Saw on TV, ad for the Peloton, baby.
I bought the Peloton, put it down in the basement, like doing all this cardio, Alex Toussaint.
Yeah, I'm like getting after it on the Peloton.
Hell yeah.
I was there with you.
Yes.
And um, and that was I mean.
That gave me a sense of community.
The ability to have a online relationship, I guess, with a group of people are kind of going through that same thing made me feel like I wasn't alone.
So I did that for years and I loved it and I lost a lot of weight.
I didn't believe it or not.
As doctors, they think that we are experts in nutrition.
But I'll tell you, doctors know nothing about nutrition.
And so I wanted to learn how to eat better.
And I didn't know where to start.
I mean, where do I... So I was looking up podcasts, trying to buy books.
So I'm like, what do I need to do to lose the weight?
Because exercise is great, but I've got to supplement that with... better eating habits.
So I get the Diet Coke or Diet Mountain Dew instead of the Mountain Dew, but then not realizing that that's not actually a great choice either.
So I just kind of educated myself.
I actually started intermittent fasting kind of on a sustainable way, because to me, not eating for a period of time was something that I felt was something that I could do, because I'm a surgeon right.
I'm in that scrubbed in surgery for hours.
So I read the book, a book called The Obesity Code.
Jason Fung goes through that scientific... explanation of how our body processes food.
And I thought, wow, why didn't I know this before?
How am I been a physician for almost 12 years now?
And I didn't even understand the basics of that.
And so I took a lot of those fundamental concepts and kind of integrated it and how I could sustain changes in what I was eating.
And I lost a fair amount of weight, but got pregnant with another baby.
Funny how that happens.
Yeah, I don't know how that happens.
Dr. Crossley.
And so what happened after you got pregnant with your second child?
So similar thing.
We go through the baby.
And I felt better prepared because I'd gone through it once.
And my kids are three years apart.
So I had time to kind of recover and get back a little bit and be on this journey.
And I felt like I handled my... I was 38 years old.
I was pregnant with the second one.
So...
I had all the like just more intense pregnancy back pain than I had with my son.
And I got to the point, like towards the end of that pregnancy where, like even standing on one foot, just because of my back, sacroiliac joint, my pelvis and all the stretching that happens during pregnancy, was crazy.
And I understood.
And that second pregnancy I could empathize, I feel like, with my patients more than even when I had my back injury, because it was so intense and I couldn't do anything about it.
You can't take medicines because you're pregnant.
You can't necessarily go work out because I've got this massive abdomen, this thing growing inside of me.
It was like I felt so helpless in so much pain towards that third trimester that I knew that when I was done, when she was born, and I can go back to the ways.
But it really living in that and feeling a little trapped in that was really relatable, I think, to what some of my patients experienced.
One of the things that I really love about you is that you are so relatable.
And the fact that you just shared that sort of epiphany that here I've gone to medical school.
Here I am advising my patients to make healthier choices.
Here I am operating on people.
I've let myself go.
And now you're recognizing, I don't know the first thing about what choices I should be making.
How did you make these changes to your health and to nutrition and to exercise stick, especially as you make the gains?
You're losing weight, you're exercising and then all of a sudden, you get pregnant again.
Yeah, I think every woman understands that feeling of feeling like it's the best moment of your life, the happiest, but also looking in the mirror as the hardest.
And you feel almost guilty for that, because you've created this amazing creature that you love so much.
But you feel maybe disgusted, or you don't look good or you don't feel good.
And all this you know extra things that have your body's changed.
Now you've got stretch marks and places you never knew existed, and pains in places you ever knew you had.
And it's just such an experience that I think that every woman can relate to, and things that you think you'll never get your life back and you'll never get yourself back.
And That is something that's really hard for us to decide what can we do to get our life back.
So for me, it was a moment of realizing that, yes, I have two beautiful kids.
I'm incredibly blessed, but I'm also really suffering.
I'm really hurting.
I'm not happy with how I look.
I'm not happy with how I feel.
So what can I do to change that?
And it was, and I don't want to make it sound like I was perfect and I went to the gym and I did this diet and I, like boom, lost all this weight and I'm fit and everybody can do it.
That's not realistic.
The reality is, is that we're all going to make these like little decisions, little crash diets.
We're going to go to the gym every day for 30 days.
We're going to do this whole 30 thing.
We're going to lose 500 pounds in like a month and we're going to be great.
But it's sustainable change over time.
And change over time is one of the hardest things to do, because you have to change your mindset and you have to do it forever.
And so that was something that, for me, I had to come to that realization that I have to make changes in my diet that is sustainable.
I have to make changes in how I dedicate time to myself that is sustainable.
And were there times where I did things, that that I had a setback didn't work out for four weeks, that I go out and eat like Waffle House every day?
Yeah.
And that's okay.
You know, you just have to keep going.
Dr. Grunge, I am learning so much from you.
So if you've already had one of those, wait, Why has nobody told me this moments?
Share this episode.
Send this to somebody you love.
Send this to your spouse, your parents, your best friend, your adult kids, because back pain isn't just common.
It's the number one cause of disability in the world.
And can't you just tell that Dr. Grunge is just getting started?
I mean, I feel like we're just on the appetizer.
We've not hit the main course yet.
And what Dr. Grunch is sharing might just save someone you love from years of unnecessary pain.
So don't go anywhere.
We're going to hear a few words from our amazing sponsors and more with Dr Grunch including.
She has the most incredible advice about what to do if you are intimidated going into a gym.
Stay with us.
We'll be right back.
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Welcome back.
It's your buddy Mel Robbins.
Today, you and I are learning how to do a total body reset with number one neurosurgeon, Dr Betsy Grunch.
So, Dr. Grunch, what do you do specifically as a neurosurgeon and a busy mom?
Can you walk me through a day?
I'm not talking about a day where you're on call for 72 hours, but what are kind of the general things?
Because the folks that listen to this show-
And the person who's made the time to spend with us, Dr Grunge, is like okay, you sound like me and you're absolutely amazing.
Tell me what you do.
Like, what will you wake up?
What do you eat?
What do you exercise?
