Stop Chasing Pain with Dr. Perry Nickelston

Welcome to True Grit and Grace, a podcast designed to empower you to claim your resilience and thrive through life's challenges. I am Amberly Lago, a mindset coach, fitness expert and bestselling author. Each week, I'll dive deep with the world's brightest thought leaders and elite performers to share tangible tools and practical advice to inspire you to keep your eyes on the prize and forge ahead. So get ready to conquer your fears, heal any trauma, lead with your heart, and elevate your life with grit and grace. Hey, and thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate you tuning into the show. And if you're like me and want to know how to feel better, how to have more energy, how to get out of pain, then you're going to enjoy this episode. And if you find some value in it, I would love if you shared it with a friend who is really striving to get out of pain and just feel better and live a healthier life. So share it with a friend. I want everybody to feel as best as they can. So today's guest, I was actually introduced to by my good friend, Erica Lippy. She's like, hey, have you ever heard of that doctor from Stop Chasing Pain?

And I was like, no, but I need to hear about anybody that is telling people to stop chasing pain because I sure don't want to chase pain.

And so I looked him up and I was blown away. I was like, oh my gosh, I hope he says yes to being on the show. He's a busy man.

He's so busy.

He speaks all over the country to doctors at conferences, to medical facilities, and I'm just grateful that he took the time to stop by True Grit and Grace. And Dr. Perry Nicholson, he's a chiropractic physician with a primary focus on performance enhancement, corrective exercise, metabolic fitness, nutrition, and he's trained from the American College of Addictionology and compulsive disorders. He's an expert in myofascial, orthopedic, medical, and trigger point soft tissue. And he is a member of the board of directors and medical staff advisor for the American Institute of the Medical Laser Application. And he started really sharing his passion for this medical laser when he had a really bad back injury. And After you know recovering with laser therapy, he decided to dedicate himself to offering this amazing treatment modality to others. And y'all, he's so passionate about what he does. And if you're hearing this, he gives us you know he walks us through in this episode how to do some things to start feeling better, like right now today that you can do on your own. If you want to see him, he stands up and does a whole demonstration on some serious. Lymphatic Mojo. So look on YouTube if you can't follow along through just by listening. So if you're, you know, out for a jog or something like that, you can always check back on YouTube and check out how he stands up and demonstrates. And it's something that you can do every single day, and it's so important. He's, uh, in 1997 graduated from the Palmer Chiropractic University and master fitness trainer with over 25 years experience in the health industry. And we have some of the same teachers and have been going to some of the same conferences. And I can't believe we're meeting now. And so I'm so grateful to have him on the show. He really is so dedicated to teaching others how to get in shape and lead healthy lifestyles. And he is currently publishing books on health, fitness, laser therapy, business success, and self-treatment programs from— and you can find all of that on his website at stopchasingpain.com. And also, I would urge you just to go to stopchasingpain.com because if, if you go, you can get a— he offers a unique like Core 4 System evaluation. It's a system to determine why you're hurting, Even after others have tried helping you, you're still hurting. So I always say, keep your mind open, try different things, and maybe this will work for you. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the show as much as I loved talking to Dr. Perry. I really hung on his every word. So, okay, I'm going to stop and we'll get to the show right now. So welcome to the show, Dr. Perry Nicholson.

Hi and welcome to True Grit and Grace. I'm Amberly Lago, and today I'm excited to have Perry here with us. Thank you so much for joining us. We tried to get this, uh, gosh, like a month ago, and my daughter and I got hit by a car, and you were so sweet to reschedule. So thank you so much. I've been looking forward to this moment for a long time now.

Well, thank you very much. And I'm just so happy that you're both okay. And I'm really excited to be here.

Oh, thanks. Well, I first learned about you from my friend Erica Lippy. You were on her podcast. I just love her. And as soon as she interviewed you, she called me and she's like, you got to meet Perry. And I went and looked at your Instagram and your handle is Stop Chasing Pain. So there's probably a lot of listeners that already know who you are and already follow you. But I have to admit, like, I got sucked in and went down the whole rabbit hole of reading all your posts and watching your videos. And I listened to the interview on Erica's podcast, Passion Love Pursuit, and I loved it. But I got a little fearful because I was like, what you experienced, I was like, oh my gosh, that's me too. I'd love for you to share with the audience what got you into this purpose-driven life that you have. I mean, you're helping so many people, but I love the passion that you have behind what you do. You can tell your heart is all in it. And usually when someone has that much passion, they've gone through, you know, something that pushes them to do what they're doing. What was the catalyst for you into, you know, on this journey that you're on?

Yeah, that's a great question, you know, and I was actually going to say the same thing about you. And we were chatting a little bit before, you know, I just love your energy and what you put out there. And I can tell that it's coming from— it's very authentic, you know, and it comes from the heart. And I've always thought that, you know, our greatest lessons in life comes from our greatest suffering, I believe. And you find your purpose, honestly, through pain. You don't, you don't, you don't really change when you're comfortable, honestly. Because why would you? Yeah.

I mean, I always say pain has been my biggest teacher. Yeah.

You know what it is? And because everybody, we've all got trauma and, and shock in our lives, and we're human beings, right? I mean, it kind of goes with being on this earth that it's gonna happen to you. And for me, it's been kind of a long journey, honestly. I've gotten into healthcare way back in 1997 when I graduated from chiropractic school, and I originally got into that because I hurt my lower back and I could barely walk for a long time. And a chiropractor put me together and I thought, this is kind of cool stuff. I'd like to do this for a living.

Yeah.

And I was doing that for a while, but I ended up, oh, probably 5 years ago where my body just out of nowhere began to fall apart. And I was getting a lot of autoimmune type symptoms and infections, and my whole immune system just went crazy. And I spiraled down pretty hard, honestly, where I had a physical and emotional breakdown, and I was at rock bottom. I had to stop teaching. I had to stop practicing. I lost the ability to actually articulate and think. Because of the amount of inflammation that I had in my body, particularly in my brain, scared me honestly to death.

Well, thanks for sharing that because that is a big fear of mine. And when I, I've heard you share parts of your story in other interviews, and like last night, I wasn't— by the end of the day, I was in so much pain. I was trying to have a conversation with my daughter and I was like, did you finish painting the And I— it was a horse. I couldn't think. I could— it's like the brain fog sometimes from pain. And that scares me to death because I want to be sharp. I go, you know, now on virtual stages, but I want to like be sharp. And sometimes the pain gets so bad, I feel like I can't put together a proper email. And so you were in the place where you were Brain fog, hurt? Were you in a lot of pain, or were you—

Yeah, I had that too. But honestly, what scared me the most was losing my brain.

That's what scares me the most.

It really did. I mean, I, I lost the ability to articulate things. My memory was going. I was actually struggling to remember names of people in my family, my sons. And I remember the exact moment that I knew I had to take back control myself because I've been trying to go through traditional medical routes to heal myself from the underlying inflammation and infections through antibiotics and pain medications and surgeries. And that, that approach honestly damn near killed me, um, because it was making me worse, which actually happens to quite a few people. And it's not done intentionally, of course, but it's the only— it's the only paradigm model that you've got.

Right.

then that's all you got.

Mm-hmm.

And I remember the moment to this day, and I share it every time I teach, is that I was at the post office in my town, and I was mailing off something, a t-shirt, to one of my online members. And I was leaving the post office, and I got back in my car, and I couldn't find my keys. So it's one of the first signs of brain inflammation is forgetfulness, right? You just start to— can't remember things, lose things. And I looked everywhere in my car, and then I went— I traced my steps back. I went into the post office and asked, did anybody see my keys? The answer was no. And I kid you not, halfway back to my car, I actually physically heard my car running. What that means is I got in my car, I started my car, I was sitting in my car, didn't realize that I had done that, thought I lost my keys, left the car. running, looking for keys, and came back and there it was. And what that— for me, I was headlong into Alzheimer's type symptoms because of the underlying inflammation. And that's when I knew, okay, Perry, you've got to do something about this. And that's where my journey began to— I'm sure what we'll discuss as we go along about discovering the lymphatic system and chronic pain and inflammation and ways to, uh, take care of that because I just, I wasn't able to do it with the traditional approach that I was on. And listen, if you want, if you want something to be different, you have to do different. No two ways about it, right? And then, uh, fast forward, uh, a year later.