Like, what is your routine on a day where you're getting 90% of it right?
I love those days.
Those are the glory days, right?
You feel so proud of yourself and you win.
Those days are amazing.
And every day is not going to be like that.
But I wake up in the morning.
I am not a morning person.
Believe it or not, I went into a career in which I am born into being a morning person.
I am not.
So I actually don't work out in the mornings anymore.
I tried really hard and I realized sustainable change, that is not for me.
So wake up, have my coffee, And get my kids ready.
And I'll eat eggs and oatmeal with blueberries.
Blueberries, antioxidant.
So get a little anti-inflammatory in there.
And then, you know, go to work.
And I'll try to eat protein and some type of vegetable for lunch and dinner.
And the best, the thing about chaotic life, which all of us can relate to moms dads, work schedule caregivers, whatever you don't have time is really like.
I try my best at food prep because I don't have to think about it, because if I'm left to my own means it's dangerous.
Yes.
So yeah, so I try to kind of at least think about what I'm going to eat and plan that for the day.
So whenever that decision comes up, I don't have the opportunity to make a bad decision.
I've kind of planned that out for myself.
And then I work out.
You know, go to work, do my thing, assuming it's one of these 90 glory days, feed my kids dinner.
And then I'll work out at night.
So yeah, I just take an hour for me.
That way I don't feel pressured.
The kids are asleep.
I don't have to worry about this, what, and that.
And then I can do it.
And then it's good.
What I love about what you just said, Dr. Grunch, is you figured out how to make it work for you.
And that's the secret to sustainable change.
And I think especially for women, there's so much aimed at us in terms of doing it all perfectly.
And you see a ton about morning routines.
And for a lot of us it just isn't going to work because you're not going to get up at four o'clock in the morning and exercise before your kids get up.
And so I also love that you are giving us an example that, look, you can do it at night.
You can put the kids down and do a yoga class that you stream online.
You could lift a couple weights for 20 minutes.
You'll probably sleep better.
And then you're getting it in.
Yep.
It's all about getting it in.
And most importantly, what fits in your schedule?
Because I tried for many years of getting up early and, like all these other people online are doing it.
God, I'm so tired when I do that.
And I just, that's not me.
I'm better at night.
And I think, you know, maybe some people are better in the afternoon.
Maybe they have a lunch break.
They can go do it, but just do it.
Whatever it is, whatever, however it can fit into your schedule, just do it.
So you mentioned, Dr. Grunch, that 80% of us will experience back pain.
And this is not just for people that are older.
A lot of younger people experience back pain.
You experienced it when you were a new mom.
And so let's start with what not to do.
As a spinal surgeon, what are a couple things that you personally avoid in order to protect your back?
So if there were four things, if I was talking to my best friend about what I would tell them that they could do for themselves, that would help their back would be number one no nicotine.
No nicotine.
No nicotine.
What?
No zins?
No nothing?
No toothpicks that have nicotine?
No cigarettes?
No vapes?
Nope.
Why?
I think that is one of the things.
If I could get on the tallest mountain in the world maybe not the tallest because I'm a little scared of heights but if I can get up on the biggest soapbox and tell everybody would be, nicotine is terrible for your spine.
And we know it's bad for your heart.
We know it's bad for your lungs.
But I cannot tell you how many patients, every single day, that I tell them that and their mind is blown.
Nicotine is one of the biggest accelerators of degenerative disc disease in our spine.
And I can look at two x-rays and I can tell you which one's a smoker.
It's mind-blowing, and I want more people to know that.
I've never heard that.
Why does nicotine degenerate your spine?
So nicotine's a vasoconstrictor, so that word means our blood vessels get bigger or get smaller.
So if you're working out, your blood vessels dilate so you get all flush, your skin gets red, you sweat.
That's vasodilation.
So that's when your blood vessels get big.
Vasoconstriction is where the blood vessels shrink.
So all of our blood vessels have little muscles on them.
So they get bigger and smaller, bigger and smaller.
So that's like when you get cold, you get clammy.
We call it the fight or flight response, a sympathetic response.
You see a bear, you know your hair raises up on your skin, you get really cold and everything tenses up.
So that's what nicotine does.
It's a vasoconstrictor.
It narrows your blood vessels.
It releases those sympathetic nervous system response.
And what that does is it decreases the amount of blood flow to your spine.
So Let's say you go to bend over, pick something up, maybe have a little tweak in your back.
Your body's going to heal itself.
So your body's going to deliver blood and nutrients to that injury, to oxygen to that area, and help your body heal from that little maybe tear that you had in your back or whatever the case may be.
And if you consistently use nicotine, your body won't be able to heal itself.
So you fast forward years of nicotine use and you'll get accelerated degeneration of your spine.
Also, nicotine increases inflammation in your body.
We know inflammation causes pain.
So it's just, it's bad.
And I wish everyone could stop.
And I take it that if you have this sort of degeneration, that happens because of that vasal constriction and the lack of blood flow to the spine and also the inflammation, that this is not a back injury, that surgery can help with.
This is like a long-term degenerative thing.
Correct.
It's a process over time, right?
We talked about change over time and change can be good, change can be bad.
So if you do consistent things over time that are bad, the end result is going to be bad spine.
Got it.
Wow.
So what is a second thing that you would avoid?
To protect your back.
I would avoid sedentary lifestyle.
So we've touched on exercise, but I would make sure that I move every single day.
That movement doesn't have to be going to the gym and pumping weights, but it's getting your blood flow, getting your freedom.
If it's a 15-minute walk outside during your lunch break, whatever it is, just stay moving.
And what's the third thing, Dr. Grunge, to avoid in order to protect your back?
Lifting properly.
So we are all culprit of bending over and picking up objects with bad forms.
And...
You want to bend over and really, we always teach, pick up with your legs.
Don't use your back, pick up with your legs.
And it's so true because that's how we often develop back injuries is from picking up something with improper form.
And that can just be the Amazon box on the side of the curb.
You're trying to do it quickly.
But if it's heavy, you need to be really careful with how you do that, because I've seen so many people just randomly doing something that they think is wrong is uh, safe and and they really hurt themselves.