So at the time though, were you going to doctors because you had infections and they would give you antibiotics and then you'd get another infection and That sort of thing.

Yeah. So I was getting a lot of infections everywhere because my immune system was basically beginning to shut down. It was getting overloaded. So I'd get a lot of urinary tract infections, prostate infections, throat infections, ear infections, eye infections, I mean, everything. Right. And then the first thing you do when you have infections is you take antibiotics and then, you know, that may help you for a little while, but then it's going to come back because you didn't take care of what you got the infection first place. Then they give you more antibiotics, then they give you stronger antibiotics, and they stack antibiotics. And then when that doesn't work, they stick them in your veins and you IV it.

And all that's happened to me, Perry. I was in the ER 6 times year before last in 2000. I see, I can't think. No, I was in the hospital over and over for infections. And they're like, oh, it's just because you're run down. Oh. And then finally, one of the doctors was like, you need to go to a regular doctor. You can't keep coming in the ER for these infections. But I actually ended up going septic, which was really scary. That was my point when I was like, okay, something's not right. I've got to change. And so when you're telling me your story of they— that's exactly what the doctors did for me. They gave me More antibiotics, then more, then stronger, you know, Cipro, that didn't work. Then I was in the hospital and it was over and over and over.

Yeah, exactly. And I mean, don't get me wrong. I mean, sometimes you need that stuff, right? But then you have to step back and ask the question, why do I always need that stuff? You're missing something because every time you do that, you weaken your immune system. And if you take all those antibiotics, I can promise you this, you're going to destroy your gut. Hard stop, period, no doubt. And when you destroy your gut, your brain's gonna go right after that.

Hmm.

'Cause gut issues are always brain issues. One doesn't go without the other. And then I subsequently needed a lot of surgeries for underlying the infections that were so bad. And then that's also a stressor to your system. So I actually was getting way worse. And that's when I hit rock bottom and I got so bad That I really thought about ending my own life. And I've shared this on prior podcasts. I made a call to the suicide hotline on a car ride home from teaching once because I, I was at that point.

Mm-hmm.

And I ended the call early. And then their obligation at that standpoint, if they're concerned about your safety, is to contact the police. So they contacted the police department in my town, and the police pulled up to my front door and knocked on my front door. And then that's when my family found out that I had made that call. And I mean, I get emotional talking about it now, but that, that's— that was the catalyst. That was the step where I said to myself, okay, you got, you got a choice here. You got this way or you got that way.

Mm-hmm.

And I knew I wasn't going to go the other way. And that's when this became my calling, you might say, right? And I read a quote recently that said, allow your wounds to become your work. And then that's when I realized that what I had gone through is something that— because I can't change what happened, but I could change the meaning of what happened.

Mm-hmm.

And that's when I knew that I had to go through what I went through so I can know what it's like. But then I can also take what I've learned and then teach it. But not only that. But I can really understand what other people are going through with it. You know what I'm saying?

Oh, that totally makes sense. I mean, when I started training clients again after my motorcycle accident, one of my clients I've had for 20 years said, uh, you know, Amberly, she goes, because I felt broken as a trainer. I was like, I wasn't teaching people to run anymore or pace themselves or holding mitts to do kickboxing anymore. It was a different kind of training. So I switched my kind of training I was doing up. And one of my clients said, you know, Amberly, I think you're a better trainer now since your accident because you can understand my pain. You really understand it and you can work around it. It's different now. And I was like, oh wow, that's a good way of looking at it. I can't— I love what you said. You can't change what you went through, but you can change the meaning of it. And you can do something about it. And I think that having purpose is what, for me, that's what got me out of the darkness was deciding that I wanted more out of life and then being so willing. I think that there's a gift in desperation because it gave me a willingness to do whatever it took to get better. Yeah. And it sounds like you did the same. You're like, okay, I got to figure this out, what was one of the first things you did to get help for yourself mentally? Just for your mental health, what did you do?

Yeah, that's a great question, and it's been a long journey on that. And the first place I started, and this was years ago, was when I, I had the realization that, that the gut plays a role in my mental health and my Physical health. And that began my journey of— I was always in the musculoskeletal world of chronic pain as a chiropractor. I never bothered to really focus on looking at other body systems, even though I studied them. But I never focused on them because what do I need to know about your lymphatic system if your back hurts? You follow? And then now I know that it's more— if that doesn't work, your back ain't going to work. So that started to really look at the other systems of the body and then take heart of what I have learned over the years but never really truly practice that all the systems of the body work together. Everything is one. There's no separate system. Nothing works alone. Nothing gets injured alone. Nothing heals alone. So that's where Stop Chasing Pain began. It began with, you know, treat pain, but don't chase it. And then understand that pain— this is my definition of pain— pain is a request for change. So that's your body requesting you to change something. Now, what that is, I don't know. I just know you better go from A to not A.

Right.

I want you to do something different, right? And so for me, it was like, okay, change the way I'm looking at my body and the relationship I have with my body. It's not there to punish me. It's ask— it's teaching me something, having me look deeper. So I started to look at the gut, and then I began to do some small steps to repair that. And because in all my years, I never really looked at it, and I began to feel a little bit better, honestly. I was like, okay, I'm on to something. But I hit a wall on there and I couldn't get past it. And then I was still dealing with a lot of tiredness and fatigue, and I started to really become fascinated with, with that brain-gut connection. And then I thought to myself, okay, well, if I'm trying to get better and my body's trying to heal me, which is always trying to do, why can't it get better?

Mm-hmm.

And then I started to focus on, well, what do— what does your body need in order to heal itself? And I thought, okay, well, you got to make new cells. So if the old ones are broken or damaged, I can make new ones so I'm not sick anymore, right? So then I thought, okay, well, what does your body need to make a new cell that works? Because I firmly believe that one of the reasons you have chronic pain or chronic disease is because you lose the ability to make new cells that work. Because if you can make new cells that work, you wouldn't be sick. You follow?

Mm-hmm.

So I said, okay, well, cells need certain nutrients in order to function. And you get that through nutrition. You get that through food. It's also your thought process. Those are nutrients, right? Toxic thoughts or good thoughts. It needs oxygen. So you got to have that. And I'm like, well, my diet's pretty good. I'm getting this breathing thing down. My mental state's starting to come around because I'm starting to repair my gut. But what am I missing? And I'm like, okay, well, you need nutrients, but once your cells use the nutrients, what do they do with all that stuff? They make waste, right? They make what they call metabolic waste, cellular waste, and that stuff has to get out of you. It's not supposed to stay inside of you. And I said, well, that's probably the component that I'm missing because I got all the, all the good stuff going in. But once it's in and my cells use it up, if it can't get out, then I'm going to stay sick. And that's when I began to focus on, okay, well, what are the primary systems of your body that get rid of waste? And I'm like, okay, well, that's liver, that's lung, that's intestine, that's pee, that's poop. And then I came across this stuff called lymph. And then I'm like, I never even thought about lymph.

Well, I was going to say that I never really even thought of lymph. As being something that got rid of something. I never thought of it that way.