So uh, and then the last thing i would say is sleeping with proper form.
So, sleeping with proper form yes, we sleep.
We spend a third of our lives in the bed.
That's crazy, like years and years of our life is spent laying in a bed.
So why would you lay in a form or on a mattress, or in a position that would hurt yourself?
So I think learning how to really sleep better and sleep with higher quality and more protection of your spine will help ease the pain that you may have in the future.
So Dr. Grunch, what is the best sleeping position for the spine?
Not the stomach.
Okay.
So not sleeping on the stomach.
Not sleeping on the stomach.
And back and side sleeping is fine.
I was a big time stomach sleeper, and it wasn't until I could not sleep on my stomach when I was pregnant that I really changed.
And I knew that stomach sleeping was bad, but I still did it anyway.
But yeah, you want to just put your spine in a neutral alignment.
So where your spine is natural, our spine has natural curves, right?
So you want to support those while you sleep in a position in which will kind of maintain that natural shape of the spine.
So if you're a back sleeper, making sure you have enough support for the back of your head, putting a little pillow between your knees to keep your knees a little flexed.
Wait, hold on.
What do you mean?
Wait, what?
In between my knees, I need a pillow?
If you're a back sleeper, under your knees.
Oh, so like if you ever got a massage and they put that nice pillow down there?
So you should have pillows under your knees while you sleep?
Why do you think they do that when you get a massage?
I don't know.
I have no idea.
They do it because they know what they're doing.
So whenever you're anywhere, in the operating room, we put pillows underneath.
And that's just to kind of keep a natural flex position for your pelvis and your lower back.
It'll take some of the stress off of your lower back.
Well, Dr. Crunch, I'm 57.
How did I not know that I'm supposed to have a knee pillow, not just a head pillow?
I'm here for you, Mel.
You are here for all of us, Dr. Crunch.
Okay, but let's talk about the side.
Okay.
So if you're on your side, because I tend to start on my, okay, we're going to go TMI.
Okay, so we're lying in bed.
I tend to lay, start on my back. but now I'm going to have a pillow under my knees.
And I think that this is going to help because I always roll to my right.
You're rolling to your right because you're uncomfortable probably.
What?
Yeah.
No kidding.
Your brain is telling you that you need to shift positions because something is not right.
So that natural.
No kidding.
Okay.
So if you're a side sleeper, knees up, legs straight like pillow between the knees, what do you recommend?
Pillow between the knees because you want to keep your pelvis.
Your legs aren't meant to be.
This sounds a little weird.
Legs are not meant to be close, but equal distance apart.
So a knee pillow and you take that same.
If you're a shifter, like you are, take that same pillow that you put under your knees and put it between your knees.
It'll help your knees, it'll help your back, it'll help your hips, it'll help your back.
And it doesn't matter if your legs are straight, legs are bent, one leg's bent, one leg's straight.
Whatever is the most comfortable, but just making sure.
And the other thing is making sure that you have good support under your neck.
So a lot of people, you know we all think this big fluffy squishy pillow is going to be the best.
Your head like sinks in some of these pillows, right?
So you might fold it up, bunch it up, shove it in there because that feels better.
Well, why does it feel better?
It feels better because you need more support.
So I personally use like a real firm pillow that maintains that space between my shoulder and my neck while I'm laying on my side.
So you don't want your neck on a diagonal is what I'm Not at a diagonal or not too elevated either.
So you want it perfectly straight with your body so your spine is straight.
And do you like those pillows that have like the cutout for the neck?
Do you like the ones with the, like anything that works that helps you keep your neck straight?
I'm here for whatever people find it to be the most supportive.
Because people are like, oh, what's your, you know, what pillow do you use?
And there are many brands out there on the market.
And I think I have purchased every brand of pillow known to man.
But it's about whatever works for you to keep that neck in neutral alignment.
So for me, it might be this pillow and for you, it might be another kind.
But whatever it is, as long as it's supportive to your neck is the most important.
And if you wake up and your shoulder sore, your neck sore, that means you're not doing something right.
You know what I love about these four things that you just talked about that we should avoid nicotine.
You got to avoid being too sedentary.
So you got to move.
You also have to avoid like lifting things and picking it up with your back instead of got to bend the knees everybody.
And the sleeping in a proper position.
What I love about this is, first of all, it's all things you can do.
Yes.
But as you were explaining how you see, as a spinal surgeon, so many people doing just ordinary things like picking up a cardboard box that's on your front porch and boom, that's what throws the back out.
But what's interesting is that if you're somebody that is ingesting nicotine and your spine is deteriorating, or you have a very sedentary lifestyle and you're not moving a lot and you have bad sleep position, you can see how, over time, your back is deteriorating to a point where a normal activity all of a sudden has you reach the breaking point.
Yes.
So it's not about that moment. that injured your back.
It's about everything that you did that led to that moment.
Because you were weakening your back the entire time, even though you didn't realize it.
Yes.
Whoa.
So if you wake up and you've got pain...
You know, like a lot of people do wake up in the morning, they have stiffness.
As a spinal surgeon, what does that mean to you?
If you went to bed with no pain and you woke up with pain, then you need to analyze how you're sleeping.
Is there something that you can do and where you can get more restful sleep with less pain?
And that might be all the things we just talked about the pillow, the support, the position that you're laying in, or it might be time for a new mattress, right?
So you want to analyze, if I wake up in pain, like what is it?
Is it my shoulder that's hurting?
Let's look at the situation in which how I'm laying and how can I, is it my hips that are hurting?
Maybe it's because I didn't get enough support down there.
So just you know, take in little things that you learn from what I'm telling you and then make those changes and see if you can do it better.
So the average person sits for at least 10 hours a day.
Can you talk a little bit about the role that sitting plays in back pain and what can we do about it, especially if you have like, a desk job or you're a long-haul driver or you're somebody that sits a lot?
Yeah.
What you need to realize is that your back is not just your bones, your disc, your joints, your ligaments.
It's mostly supported by your muscle.
So when you look at like, for example, if you look at a building, you might see this big, beautiful brick building.