That's the same way it was for me because I didn't even look at it either. And I'm in this business. I mean, I went and studied and paid for an education to learn about the body, and then I didn't pay attention to lymph because nobody thinks of the lymphatic system unless they have usually 2 things. One is called lymphedema, which means that you have a part of your body that swells up to be abnormally large. You know, like you have one leg that looks like an elephant and the other one doesn't. That's usually when you say, okay, lymph. And the second one is cancer.

Mm-hmm.

Right? So I didn't have lymphedema and I didn't have cancer, although I had cancer 18 years prior. And so I'm like, what do I need to know about that? Well, I only became exposed to it because I went to a workshop on trying to understand energy and healing of the body. And then somebody said, I think I know what your problem is. They pressed on primary lymph node regions in my body, and it was excruciatingly painful. Like, I'd never even— they pushed actually on my neck, at the top of my neck, right behind the angle of the jaw, below your ear, is the largest lymph node in your neck. And it's a primary way that the brain begins to detoxify itself through that lymph node.

You're kidding? Like right back here?

That's the sweet spot. That's the largest lymph node in the neck, uh, that you have there. And then if that's clogged You're going to have a lot of issues in your brain. Okay.

That was just tender when I pushed on there, by the way.

Yeah. All right. I'm not kidding. It is for most people. And then, but here's the thing. In the past, if I pressed in that region with my thought process and with my training, I would be thinking this: that's tender because my muscle is tight. That's tender because my fascia is tight. That's tender because my C1, C2, what I studied as a chiropractor, which is the first 2 bones in your spine, they're out of alignment. What I never, ever thought to myself was, I think maybe my largest lymph node in my neck might be clogged. I was not thinking that.

Well, Perry, I thought about you this morning because I was training a client. Well, a couple of days ago, I noticed my lymph near under my armpit, like under here, was swollen. And my first thought was, oh, I'm gonna go get a mammogram. I need to check and get that I didn't even think lymph node really. I'm like, oh, I need to schedule my mammogram. So did that. But this morning I thought about you because I was training a client through Zoom and I'm laying on the ground and we're doing hip thrusts. And I'm like, put some weights on your hips. We're going to do a hip thrust. And I put the weights on my hips and the lymph nodes in my hips were sore because I had the weights on top. And I'm like, my first thought was, oh, Yeah. That, that's a good thing. Maybe that workout really— I'm feeling that workout from the other day. Maybe my hip flexors are a little tight. I can stretch those out. Then I was like, uh, no, I think those—

that's—

I think that's the lymph nodes. And so I'm telling you, when I first heard you, I was like, oh my gosh, I need to talk to Perry. We got to do something different. I gotta, I gotta talk to him. And then I hadn't even touched these. And when you're telling me about that, I start touching them. I'm like, now all you listeners, or if you're watching this, they're probably going here, touching behind their lymph nodes. But I'm the same. I think, oh, maybe I got, you know, maybe I'm sore from that workout, or my neck's out, or maybe I'm fighting off something. I have thought that before. Maybe I got a little infection, my body's fighting it. That's a good thing.

Never— That is a good thing. So your lymphatic system, its job is to do that. Like, I mean, it's supposed to work. When you get an infection, you're supposed to get puffy and you're supposed to get swollen because your body's trying to kill some stuff and get rid of it, right? So that's why you have a lymphatic system. Its job is to be the waste management system of your body. It gets rid of that metabolic waste and that cellular waste. And everybody has that because your cells die by the billions every day automatically. And then you got to make new ones and the old ones got to get out. But every time— here's what people need to realize. Every time you train and exercise, you destroy tissue and you break down cells and you injure yourself. And that's actually a good thing because when you tear yourself down with that stress, you're supposed to recover. And then when you recover, you actually become stronger and more resilient and make newer cells that are tougher than the old ones. So that's why training isn't the one that gets you stronger. It's the recovery that gets you stronger. So if you struggle with recovery, you're going to struggle with your training and your progress. So people already have an overloaded lymphatic system in life. And people say, how does that happen? And I'm like, because of L-I-F-E, life.

Mm-hmm.

Right? You're overloaded with mental toxins, physical toxins, nutrition toxins, toxins from the man-made world, everything. From breathing in, right? You name it. And then it gets overloaded, and that system is supposed to kill bacteria, fungus, viruses, parasites, cancer cells, all bad stuff. And then if it can get stagnant, which means it says, I can only do so much, and then stuff stays inside of you, and then you become puffy and you become swollen.

Right.

One reason you become puffy, you become swollen, is because it can't get out. But another one is, is that that's a protective response from your body. When you lay down inflammation and make you puffy and swollen, that's protection.

Hmm.

So anytime that's— I tell people, anytime that you're coughing, anytime you've got phlegm or mucus or anything like that, those are signs of protection that your body's trying to coat Your body. So you don't necessarily want to automatically shut those things down because you can prolong your healing process when you stop your healing symptoms. So to me, the symptoms are not signs of disease, they're actually signs of health. You follow?

Mm-hmm. And sometimes your nervous system, your immune system just gets stuck there.

It just, it's maladapted, which means it doesn't know when to stop. And that's what autoimmune disease and chronic disease and chronic pain can be, where your nervous system and your brain and your immune system get caught in this loop and they keep playing the same scene over and over and over. So to me, it's not necessarily a dysfunctional system. It's actually a system that's working too damn good.

Oh, wow. I love to hear that because what you have just described is complex regional pain syndrome, which is a nerve disease I was diagnosed with 10 years ago. And it is when the body has this pain and it's a constant loop of pain. I try to explain it to people like it's kind of like I have a broken record of just constantly my body's hearing the same old message: pain, pain, pain, pain, pain. And they've done so many different things to try to break that cycle. I mean, And I've tried everything from Eastern, Western medicine. Um, I mean—

Have you found anything that made a difference for you?

You know, it's interesting you say that because my husband just asked me that downstairs. So I go downstairs and I tell him, I said, you know, I said, do you remember that lady that wanted to sell me that patch that had crystals in it that was supposed to— that's supposed to like activate your stem cells. I said, and she wanted to sell it to me for $100. Well, there's this other lady that's going to give it to me for free. So I told her I'd try it. I said I'd scream it off the rooftops that it worked if it does. Because I've tried. At one point, I was on 73 homeopathic pills a day and 11 different prescriptions, prescription medications. I had never done a drug in my life. And now all of a sudden, I was getting infused.

You were on like all of them.

Yeah. Now I was like, all, all of them, just bring them on. And on top of it, ketamine infusions to try to reboot my nervous system, a spinal stimulator. Um, I had healers. I had, you name it. If somebody said it would cure my pain, I didn't care how much it cost. I was willing to try it or do it. And I was a really good Um, anybody that would, even a, you know, snake oil salesman, I was like, okay, I'll try it. Um, but I was a good target for them. And my husband was just downstairs. He goes, well, has anything really worked for you? And I said, you know, the only thing that's really worked for me is when I cleaned my diet up and really got serious about what I was eating. I mean, I always ate pretty healthy, but I had to stop eating foods that were really flaring me up. Like I cut out alcohol. Could not drink wine or alcohol or anything.

Oh yeah.

I was going to ask you that one. Yeah.

It was the worst thing for me. It was a vicious cycle because I started to drink to try to numb out the pain. And it worked until the next day when the pain was worse. And it became this vicious cycle. So I completely cut out alcohol. Really cleaned up my eating. And a lot of it is my mindset and being in mindfulness and what I put my attention on. And that's everything too, from paying attention to listening to my body and asking, what does it need? What is it trying to tell me? To also distracting myself and not being laser-focused on that pain. And then I do take a prescription. I take Lyrica. I'm not sharing that so everybody runs out and buys Lyrica. I'm not sponsored by them. I don't. I just had an appointment through Zoom with my doctor today. And they know I don't want to have to take any kind of medication. My goal is to be off of Lyrica. I fought taking Lyrica for about 2 years. And then I was like, I'm gonna have to, to try it. I'm gonna have to give it a try. And it does make a difference in the burning that I have, um, and it allows me to get more done in the day. And I feel grateful that I can take something that allows me to have a better quality of life. But I've never wanted to take anything, and my goal is to completely be off of any kind of prescription. But I share that because I want people to know that that's my goal, you know. So it's very interesting to me to learn more about what you teach, not just your Lymphatic Mojo program that you have, but you have some things that I want to learn about. And you know what's so interesting, Perry? When I was looking through your Instagram, you are friends with Gray Cook.