But if you look at the inside there's, you know rebar, there's concrete, all the foundation, all the structural support, and then all the outside stuff.
And it's all concrete.
All that cumulative is what makes the building really strong.
And so think of your spine as your foundation and the rebar in your body, but all your muscle around it is what supports it.
So your abs, your back muscles, your pelvic floor, believe it or not, your diaphragm that's something people don't realize.
That really helps support your back too.
And so all of these are the structural support to your spine.
So that's where the sitting comes in, right?
You don't need any strength to do that.
So you do that 10 hours a day.
Over time, change over time, those muscles atrophy.
They get weaker.
You're not supporting yourself.
It's about what you can do to keep yourself moving, to keep the core engaged, to keep your pelvic floor engaged, to make sure that those support systems are firing right.
So what does that mean?
That means getting up every 30 minutes, 60 minutes walking, getting the standing sitting desk where you can do that right.
And it doesn't even have to be a full desk.
I mean, they make those little things that you can just sit on your desk.
I have one of those.
Super affordable, right?
Just pick it up.
So every you know half hour, set your iPhone, change it to where you can stand up and then start to work.
And what does that do?
It helps your muscles move.
Your joints are lubricating.
You're pumping blood through different areas of your body.
And not only that, you're engaging muscles that you're not engaging when you're sitting.
So those are really, really important to help reduce your pain, because you do that every day for 10 hours.
Don't move.
You're setting yourself up for failure.
Is there...
A proper way to sit for the best spinal health.
And I ask that because, as you start, we're talking about sitting.
I'm like okay, I better uncross my legs.
And then I noticed I kind of had slumped down like Jabba the Hutt in my chair.
You notice to sound like you're not paying attention and all of a sudden your stomach's like And your shoulders are kind of up at your ears like earrings.
And I often wonder why...
Do I slump down like that?
And is there some tech like should we be doing something as we're sitting to support our spinal health?
So what's happening when you're slouching down is all those muscles are just letting go.
And then you all have looked over at your spouse or your kid at home.
You're like, oh, why are they sitting like that?
Like, straighten up, like pull the shoulders back.
And then as I'm talking to you, I'm like, oh, my spines are down.
Wow.
But yeah, our brain, just like we like we we defocus away from like how we're sitting until we like engage that mental strength oh, I need a, you know.
So they sell so many ergonomic chairs.
I think all that's Marketing gimmicks for the most part, but really anything again, sitting and sleeping.
We talked about the neutral spine position.
It's the same thing.
So our neutral position is, you know, our posture is keeping that back up, keeping our lumbar support.
I love having just a little lumbar support pillow on any chair that I work at at home at work.
In my car, just a little, and it depends on the person.
Like some people have really flat backs.
Some people have really sway backs.
So anything to keep that like kind of alignment, because that if you have something pushing in your bag it'll kind of oh, I need to like pull my shoulders back a little bit.
So yeah, yeah.
And both feet on the ground?
How do you feel about crossed legs as a spinal surgeon?
Yeah, both feet is the best position down.
But you know, as long as you change positions and kind of realign and have that mental set to pull your shoulders back and pull your neck back and yeah.
You know, just that last thing you shared could change someone's life.
And as you're listening, I'm sure you're like I am.
There are so many people that are popping into your mind.
I cannot wait for my mom to listen to this episode.
I can't wait to send this to my Aunt Barb.
Hi, Aunt Barb.
There's so many people in my life that I want to share this information with, my three kids.
I know you have people that are coming up for you.
Share them the gift of Dr. Grunch.
Help the people you care about take control of their health.
And don't go anywhere.
There is so much more we're going to dig into after this short break.
So stay with me.
Welcome back, it's your buddy Mel Robbins.
Today, you and I are learning how to do a total body reset and to take control of our health with number one board-certified neurosurgeon, Dr Betsy Grunch.
So Dr. Grunch, what is Technic and how is being on our phone all the time shaping our spine?
So your head weighs anywhere from 10 to 15 pounds.
So when we are sitting upright, We have 10 to 15 pounds pushing down on our spine.
If you lean forward at an angle like you're looking at our phone and we all do it that force of weight becomes up to 60 pounds.
60?
Six zero.
Yeah.
So you can imagine how much more pressure you're putting on your neck, your spine, your muscles all of that when you lean forward.
So simple changes to pull your phone up where your eye level doesn't look very cool, but or even just at your desk, like your monitor is here.
So you're looking down, like, can I bring it just a little like stand and box?
Maybe, maybe that Amazon box, shove it under your monitor.
So you're looking straight ahead.
Those little changes.
If you're looking at your monitor all day for three or four hours, you could think of if I'm putting 10 pounds of pressure on my spine versus looking down at my monitor.
Now I'm putting 30 pounds of pressure all day.
How much, how much strain that'll cause over time of your neck.
So that's what tech neck is.
And it's a real thing.
It makes our muscles weaker, gives us tension, arthritis in our neck, headaches.
Headaches are so common.
Wait, headaches come from tech neck?
Yeah.
There's so many causes of headaches.
But as a generalization, people that have neck issues, 90% of them have headaches as well.
So those, you know, little changes can really even affect how you think.
So Dr Grunch, as a spinal surgeon, as you look at society and especially kids who are still growing and developing, and everyone is slumped over with tech neck, and you just said 60 pounds of pressure on your spine.
If you roll the clock forward 10 or 20 years?
Are you concerned about kind of a chronic injury that you think we're going to be seeing a lot if we don't take this advice seriously around where your monitor is and just lifting your phone up so that you're not putting tech neck pressure on your spine?
Yeah, I am concerned that over time, you know, we're in this decade of Everyone has a phone.
I hate to admit it, but my kids have phones.
And then how will that look for them in 20, 30, 40 years?
Yeah, I mean I didn't have a cell phone growing up so that my generation is not as many neck problems, but I'm starting to see younger and younger people with disc issues, with with neck pain, with migraines and all these things, and and i hope that that people can really take some of these little points home and just change maybe the way they hold their phone or, you know, laying down a bed like don't like, don't look at your phone.
On the couch, like maybe recline back so you're taking that pressure off or whatever the case may be, to make those changes.