Oh, Gray is— oh man, he, uh—

I've known him, of him, forever because of my fitness training back 20 years ago. Studied functional movement with him.

Yep.

So y'all are good friends?

Yes, we are. He was a catalyst for so much of what I am right now. I'll tell you a story if you want to hear it.

Yeah.

First of all, the name Stop Chasing Pain came from him because I, um, I was at a workshop that he was teaching in New Jersey when he was just introducing his medical side of the Functional Movement Screen. And, uh, there was a slide that came up on a completely white screen and then 3 words in red showed up on it: stop chasing pain. And when I saw those words, it was I just got hit. I'm like, that's it. That something about that says everything that I've been thinking over the years. And I remember at that moment, I stopped listening and I just immediately went on my phone and did a search on the internet to see if anybody had that domain name registered yet.

Really? Yeah.

And nobody had it. So I kid you not, I secured the name in the class.

I would have done the same thing.

You know, you just, you do what you got to do and you ask for forgiveness later. And I said, great, I mean, I love that name. I really want to use it. Is that okay? And he said, sure. And then so that's where it started, the Stop Chasing Pain. But I originally met him because my journey into thinking about Stop Chasing Pain was this. Like, I was always going after the area where somebody hurt. So let's give you an example, like the lower back. Right? So I can do all this stuff to your lower back. I got all the toys and stuff like this. And then at the time, I was really into, which I am in there now, as one of the first people to start using what they call deep tissue laser therapy, using light and red light for healing chronic pain. And it's still one of my all-time favorite modalities for helping people in pain. And I was having— I was like, wow, this is really cool, right? But then I started to read some books about movement, and I came across his book. And his, his approach was look for areas that have dysfunction, which means they might not move as well as they could. Maybe they're not as mobile, maybe they're not as stable, which means that they can't control movement well, but they don't hurt. So in this case, your low back would hurt, but maybe it's because your left hip is stuck and doesn't move, or your right hip is sloppy and can't control something. Meanwhile, I'm chasing the back, and his whole premise was take care of the non-painful— that's the key word— non-painful dysfunction. So I started to take my laser light and shine it on the areas that hurt, and then I shined it on the non-painful areas of dysfunction. When I did both, the results went through the roof.

Wow.

And I remember I was at a lunch at a Hula Hands with a friend of mine, and I said, this has been amazing, like this stuff with Greg Cook. And he said, why don't you send the guy a message and let him know that? And it didn't even occur to me. And I was like, oh gee, you think I should? I don't know if he would like— you know, at the time I didn't even think about it. So I said, I don't— I'm just gonna send him like a little email. And say, this is what I did. I just wanted to say thank you for your book. It's made a difference. And then 3 days later, I remember like it just happened. I got my phone, I look at my phone, and I'm like, who is calling me from Virginia? Because that's where I'm from, originally from Virginia. So I pick it up and he goes, uh, hey Perry, this is Gray Cook. And I'm like, wow. I mean, I just freaked out. Like, it was like a teenage girl, Justin Bieber, just called me.

Oh, well, you know, I totally get that because I mean, I, for years and years and years, I mean, I've been in the fitness industry for 23 years and going to those conferences and seeing Gray Cook go through his modalities and it's like he's a legend. So I get it. I get it.

That's the way he— I love how this man thinks. That's what got me. And then he says to me, I just wanted to say thank you so much for that. And then the next phrase changed my life. He goes, listen, I've actually been looking into getting into some laser therapy, and you're obviously the expert on that, and you want to learn more about movement. How would you like it if I flew you down here to Virginia and you can hang out with me for 3 or 4 days and we can do some movement and you can show me laser? Would you like to do that? And I said, yes, sir. And then boom, that week I was down there and, uh, he showed me the movement stuff for the first time, really. He put me through my first functional movement screen. I treated him with the laser. He actually ended up getting a laser are in his place. And then long story short is we've been dear friends ever since, and I became one of the first 10 Functional Movement Screen instructors in the country when they launched the program.

How many years ago was that?

Oh my goodness, this is probably going on like 10, 11 years, something like that, maybe.

Wow. Did you ever go to conferences in LA?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I used to go to all those things and teach a lot, which Teaching is a passion of mine. I still see clients because I love to help people and it keeps my mind sharp and keeps my hands in the game. But over the last 7 years, I've traveled probably— I've averaged it out, probably about 40 weekends every year for the last 5 or 6 years, maybe 7, of traveling the world and teaching and just trying to share with other people the things that I learned because I found for me that I can help a person when they're in my office, but if I can stand in front of a room and talk to 100 people, it'll spread it. Because this, this is the time when we didn't have Zoom. I couldn't jump on a call and just reach the world.

Mm-hmm.

You know, you had to go travel somewhere and show up and talk and teach. And I always give credit to Gray and tell that story because I am where I am because of that man and my friend and the name. And then that— the one thing I've always been on a search for since I got into healthcare was I never just wanted to treat pain and just do what everybody else was doing. I was always wondering, okay, well, we've got all these wonderful tools and toys and technology, but why, why are people not getting better? And, and why, more importantly, why does stuff keep coming back all the damn time? Like, what's up with that? And this is before the autoimmune chronic disease train took off. And now, like, everybody's got something.

And we just think it's normal. I swear it seems like they do.

Yeah.

Not normal.

And for me now, I will tell you honestly, in my opinion, like, because I study the body systems a lot, and I really, really focus in on that abdominal region, you know, the gut, the organs, and things like that with everyone. Because I know that there's no way in the world that you can have chronic pain or chronic disease or an autoimmune disease without an underlying gut problem. It doesn't happen. It's going to be involved in some way, shape, or form, and it's usually a huge piece of the puzzle. So that's when I started to focus on that, but then all the other systems of the body. And here's the cool thing. Once you start to study the lymphatic system, you come to find that the majority of your lymphatic system is located in— guess where?

In the gut.

Yes, exactly. And they're finding that that system is the very first system that comes to your rescue when something breaks through the gut. Wow.

And I don't know the percentage, but most people— or maybe you know the percentage— have leaky gut? Do you know?

No, for me it doesn't matter because I think everybody on this earth's got some form of leaky gut. It just depends on how bad it is. Yeah, because your gut's not designed to withstand the stuff that we barrage at it all damn day with, with those toxins that we put in there and the glyphosates and the antibiotics. And not to mention the excess stress. When you're under so much stress like we are in this world today, you jack up cortisol Cortisol breaks down protein and collagen in your gut, and it— so you actually break linings and holes in your gut from stress. Yeah, because you know that, right? When you have something emotional or pain hits you, you get kicked in the gut, you feel like your guts are being torn out. That's where it resides, right? So for me, just going on a gut restoration program wasn't enough. And it's usually not enough for most people because not everybody's going to respond to the same program.

Now, I know a lot of times people repair their gut, the lining in their gut, with celery juice first thing in the morning. They swear by celery juice. What do you think about celery juice?

Well, I mean, listen, I say this, everything works for somebody, right? But there's not one magic thing that's going to work forever because a lot of people that can't tolerate celery juice.

I couldn't.

And they'll get worse. They'll get way worse.

I, I did not like the celery juice. I really gave it a good try and it hurt my stomach. So I'm like, I must be really messed up. I don't know.