That's scary, but it's not surprising to me that you're seeing young people even, like I would assume, in their 20s, like having issues with this, and late teens, where you're already seeing these types of injuries and you're like yes, maybe sports, but it has a lot more to do with the technique and the pressure you're putting on your spine.
Yeah.
I think it contributes for sure.
And a lot of it's multifactorial.
But I think also tech neck.
I mean, what it's doing is it's like really not you're not strengthening your neck as well.
And so really, you know, Getting in the gym and doing those activities, working on those extensor muscles and stuff like that, that's also going to help.
And then adapting this posture can accelerate some of the pains that we have.
You know, a lot of us have been told that aging means decline and that back pain and stiffness is inevitable.
Is that actually true?
Yes and no.
So in some ways, back pain and back issues I don't want to make it sound like everyone is going to make sustainable changes in their life and they're never going to have an ounce of back pain.
I mean, a lot of it's, some of it's genetic.
Those are things that we can't change.
Some of it's an injury.
Those are things that you can't change.
But I can definitely see patients that I've seen two 70-year-olds one that has made different changes in their life and then a 70-year-old that has not.
And I... can see myself in both of those people.
And like, what did they do earlier in life that's led them to this position?
And what modifications can I do to prevent myself from getting to maybe, you know, in this position?
And that's really, you know, the point I want to drive home with this episode is that these sustainable changes yeah, I mean oh yeah well, I mean, I like looking at my phone when I'm doing that.
Well, yeah, but, you know, let's talk about how your future may be.
Let's talk about how your husband's future may be.
What can we do for your kids to teach them these things where they can be better when they're older?
And you're talking simple things.
You were talking literally about holding your phone up so that you're not putting pressure on your spine.
You're talking about sleeping in the proper position.
You're talking about bending your knees when you pick something up and moving more and not using nicotine, that those are simple changes.
Nothing that you spent money.
I'm actually saving you money.
If you're not going out and buying them Zins, you're saving money.
That's true.
Talk to me about weight.
Talk to me about weight and how that impacts your spinal health, because you've already shared that.
You know, when you hit that moment with yourself, you had a hundred pounds to lose.
So how does carrying excess weight impact the spine?
That is really important, because the more weight we carry on our bodies, the more stress we put on our spine.
So, you know, if you're 150 pounds versus 250 pounds, you can imagine the everyday walking experience. what that does to your, not only to your spine, but to your hips and to your knees and everything.
And so that is something that will worsen all your joint pain.
But if we specifically talk about the back and you talk about We've hit all the points of keeping your spine in that neutral position, keeping your core strong, all those things.
But if you have obesity and you have a really heavy belly, that pull on your spine forward and that extra weight that's off-centered is really adding a lot more stress to your back and then over over time it can it can worsen that and then you know as we get heavy and look i've been there i know exactly what it feels like that uh is is difficult to carry around like that and you don't you don't necessarily have the strongest core.
And then you're relying on those, like I said, the joints, the discs and all those things that will just get worse over time.
And at any point you can look in the mirror at 20, at 40, at 70 and say I can make changes that can make myself a better person.
And that's achievable at any of these stages.
If you have a patient that is coming to you for back pain and stiffness and they are carrying a lot of extra weight, are there one or two specific things you tell them to start doing now?
I'm curious because I think when you get to a point where you've really let yourself go, there's so much discouragement and it feels like is it really going to matter?
Can I lose the weight?
I don't even know where to begin.
Are there one or two specific things that you tell somebody that is your patient to either encourage them or to say just focus on this thing.
Yeah.
I think most of us have been in that position.
And the patients that I see in the office.
It's so hard because they'll look at me and say Dr Grunge, I know I need to.
I can't work out because my back hurts.
So what do I do?
And 80% of weight loss is not necessarily exercise.
It's what you're putting in your mouth every day.
And that is something that you control.
Your brain is telling your hand what to do.
And so it's that mental focus and what we can do to change what we do.
And so the biggest thing that I think is really important for people is understanding what they're eating, because I'm fully culprit of that.
I just snack and we got stuff laying around.
I might walk out here and pick up whatever is laying out in your lobby and eat it, not even think twice about it.
But keep a food log right, write it all down.
What did i consume today?
And then look at that and then calculate it up.
You know how much of that is.
How many calories did i consume?
How much of that was, you know, high like glucose, just pure sugar stuff that if my body doesn't burn in that moment it's just going to go to fat stores.
And so what?
What did i really need those?
You know, um nerd gun clusters those things are so good, But like no, I didn't really need that.
I could just throw them in the trash can or left them there.
But yeah.
So that is something that I really encourage people to do is keep a food log, say what you're doing, what can I do to change it?
And the hardest part is making the change.
I love that.
And the other reason why I love that is because there's so much research that shows that people that keep a food log versus people who don't.
The people who keep a food log are way more successful at achieving their health goals because you're aware of what you're doing.
Yeah.
So much of it, you're right, is just mindlessly grabbing at that stuff.
Yep.
So do you have specific exercises that that you recommend that people do to build the muscles that support your spine?
Yes, so we've touched on the core.
So you know i mean doing biceps, triceps.
All that stuff is is important too, but the thing i think that people really don't think about is is is the core, and so the one exercise that i love the most, that i try to recommend to everybody, is a glute bridge.
Do you know what that is?
I do, but for the person who's listening who might not know what that is, you lay down.
Well, you explain how do you do it.
Yeah, lay down and you put your feet on the floor and then kind of have your knees like bent and then thrust your hips.
So you're thrusting your pelvis forward or lifting it off the bed.
You can even lie on like back of a bench or something and do that.
And that movement really works a lot of your core and your glutes, our gluteal muscles, like in our butt.
Basically what makes our butt juicy actually helps support your back.
Then the bird dog.
So for people who don't know what that is, it's kind of like on all fours, you're on your knees, on your hands, and then lifting one hand up and extending the opposite leg back and then alternating that.
Not everybody can do that, depending on their level of fitness.
But those are, You can work up to it.
You can, yeah.
And most importantly, it's intimidating to try to do these if you don't know what you're doing.
I mean there's great videos you can find online on how to do it properly, but don't be afraid to go see a physical therapist.
I mean, I'm healthy...
45-year-old woman, and I'll go see my physical therapist.
They can give you good guidance and you don't necessarily need to go on every single day for six weeks in a row.
I mean, go once or twice, get some good tidbits on how to do things properly, make sure you got the good form.
And then those little facts, little tidbits you can take and go with, run with.
If you've got a patient that's never lifted weight in their life and They're like Doc, I'm ready, but I have no idea what to do.
I feel intimidated and lost.
I get the glute bridge.
I get the bird dog.
But do you have any... recommendations for how to go to a gym and not feel completely lost.
Yeah, I struggled with that myself too.
And I think as a society, we think that you're supposed to walk in and you see all these rip bros in there curling 50-pound dumbbells.
And if you're that 50-year-old woman walking in the gym, you don't feel like you belong.
And no one likes to feel and be in an environment where you don't feel like you belong.
And that's intimidating.
That's discouraging.
And unfortunately we build this culture, fitness culture, around what we think the gym is supposed to look like.
So you walk in there and you don't know what you're doing.
It's really, really intimidating, especially for women, right?
So we walk in the gym, see all these guys in there, and you...
Do I need?
Everyone's gonna look at you and you feel like okay, I need to go get on the treadmill because that's what I'm supposed to do.
Girls are supposed to do cardio, boys are supposed to curl.
And we need to change that mindset that no, women can lift too.
Women lifting heavy weights is going to change your life.
It's going to make you stronger.
It's gonna make your muscles stronger.
It's gonna help your bones.
So many women develop weak bones osteoporosis, and it's happening earlier and earlier because we're not lifting weights.
And that is really important to changing the way we can live our life when we're, you know 50 60, 70 years old.
Well, one of the things that I found, because that was me and super intimidated, not quite sure what to do, not sure how to lift the bench up.
Should I lift the bench?
Should I not lift the bench on an angle?
Am I standing?
Am I kneeling?
I don't know what to.
What I've found with Any gym you walk into is the people at the front desk are more than happy to walk you around and show you.
And most gyms will give you a free training session so that you understand how to use things.
And simply asking somebody to help you adjust a machine to your body shape and type.
Yes.
What a novel, I went to a gym for a year and a half and didn't know how to use half the equipment.
And finally, I'm like, why don't I just ask somebody?
Yeah, I think it's really important to realize that that's everybody, right?
Unless you're like a gym pro, where most of us aren't.
Go in there and to walk into an environment that you've never been in before.
Don't know any of the equipment, don't know the people, don't know what to expect, don't know what to do.
You're like, oh shit, I'm never coming back here again.
I felt really dumb.
No, go there, walk in, The first day, don't work out.
Just go explore.
Look around.
See what they got.
That way you don't feel like you're feeling stupid or whatever.
Go to the front desk.
Ask for a tour.
Like, what equipment do you have and how do you use it?
Can you just give me a tour?
I'm not really going to work out today.
I just want to kind of learn what you got.
Take pictures if you need to.
Take that information.
Go home and then come back with a strategic plan.
So when you walk in, you feel like you own it and you know what you're doing.
And then go back and do it again.
And then do it again.
And then you know what?
A couple weeks down the road, you're going to be the one teaching that person that's coming in, that doesn't know what they're doing.
Welcome them in.
Show them how to do it.
Show them how this thing works so you're not propagating that intimidation.
Dr. Grunch, you just changed my life.
I'm going to admit something.
I have been staying in the same hotel on the weeks that we tape episodes.
And I've been there for six months.
I only went to the gym for the first time the last production week.
And I walked in and I thought, oh my, this is a beautiful gym.
And I walked around and I was so intimidated because I didn't know the equipment.
It never even occurred to me that I could go in and film it or take photos of it.
There are so many hotels, gyms that I've walked in and then just left because I'm not sure what to do.
Yeah.
So what I do every time, every hotel I go to, when I check in, just go in there.
I don't know if I'm wearing a suit.
Walk in.
That way no one knows that I'm coming in there.
They say this woman in a suit.
They know she ain't here to work out.
Just walk.
Walk around.
And then you don't have any expectations.
I see what they got.
Then I can go back.
And when I'm in my own comfort zone and I feel confident, then I can plan what I'm going to do.
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah.
Oh my God, you're a genius.
That's genius.
Strategic planner.
Strategic planner.
I love that.
Dr. Grunch, what food should I eat? for the best back health?
Stay away from inflammatory foods.
Okay, what are those?
So things like gluten.
I know we all love our bread, but things that promote inflammation in the body is going to propagate pain.
And same thing with nicotine, right?
It causes chronic inflammation.
So we want to stay away from things that cause inflammation in your body.
So that's going to be like The sodas, high fructose corn, the processed foods which inevitably, some of us have no choice but reducing as much of that as we can and focusing more on foods that are anti-inflammatory.
I hate greens.
My kids hate greens, but Leafy green vegetables are good, but even berries.
So blueberries, I love blueberries.
It's about the only berry I really like.
I hate raspberries.
I hate all strawberries.
I know that's probably controversial.
I don't like them.
So I eat blueberries.
That's what I like.
So that's a good anti-inflammatory, antioxidant.
And then protein, protein, protein, protein.
Why is protein important for your spine and your back health?
Muscle.
So our muscles are made of protein.
If we don't consume it, our body still needs protein every day.
So it will break down muscle to get that.
So if you're not consuming it, you can't not only build muscle, but then you'll cause more muscle breakdown.
So our body needs 0.8 to 1 gram per pound of body weight.
So 150 pounds and 150 grams of protein per day.
It's a lot of protein.
It's a lot of protein.
Yeah.
And most of us aren't consuming that.
So as a neurosurgeon and a busy mom, how are you getting that much protein in?
Eggs in the morning.
My protein shake that I'll have in between my cases in the morning if I'm in the OR.
Protein bar, however I can consume it.
Meats are a great source of protein.
If you're vegetarian, there are alternate sources of protein that you can get.
But But yeah, just kind of mindful consumption is the challenging part.