You have to realize that when you're in the state of such inflammation or have an advanced stage of things, even good stuff can be too much for you, right? And then everybody's gonna have— and when you take anything in, it can cause some underlying inflammation. That's why you have to be careful when people say, what do I take for my gut? I'm like, I don't know. I don't know anything about your gut.

Yeah. And how—

what do you need to know about my gut? Well, first of all, I'd like to know your history. It's what I'd like to know, right? And that's something that's really, really important for people to do. And then you have to be careful because when people want to get better, they get very excited, they get overzealous, and they figure, well, if 3 things will help my gut, let me take 30 things.

Mm-hmm. Wrong.

Worst thing you could do because you're putting so many things into a system that can't absorb anything in the first place. And you'll actually make yourself worse because your system is so sensitive that people leave with bags and bags of supplements and they're not doing themselves any good at all. Because in my world, it's not what you put into your body that matters so much. I mean, that's important because I don't want you to put crap in there. But even if you put something good in, that doesn't mean you're absorbing it.

Mm-hmm.

And not only that, but then once it gets absorbed, can you metabolize it or not? So if you don't have that end stage, it doesn't matter if you put in the good stuff. It's better than the bad stuff, but you need to complete that process. And then that once again comes down to Well, that's that nutrients in, toxins out. Because if you're surrounded by toxins, you can't metabolize things. You follow? Because that's the thing people need to realize. If you're surrounded by inflammation and toxins around the cells, nutrients can't get into the cells to do what they need to do because there's too much waste there.

Well, it's the same, you know, with our, our liver and the function of the liver. If the liver is having to work so hard just to try to get rid of toxins and stuff like that, how can it metabolize fat and work properly?

Yeah.

But what do you do to try to get your body working more efficiently? Like, what do you do for your organs to try to get your gut healthier? If you were to give any advice to someone who's just like, well, where do I start?

Yeah, right. Great question. And also what's very interesting is that your liver dumps 50% of the lymph into your system. So if you got a gut problem, you got a lymph problem. If you got a liver problem, you got a lymph problem. So who has lymph problems? Most everybody on this earth. They just don't know it. So here's the first thing that they teach you, that you learn. First thing you want to do is stop putting as many toxins in your body as you can. So slow down the process. That means clean up what you're putting in your mouth, try to clean up your toxic thoughts and exposures to the man-made chemicals as best you can. I mean, it's impossible to escape it. You just can't. But you do that, right? So you stop what's going in and then you try to get rid of what's already there, right? And but you got to be careful when you do that, too, because a lot of people are so overloaded and their livers are so stagnant that the liver struggles to detoxify. And then through that process, you overstimulate detoxification and you make yourself worse because you're stimulating it to go out and it can't get out fast enough. So it just— you recirculate it, right? You're poking the snake kind of thing.

Mm-hmm.

So that's why in my work, all right, I work with all the different systems of the body. But it's a, it's a phrase that I learned by studying osteopathic medicine, and osteopathic medicine has been extremely influential for my thought processes and my taking care of people. And they— because— and the reason I like that so much is because the osteopathic medicine was one of the— the founder of that was one of the first people to say that it's the lymphatics and the blood flow that matter more than anything. Even more so than the nerve. And I've been a nerve guy forever.

I bet you have.

So the lymphatic and the blood trump the nerve as well as the blood flow and the lymph flow. And so they have a phrase that's called drainage precedes supply. Drainage precedes supply. So I want you to think about that for a moment. I've already Told you what that means in a way to say toxins out first, nutrients in second. So you have to drain the underlying inflammation or toxicity that's there before the supply can happen. Most people are doing the supply chain first, right? Or if people are doing a detoxification program, they usually go right to the liver. And I'm like, okay, that's good. But guess what? The liver has to dump into the lymphatic system. So if the lymphatic system isn't ready to receive the liver, you're in big trouble. So what you have to do in my world— drainage precedes supply— means this: lymphatic work always comes first before anything else. So I need to assess the system and see where it is and then treat the system. Once I do that, then I move to the next step. Like, so let's say for instance the liver.

Okay.

Right. The liver will dump a significant amount of lymphatics into the lymphatic system. And your liver sits on the right-hand lower part of your rib cage. It's actually so large that it extends over to the left-hand side of your rib cage. Who has a liver problem? Yes is the answer. Everybody. So then—

Yes is the answer.

Yeah, like there's no doubt. I mean, I know you got a liver that's trashed in some way, shape, or perform, right? And to me, it doesn't matter what your blood tests show because your blood tests only show when you're really screwed up.

Well, let me tell you, I had a blood test that was so bad at one point that the doctor called me and was like, uh, your liver enzyme levels are elevated 300 times what they should be. We need to talk. Yeah.

And that was like Were you feeling any physical symptoms on the right rib cage?

No, I was not. But they took me in and wanted to do an ultrasound, right, my liver. And so, you know, I had 34 surgeries, so I'd been put under anesthesia 34 times and survived all that. Some time went by, the pain wasn't getting better, so I thought, huh, None of the medicines are working. Why didn't the doctors just tell me to have a drink to make it better? And that worked until it didn't. But can you imagine? My body was trying to process all of the anesthesia and all that stuff.

Your liver was trying to process that. That's got— your liver's got to clear everything you put in your body. The liver's got to clear it.

The good news is, is the body is so resilient that when you do start to make these changes, My— the, oh, the CAT— or not the CAT scan, the, uh, ultrasound looked better. My blood results looked better, like, as soon as I started to, to clean my act up.

Liver is an amazing organ. It's the organ that can regenerate, completely regenerate, right? You'll have a liver— what is it, I think maybe a new liver every 8 weeks, something like that. So, uh, here's the key, here's the goal: you're supposed to have a new gut lining every 3 days.

Really?

Yeah. So here's my question. Why the hell can't you get one? Right? So if you're supposed to have a new gut lining every 3 days and you can't get it, why not? Well, that's because you can't make new cells that work, right? So it's back to where we started before. And so if you're gonna try to clean the liver, the liver's gonna dump that lymph into— right sitting next to— about 2 inches above your belly button. 2 to 3 inches. It varies for people. In that spot is the largest lymph node in the body, and that's called your cisterna chyli. Don't worry about the name, it doesn't mean anything. Just call it a walnut. It doesn't matter what the name is. I just want you to know that that's the largest lymph node in the body, and it takes all the lymph from the abdomen, from the pelvis, from your legs, and relays it from that relay station up your spine to the bottom of your neck. And the liver dumps into That's the sternokleidomastoid. And it has to go from that up your spine, behind your sternum, along your esophagus and spine, and it actually dumps to the left side of your neck at your collarbone. So if you're blocked anywhere in the lymph around your sternum or 2 inches above your navel, then the lymph can't leave the liver and go into that. And guess where it stays? Back that way, right? So then you gather all this toxicity and stuff like that. So that's why in my world, you're never going to get a liver detox until I clear your lymphatics first, because if I purge your liver and your liver can't get rid of something, it's like stirring a hornet's nest.

And that's going to be why you'll feel probably sluggish and nauseated, headaches.

Take a liver detox, you know, and it— you They'll get way worse. You can go through what they call a retoxification, not a detoxification, but a retoxification, which means you're sick for months because you're overloaded, right?

Wow.

And it's the same thing with people who are under chronic stress. You can get what they call sympathetic dominance. Sympathetic dominance is when you're stuck in this survival mode, fight, flight, freeze, freak-out mode. You can't step down because your body's just said, don't die. That's very catabolic, which means it breaks the body down. And when you're under stress for so long, your stress quotient decreases, which means that it only takes a little bit to set you off because your sensitivity level changes, right?

Mm-hmm.

And then what people need to realize is that therapy interventions are also a stressor, right? That which means that I can't do too much to you at one time Because I'll make you worse.