And again, that food log can help you kind of keep up with that.
There's free apps on the phone that you can download.
There's even apps now that you can just take a picture of your food and it will.
I mean it's pretty crazy how it can like then tell you what it is.
It is really cool.
You know, I'd love to hear what is happening in a woman's back and in her spine when you're going through pregnancy and the postpartum period.
Destruction.
Oh my God.
I think we've all been there if you've ever been pregnant.
But yeah, I mean so.
Your body goes from a form that you've lived your entire life maybe 20, 30 years for me 38 years in this one form to then, in nine months, Adding 50 to 100 pounds, all abdominal.
Everything's changing.
And that's a lot of change in your body.
If you are like, even if you're unhealthy, going into pregnancy.
It's a lot of changes on anybody's body.
So it increases the amount of blood that we have in our body.
You know the baby, all the water weight that we get.
And then it stretches our abdomen.
So we're carrying, obviously, the baby in our uterus.
So those abdominal muscles split.
They stretch.
They get super tight, destroyed.
And then, not only that, we're trying to like compensate for this arching our back a lot, because now we got this big baby, so then we start pulling our back back.
Then you got the hormones, the leg, the laxity of the ligament, so not only do you have no muscle, it's all this weight.
Then you have ligaments that are stretching that never stretched before, because that's why we have a pelvis, is an si joins, is because it needs to open up to deliver this baby, unless You're like me and just had it cut out.
So that's fine too.
But yeah, so all of those things contribute to massive changes in your body and massive chaos, to what you previously knew was your back.
So then you got to have the baby and then somehow get it all back.
It's crazy.
Well, you're giving us the roadmap to get it all back.
We got to take better care of ourselves, get sleep in the proper position and lift weights to get our muscles back and eat a lot of protein and good nutrition.
And give ourself grace because we can't always do it.
It seems achievable, but a lot of days it's very chaotic and it's overwhelming, especially in that newborn phase for some of us.
So what about if you had your kids decades ago and you feel like you never got your body back?
What is your message to that person?
We usually don't just have one kid.
We have one kid and then we try to get back it.
We reel it back and then we have another one.
Then we have another one.
So you have decades of your life where you're not only going through pregnancy and those changes, but then you're raising a small human.
You're You're changing diapers, you're bending over, you're carrying them on your hips.
And so this cycle like propagates itself.
And then the whole like not putting ourself first because we're taking care of our children.
But if you are that person that you realize, okay, well, yeah, she's right.
Like it's now...
I'm in my late 40s, and I need to make a change.
That's where I was.
That's exactly where I was.
And you can make changes that can get back.
Your body is designed for success.
And so we can do things differently. at any point that we can change the clock.
So all the things that we've talked about with sustainable change, with getting our core back, none of this is a do it now or it can never happen again.
And that's a good thing about the human body.
That's why I love it.
I love what you just said.
Your body is designed for success.
What do you mean by that?
Your joints, your spine, your brain is all designed in a way to get yourself around every single day to heal through injury.
We have modern medicine that we can change even the way we can replace body parts.
We can replace organs.
So we can get ourself in a better situation through a multitude of things, whether things that we do ourself, these changes that we've talked about during this episode, reaching out to your physician to help along the way with different things.
It's incredible.
The human body is incredible.
One of our team members Jessie, is seven months postpartum and she's experiencing a lot of sciatica pain.
Can you explain what sciatica pain is, and is it normal for moms in particular to experience it?
I want to normalize that pain is not normal.
Wait, hold on.
Wait, what?
What?
So people often think that oh, I have that pain that everybody has, or I have that pain my mom had when I was pregnant.
So we need to normalize that pain is not normal.
That's a signal to your body to make a change.
For example, sciatica.
I mean, something is telling your brain that your leg hurts.
And so we want to figure out why that is.
What is going on?
Is it inflammation?
Is there something irritating it?
Is it pinched for some reason?
Do you have a disc issue?
And so, just thinking that that is the normal part of being seven months postpartum, we need to understand that that's not the case.
And what exactly is sciatica?
Because I've heard it a lot.
I experienced it.
Well, I experienced pain, but I called it sciatica, so I'm not sure that's what I experienced.
But what is that exactly?
Sciatica is a really common word that people throw around.
It can mean a multitude of things.
I've learned in my career that people will call sciatica almost everything.
Some people say, I have sciatica, and they're pointing at their back, and I'm like, that's not sciatica.
So sciatica comes from the sciatic nerve.
It's a large nerve in our body that goes from our back, joins up from several nerve segments and then goes down our leg.
So oftentimes people describe sciatica as pain in their back that shoots down their leg.
And that is, nerve firing is how our body communicates with, our brain communicates with our body.
So us just standing up from this chair, me waving my hands in this motion, is my brain communicating to my muscles through nerves.
And so whenever that is, can be movement, it can be sensory, and it can be pain.
And that pain sensation, that pain pathway is because there's something firing in that nerve that's telling your brain that it hurts.
While we're talking about nerve pain, I would love to dig a little deeper, because it can feel very mysterious when it's happening.
I've had some issues with this nerve running across my elbow and then my fingers are tingling or you feel pinch like a zap of it.
Mm-hmm.
What exactly is happening in the body when that type of nerve sensation or pain shows up?
I think anybody that's experienced nerve pain would call it hell instead of mysterious.
So joint pain, you know, muscle might be stiff.
You know, you might have like kind of intermittent pain, but nerve pain is something that is really something that can be life-changing.
I've talked about my back injury, but I've actually, a couple of years ago, injured my neck doing a surgery.
You're kidding.
No, no.
I was in the middle of doing a case and a herniated disc in my neck, trying to get something out of the spine, an instrument out of the spine.
And yeah, it is the most excruciating pain.
It's like fire in your body, but you can't put it out no matter what.
What is the difference between pain that's something that you can manage at home and the type of pain that you should really go talk to a doctor about?
Yeah, those are what we call the red flag symptoms.
And those are really important to know because most back pain we talk about 80 of people have back pain
Most back pain can be managed at home.
You know, that injury that I had where I was army crawling to my chair.
I ended up managing it at home and I did just fine.