Well, I mean, that makes sense because I feel like with chronic pain from CRPS, I mean, it's, it's ranked highest on the pain scale. Yes, worse than, uh, amputation or a kidney stone or, or having a child, you know, having a child. It's ranked highest. And being in that constant state of pain does put you in that fight or flight a lot. And so sometimes by the end of the day, you know, just sitting on this couch and having my daughter barely bump into me, or, or my husband goofing off and them wrestling and he is yelling or something like that, they're just horsing around. It's like, I, I can't, I can't take it. It's— Oh, or In the car, if the music's too loud, it's that little bit of stress. It's the overload that is the straw that breaks the camel's back. And so I do a morning ritual and a nightly ritual to try to soothe my sympathetic nervous system, to bring down the pain, bring everything I can to bring the inflammation down, but also just to bring my stress levels down. Because I know you had one of your quotes on your Instagram said negative emotion can increase pain, inflammation levels, and healing time after an injury. And I think that's so true. So I loved one of the things to backtrack on that you said that everything you put in your body, and you included negative— emotion or feedback or energy because—

thoughts, right?

Yeah, yeah. Because I mean, I have had to learn to really talk to myself and listen rather than just sitting there listening to my inner critic. Because man, I can be my own worst enemy, as my mom always tells me. You're your own worst enemy. So I have been trying to be my biggest cheerleader. If somebody wanted to start doing a detox and they're like, oh my gosh, all these symptoms he's talking about, he's describing me. Um, what would they do first as far as like a lymphatic, you know, treatment? Like, I know you have programs. I think I've seen— I've seen you doing things, rubbing the, the walnut as you called it. Uh, I've seen a little bit of your program, but is there somewhere somebody can Do you teach them? Do you have a program that you do that they could do on their own, or is it something that they would come to you?

I have a lot of different things that I teach on a lot of different levels of the lymphatics, and, uh, I'll be happy to go over with you the fundamental basic one that I teach everyone, that I think every human being should do every day for Their whole life. And just to preface it to say that when you work on these spots, even just a little bit, you're going to stimulate the release of lymphatics. So if you have like, uh, you know, pain or an autoimmune disease, you might experience a little bit of a detoxification reaction from just what I'm going to show you here. And I just want people to realize that that's okay and that's normal. When you check these regions that I'm going to show you and rub them, you'll start to clear some of the blockages.

Mm-hmm.

And it's not unusual for people to maybe feel a little bit worse from something with their pain. And I don't want them to think, oh my God, something went wrong. It's okay. Because one of the things that happens when you're in chronic pain for a long time is that you fear change. And anything, just a new pain or a change in it, you start to get A little anxiety, and then that stress runs. And before I get into that, if you want me to show that, if we have time.

Yes, I would love that. And if you're listening to the podcast—

I'll describe where I'm having you touch and everything, and then people that can watch it— I'll have to change my camera angle a little bit here. But, um, the role of emotions really has played a significant part in my healing journey for myself and other people. Since I got sick. And I always share this, that early in my career, I negated the role of emotions. I really didn't look at it as something that I think played a role because I wasn't ready to see it yet. You follow?

Mm-hmm.

And then through that breakdown that I had in my mindset, because I went down the worst-case scenario, you know, like you have this little pain here, next thing you know, you got like dengue fever or something, right? You're like, everything goes through your Brain. So I had to learn to study pain, learn to study emotions and the role of the mind-body connection. Because there is such a thing as the placebo effect, where you can think you feel better and you feel better. And it's an extremely powerful role in healing, by the way. But there's also the opposite to that called the nocebo effect that some people might— nocebo means that you can manifest making yourself worse.

Mm-hmm.

Based on how you think or how other people talk to you. Very prevalent in medicine today. So they play roles in your healing because how you think changes your biology and your physiology, right? That's why we're not rocks. We're human beings, right? And it just so happens that through my work, through studying Eastern medicine and Western medicine, that I found for what I've learned and what I teach and what I go after, The abdominal region is the seat of trauma and shock to the body. That's the number one place you hold it is the gut, the abdomen. So that's why I spend a lot of time there. So my new work is based on, which we'll maybe get into later, is going after certain key regions of the body to release emotional trauma. But let's get into the lip, all right?

Okay, yeah, but I would love to get into that also with you some other time.

So let me get my camera angle a little bigger I can actually see what I'm doing to myself here. With the lymphatics, it's— let me just explain to you how the lymphatics flow. It's understanding what they call fluid flow or how the fluid force moves, and that's called hydrodynamics. Big fancy word from physics that just means this. Just remember this phrase: with lymphatics and fluid, high pressure always flows to low pressure. High pressure flows to low pressure. So I just want you to envision this example. You have a dam where you have a lot of water on one side of the dam and no water on the other side, right? So think about that dam as like a lymph node, right? The water on one side has to flow through that node to get to the other side. So where all the water is, you have a lot of high pressure, correct?

Mm-hmm.

So what happens if I open up the damn door, right? Where does the water automatically flow through no help of, of me doing anything? Where does it go? To the low side, right? So the lymph already knows where it needs to go. You just need to remove the blockages. So here's what I want you to know: all the lymph in your body is gonna flow 2 above the collarbone on the right and the left. So if you have a little space above your collarbone right there, okay, those— that's where the lymphatics drain. And they'll go into what they call subclavian. Sub means below, clavian is for clavicle. It'll drain into veins here, and then the veins take it back to the heart, and then the heart sends it back out again.

All right.

So the lowest pressure for lymphatics is at the bottom of your neck at the collarbone. Everything wants to reach there. The highest pressure is at the top of your head is 1. So everything at the top of your head wants to go to the bottom of the neck. Your hands, high pressure at your hands. Everything that's in your arm wants to go where? To the bottom of the neck. Everything in your feet up want to go to the bottom of the neck. So the highest pressure in your body is at your feet. That's why they swell all the time, right? But in order to reach your neck, everything in your foot has to get past these dams that can be blocked. And here's the cool thing. 2 things move your lymphatics the most. One is breathing through your diaphragm, breathing through your belly. So when you breathe through your diaphragm, you expand your belly, and that changes pressure, and that moves lymph. So that's why breathing through your diaphragm is one of the easiest things you can do to start to move your lymph.

Okay.

Then the other one is movement. The more you move of yourself, the more fluid you move. Does that make sense?

I'm always telling people, move your body, move your body, move your body, right?

So every time you move and breathe, the lymph wants to move, but I'm going to tell you that it's so overloaded that that's not enough anymore. You have to unblock it, and nature is pretty smart.

Amberly.

She goes, hmm, if I know you gotta move, how about I put all these lymph nodes, these filtration systems, you know, that everything gets into, and then they go into what's called a node, and the node is where your immune system kills all that stuff. Attack, attack, attack, break it down, break it down, break it down, kill it so you don't stay sick. And you got about 700 of those in your body.

I didn't realize we had 700 of those.

Yeah, you get up to 700. It can go anywhere from 4 to 7 depending on how large you are, right? And here's the cool thing. Hang on me for this one. I'll give you an extra. If you've got, say, 600 to 700, 1/3 of that number is from the neck up.

Wow.

1/3 of that number is from the neck up. So what does that tell you about the importance of the neck and the head for lymphatic drainage of what? Brain, right? Brain, neck, everything here. So neck is important with pain anywhere, like, right? Always work the lymph in your head even if your pinky toe hurts, right? So nature's pretty smart. She puts the major lymph node clusters that gather together around the joints of your body that have to move the most. Your shoulders, your hips, and your knees. So those areas, we're going to rub those areas plus a few other ones to unblock these areas going from low to high pressure. So we always have to go from low to high pressure, which means we always, always, always start at the collarbone.

Okay.

Right, you're never going to start in your hands, you're never going to start in your feet, you're never going to start in your head. You're going to start at the collarbone because that's where everything needs to drain. And it's very, very simple to do this easy. We're going to do what's a rubbing and tapping technique. It's just a matter of rubbing your skin and then tapping your, your area, your node, through vibration. to get stuff to move that's stuck. So I basically— I say we're going to take stuck stuff and we're going to unstuck it. That's my technical term.

I like that technical term.

Right, so we're going to start on the left side first because the majority of your lymph drains to the left side of your body. That's where most things get stuck. So you're going to take your right hand and I want you to put your whole right hand On the collarbone. So your fingers are above the collarbone and a little bit below the collarbone, and you're just going to take your hand. It doesn't matter which direction you rub. I want you to rub right above the collarbone and on the collarbone, up and down, 10 times. So up and down would be 1, up and down would be 2, up and down would be 3. You got it. It can be on skin or on clothes. And people say, how hard? I'm like, go as hard as you can, but don't hurt yourself. All right, it can be light if you're sensitive. Don't hurt yourself. Then 10 times. Then I want you to take your hand and put it flat over that region and then lightly tap 10 times. So that's going to open this up. So here's what happens when you open that up. The next lymph node that has the highest pressure close to that is going to start to drain right there automatically because you just opened it up.

Right.

So now you're going to do the same thing on the right side collarbone, a little bit above and a little bit below. So one of the first things we look for in people is if you have a lot of puffiness and swelling above the collarbone, that's a telltale sign of chronic lymphatic issues.

Right.

And then you slap right there. Nice and light. So somebody for you who might be sensitive or have CRPS or something like— if you're sensitive, you may only be able to lightly rub. You might not be able to tap. Okay. Then now the next place we go is where we mentioned before, right at the top of the neck, right behind the angle of the jaw, right behind the lobe of your ear, as high as you can get right there. So I usually have people take just a couple of fingers and you put it right at the top there. And all I want you to do is this one, you're going to put your fingers there and just stroke down towards the collarbone 10 times. Right. And now this one you can do tapping. I just want you to be careful here because it's— it can be sensitive up here. It's just lightly Tap with your fingers right there. If it makes you dizzy or you don't like it, then just rub. Okay, then you do the same thing on the right-hand side. So now what you're draining is the neck, and you're starting to get drainage from the jaw and the face and the head, right? And you're actually going to help the drainage of the lymph that is in your brain.

Okay.

Okay, now we're gonna go to the shoulder joint. So I'm gonna stand up and then—

Right thing I wore, uh, some pants and not my Zoom attire.

Yeah, good thing you're wearing pants today, right? So right where the shoulder joins into the chest, right there, you just rub with your whole hand right across where the shoulder attaches there. 10 times and then just slap right at that pec and shoulder. And that's a big area that a lot of people have tightness, right?

Mm-hmm.

So from poor posture and they're rounded forward, so they shut off the lymph right here. And then do the same thing on the right-hand shoulder 10 times and then do 10 hits. Now we're going to go to the abdominal region. Put one hand flat on your navel. And then the other hand above that, flat on your abdomen. And take both together and rub. You can go up or down, or you can go side to side or circles. I don't really care. I want you to rub that 10 times. And then from here, you're going to hit your abdomen 10 times. And then now we go to the groin, the crease of the groin. So those are those nodes that you talked about when they were doing the hip pads, right?

And again, y'all, if you're not— if you're listening and you want to, you want to see it, it's on YouTube. So you can check out the YouTube video.

It's right when you sit, you got the crease of the groin there. You can just rub your hands. It doesn't matter if you go across Or with it, you're going to do 10 times. And then I'm just going to warn you now, just be careful where you hit here because this is a sensitive region. Just slap right across the groin 10 times. That's a major blood flow region to your legs. And then the last one, you're going to have to bend or sit. You got to bend at the hips and the knees or sit. You're going to rub behind your knees. So go right behind both knees, try to go below the knee crease and above the knee crease, get the whole thing, and then slap that 10 times. And then after that, you're going to stand and you're going to do self Trampoline rebound, which means that you're going to go on the balls of your feet. And I don't want you to completely leave the ground. I want you to keep the balls of your feet on the ground and just get your heels off the ground like you're bouncing a little bit on a trampoline. And I want you to breathe in and out through your nose only. Do not breathe through your mouth. And I just want you to do that for 10 to 20 seconds. And then you just gave yourself a nice, simple, easy, basic lymphatic big lymph node treatment that'll start—

Wow.

For you. And then it's that simple. And you can do that every single day of your life, once a day, anytime you want during the day. I just tell people that if you have a detoxification reaction, which means you get tired, fatigued, lethargic, headache, Maybe feel a little bit worse. Don't repeat that sequence again until you start to feel a little bit better, which may take you 1 to 2 to 3 days.

So, so again, how many times should we do that?

Once a day is fine.

Once a day. Okay, then you have something called, um, what is it, something brushing Is that what that is? Dry brushing? What is dry brushing?

You can do dry brushing if you look at videos and they'll show you people just using a brush along the skin.

Okay.

You can do that as well. But you can also use the brush on those 6 regions that I showed you.

Which might be easier for someone with CRPS. For me, I have CRPS only in Only, only in my right leg. So none of those areas bothered me at all. But I do have friends that have CRPS, also full body CRPS. So the brushing might be easier for them.

Well, see, the thing with brushing is this. So most people, when they start brushing, they start brushing from the feet and the hands. Right. So you're brushing Towards areas that you haven't cleared yet. So I don't like dry brushing until you do those 6 regions first. So here's what I teach. You can take the dry brush and go collarbone, top of the neck, shoulder, abdomen, groin, knee. Then you can brush your arms and your legs.

Okay. Now, I had years ago, and I just— I forgot about this until We started talking. I, I had somebody that gave me a lymphatic massage is what they called it. And I didn't, I didn't understand it. But I had another one of the trainers that was like, you got to try this. This is the best thing for you, blah, blah, blah. It was the most painful thing. She pushed so hard on my lymph nodes. I was like, okay, you got to stop. Like, it hurt. It— have you ever heard of that?

That's unusual because most lymphatic techniques are extremely light because, one, the lymph node regions can be very tender, or two, if, if you put too much pressure on the nodes, you actually force them to stay open, and then you can actually have a backflow of fluid and you can become a little bit worse.

So, well, it didn't feel right. I never, I never went back.

So for me, so with lymphatic work, when I teach people, uh, I go a little bit, uh, deeper and more pressure than people might usually get because mine's a mixture of techniques from different places all over the world. And plus I mix in a lot of Neurology and pain science in my work, but it's not painful. Like, so when you cross into causing pain when you're treating somebody in pain, you have to be careful because what I find is that if you put somebody in a pain response trying to get them out of pain, you can actually prolong the process because the body shuts down healing when it's in a threat response.

Mm.

But here's the thing, sometimes during therapy you have no choice but to do that. It depends on what phase of therapy you're in. Like when I had my knee surgery and I tore my knee, it was painful to get my rehab because I, I wanted to make sure my knee didn't freeze. But then it's a different stage that you're in because a little-known trick is that pain inhibits pain. And your brain can only pay attention to one pain at a time.

Oh yeah, totally. Like, I fell down the stairs, um, when I was on my crutches, still recovering from my leg being shattered.

Oh my goodness.

And I broke my hand.

You're like a Road Runner cartoon.