So it's the symptoms where you might feel Bow or bladder issues, that's an automatic red flag.
Can't go to the bathroom.
Go in the bathroom by yourself.
Can't feel down there.
That's a medical emergency that you need to go to the ER.
Pain that shoots down the arm or leg, that's not necessarily normal.
So Jesse, experiencing that pain down her leg, that's not necessarily normal.
So may wanna go talk to a doctor about that.
Weakness or numbness are definitely signs that something is not right.
So I mentioned I herniated this in my neck.
I had triceps weakness.
I couldn't extend my arm.
That's not normal.
Just need to see a doctor.
And then if you're, if you are managing your pain at home, let's say, and you're like okay, it's been four or five, six weeks and my pain's not going away.
You probably should go just get it checked out if it's not resolving on its own.
What should someone do if they feel dismissed by a doctor when it comes to their pain?
Oh, my gosh.
Medical gaslighting, yes.
Man, I wish I could be in the office with every patient because I see it happen so much, particularly in women and in young women, where we feel dismissed, like you're too young to have back pain or you shouldn't be here because you can't have chest pain and you're 20 years old.
If you feel that way, you're in the wrong office.
So you need to find someone else.
You need someone that's going to listen to you, to believe what you're saying and to take steps to figure it out.
And if you're not getting that, you need to walk out and you need to find someone else.
Don't think that any symptom that you're having should be dismissed.
And if you're experiencing that, then know that that should not happen and find someone that'll listen.
We've all been there.
What do you think, out of all the incredible things that you've taught us today, is the most important thing that the person who's with us right now should prioritize and do to improve their health?
The biggest thing that I would stress is to know that you're in the driver's seat.
You're the driver of your body.
You're the driver of your life.
We often get weighed in by what people think of us or what we're being judged by, or all the extraneous things we have to do today, or our kids that we have to take to school, or the person we have to.
And so we just become so flooded with responsibility that we don't take that on ourself.
And so realizing that you're the driver of the ship and that you need to make decisions that are going to make you happy, and in When you are presenting yourself as your best self, then you can help others monumentally more than what you can do when you're not being the driver and you're just being the passenger in yourself.
And most importantly, to know that it's okay to fail.
We've all been there.
We've all failed.
Then we pick ourselves back up.
You have setbacks and you just go back at it five times harder.
You know, one of the things I've been wondering is your mom.
How is she?
I mean, what is the did she ever get any movement back?
Like what happened?
Yeah, she's.
What's her name?
Betty.
Betty.
Betty and Betsy.
She is 65.
She's still.
She's my biggest social media fan.
You'll find mama in the comment section.
I have to sometimes occasionally restrict her, but yeah, she's sitting.
She's probably sitting at home right now listening to this and the biggest smile on her face and she has not never regained any movement but um, still completely paralyzed.
But finds really gives me inspiration because she's been like that for 30 years now and almost has lived as much life in a wheelchair that she has before her accident.
And she finds ways to find joy and enjoyment out of the life that is now hers.
And I just admire her.
Watching her these last 30 years.
What has her example in terms of how she's lived her life after experiencing this devastating injury?
How has that changed the way you live yours?
It made me realize that anything can happen in a blink of an eye.
She didn't get in that car that night and think that she was a bodybuilder.
I mean, she was incredible, best shape of her life.
And to think that in one moment that can happen.
And so I just try to live my life by that philosophy that anything could change.
And so what did I do today?
Is that, am I enjoying life to where if it were taken away from me tomorrow, that I feel fulfilled.
And that's all we can do.
Dr. Grunch, what are your parting words?
Find joy.
Find joy.
And most importantly, Mel, I've learned from you, let them, right?
What do you mean?
Right.
So like I have found being a physician, being a woman in medicine, being so, I mean kind of like the outsider, that so many people want to judge you.
So many people want to feel like they know you and to to pass whatever their thoughts on you are.
And if you let that flood you and you don't trust your own instincts, your own behavior, your own self, then that can really overcome.
We are our own worst enemy.
And so the second, that you do exactly what you teach, just to realize that you can't control anyone on the outside.
The only person you control is you.
That is the moment where your life can change.
Well, you've changed my life today.
This has been one of my favorite conversations ever.
There is so much that I love about you and I am so excited to know you honored to have learned from you today.
I know the person that's with us and all the people in their life that they're going to share this with that their life can change for the better because of everything that you have shared with us and taught us.
And all I can say is please, please, please, Keep doing what you're doing.
Thank you.
Well, thank you.
Thank you for being here.
And thank you for being you.
And I also want to thank you for making the time to listen and to watch something that can truly help you improve your life.
And I agree with Dr. Grunch.
You are the driver and you are in control more than you may feel right now.
And I know, if you really take to heart the things that she taught you today, that you can not only improve your health, but you can improve your life.
And I really hope you share this with people that you care about, because we all need more Dr Grunch in our life.
We do.
And in case nobody else tells you today, I wanted to be sure to tell you, as your friend, that I love you and I believe in you and I believe in your ability to create a better life.
Now, take everything you learned today and go do that.
And I'll be waiting for you in the very next episode.
I'll welcome you in the money hit play.
I'll see you there.
Okay.
Here she is.
Dr. Grudge.
That's right.
In the house.
Let's go.
Yes.
You know, could you speak a little bit to, you know, the person listening?
Whoops.
Sorry.
Oh, I don't care.
Oh, do we need a towel?
That's all right.
Good.
Now I can suck down some of my protein shake.
There you go.
There you go.
I'm going to go back to my paper real quick.
Yes, you can.
You're doing dynamite, by the way.
Really dynamite.
How are you feeling?
I'm good.
I'm good.
This is great.
So that's.
Hold on one sec.
Do we think this is done?
Because we're about to get into it and I don't want to have a huge crash happening.
Boom.
You are absolutely so fantastic.
I can't even handle it.
Oh, and one more thing.
And no, this is not a blooper.
This is the legal language.
You know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you.
This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes.
I'm just your friend.
I am not a licensed therapist.
And this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist or other qualified professional.
Got it?
Good.
I'll see you in the next episode.
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