Holy crap. You know, my husband says, you just won't die. God keeps spitting you back out. I swear to God. So he came home And I knew he was going to be upset. I had my hand behind my back and he goes— I said, I think you're going to have to take me to the emergency room. He goes, what'd you do? And I said, well, I think, I think I broke my wrist. And he goes, let me see. I'm like, you really don't want to see it. I just need you to take me. And he goes, let me see it. And I went like this and it was like sideways. It was the first time I had no pain. In my leg since the accident. Yeah. And it was like, oh, there's no pain in my leg. But let me tell you—

Fascinating though. I mean, that, that tells you about the power of the nervous system and, uh, different distraction techniques that, that they can do. And, uh, it's gonna be quite fascinating to see how, where pain science goes in the next several years. They've made a lot of different strides in pain science now that they've started to understand more about the wall of the brain. I was going to ask you before where you feel your CRPS symptoms, if it was just in a particular part of your body.

It's mostly in my right ankle and right foot. And I had to have a surgery 2 years ago, which wasn't even related to my ankle. And I woke up from surgery and my— the CRPS in my foot was Excruciating. And I was screaming, my leg, my leg, it's my foot, my foot! And they were— the nurses were looking at me like I was crazy.

Surgery that you had done on the foot?

Uh, no, the surgery I had— I had to have something, uh, taken out of my breast. And so when I woke up from surgery, they had just taken something out of my breast And why was I screaming about my foot? Whatever happened during surgery, whether it was the anesthesia or whatever happened with my nervous system during surgery, set me off into a flare that was so bad that since then, I have not been able to get the pain level down to where I can wear tennis shoes or tight leggings or tight pants. And so people go, oh, you're bringing bell-bottoms back in style. Or— Oh, you're wearing those boots to work out. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not trying to look cute or in these boots working out. Like, I'm not trying to set a trend for wearing boots while you work out. It just happens to be—

Oh, that's a good look though.

The only thing that doesn't flare me up—

It's like they can certainly do work out, right?

Yes. That's what it is.

It looks very—

some days it looks like I'm trying to be in the '60s. And some maybe the 80s. I don't know. But I'm to the point where I don't really care what it looks like. I just want to feel good, you know? And so, so I'm trying to get that, that pain back down to where I can wear yoga leggings or, or any other shoe besides some boots. Although, thank God, I found some boots that it's just the right pitch. They're just the right, right width. And so I wear them with dresses. The only time I don't maybe wear them, I'll put on like a cute pair of shoes is if I'm going, you know, on an interview for 10 minutes or I'm going to stand on stage for 30 minutes. And I feel no pain anyway because of the adrenaline.

Yeah.

Cancels out the pain.

See, what's interesting is one of the things that you had mentioned before For is that, you know, when you, you, you get overloaded, right, where you get the noises get to you, the sounds, you become sensitive to things. And then those are classic signs of somebody who has low adrenaline. So, and then that breeds, that feeds chronic pain as well. So I was going to say—

I'm sure my adrenaline's system is just shot from—

Right. So that also will show you that when your adrenaline can begin to change, that it decreases the pain. So, you know, that's usually something that I have people begin to look at as an issue is low adrenaline when they have chronic debilitating Uh, pain somewhere. Just a thought.

And how, and how would you know that though? By— I mean, other than doing like blood work or something, just by me saying, hey, my pain goes away when I get scared, or what?

It can be like that way, yeah. So because usually gonna have people that have— because you're gonna have adrenal issues as well because you have cortisol, but you also have adrenal end with the adrenal gland. So usually it's going to be a restoration program with your adrenal system at the same time. But that's why a lot of people do well when they have, uh, you know, steroid-type injections, because you can change your adrenaline level, cortisol level at the same time. But we'll, we'll talk a little bit more after the show on different things about that.

Well, I just I appreciate it.

Honestly, like, see, I like trying to figure out the puzzle pieces of what people have. And then for you to tell me that you got that after you woke up from surgery from something up here.

Well, I originally— I take that back. I'm sorry, misunderstood. I originally got CRPS from my leg being hit in the accident. And 3 and a half months after, I had a dog. I thought, you know, well, pain's just part of it. And I went into a doctor and he was like, uh, no, you've got CRPS. And I went to 2 other doctors and I was like, look, this guy's wrong. He says I have this disease or something. He's misdiagnosed me. I don't have it. I just need you to tell me that I don't have it. And they would be like, we'll do an evaluation and some testing. No, you have it. And then the next guy, the same thing. Oh, you definitely have it. You need to take radical treatment. And so I started on a journey of all kinds of very invasive treatments.

Mm-hmm.

Like I told you some. Then I was like, oh, well, I was pretty— sometimes ignorance is bliss. And I had heard of people that were scared to do dental work because it flared them up so bad or scared to have any surgeries or a needle prick Because it flared them up. I had no fear going in to have something removed from my breast that it would flare me up even worse. And it did. And that baffled me because I thought, it's not going to get worse. It's not going to spread. And at one point about a year ago, it started spreading to my left arm that Broken. Was broken. And you know what? I backed off. I backed off on my stress levels. I really started doing better self-care and it went away. So I think there is something to be said for stress levels and how we take care of ourselves and all of that. And so, but yeah, it's a crazy, baffling disorder that doctors cannot for the life of them figure out. There's so many different treatments. And they're just throwing all kinds of Band-Aids on it. But they— and I decided I'm just not going to wait around for a treatment. I'm going to study and learn and, you know, share what I learn. That was one of the reasons I really wanted to start this podcast is to—

Yeah.

To really share all the different ways. And by the way, Perry, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom today because This new season of True Grit and Grace is all about mind, body, and spirit transformation, and I believe you hit on every single one of those. So thank you so much. Um, I know you have a lot of programs that people can do. You've got videos. Where is the best place for people to find your services? First of all, y'all go over to Stop Chasing Pain, and I promise you'll be over there stalking his Instagram like I did because there's so much good stuff on there. But, um, yeah, tell people where they can find you, and this will also be in the show notes as well.

Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. Well, I like to think I have a healthy addiction to Instagram. I definitely spend a lot of time on there. It's my favorite format to communicate with people and share with people. So Stop Chasing Pain on Instagram for sure. Make sure you go there. And I can't believe I got 7,000 posts on there to date. So you can find a lot of stuff if you want.

7,000. I didn't realize you had that many.

Doing this stuff a lot. I share a lot of different things through there. But also, probably the easiest way, honestly, is just to go to my central hub website by the same name, stopchasingpain.com. Stop chasing pain. Pain.com. And from there, you'll be able to see a lot of different things you can choose from. So I— people always ask me and they say, hey, I'm not a healthcare professional, can I learn from your stuff? Yes, because it's designed for human beings. Like, everyone can do my program. There are self-help videos from the Lymphatic Mojo to things that you can just purchase and watch and own for life. There's webcasts that I do that are 2 days long. One's coming up This, uh, Thursday and Friday on the lymphatics.

I saw that. I really wanted to do that. And is there a way to catch that replay?

So is there 5 weeks we post a new webcast up for that because it's so popular? So when that's up, I'll send you a link. You can drop in and tune in. Um, so we have that one. And then I also have, um, some membership site that if you want to join that. And I like to tell people that I, I've had my own podcast for over 10 years. So the Stop Chasing Pain podcast, you can drop in, and that's where I sit down and speak to a lot of people smarter than me and then learn from them and then share that. So you can— I've got about 195 episodes there over the years. But yeah, Stop Chasing Pain, you'll definitely find a couple of things that'll keep you a little bit busy. And I would just like to say heartfelt thank you so much for having me on your show. I really had such a wonderful time, and keep up the fantastic work you're doing. The world needs it.

Oh, thank you. It was— I feel like I could just soak in all the wisdom and talk to you all day long. So I appreciate your time, um, and taking us through that whole walkthrough of So We Can Do, that lymphatic Just massage. I'm gonna go back and watch this until I get in the habit of doing it and know it by heart. Um, so yeah, y'all check that out on YouTube and please go visit Perry at stopchasingpain.com and on Instagram. And if you found some value in this, make sure you screenshot it and share it on your Instagram and tag Amberly Lago Motivation and Stop Chasing Pain so we can see it and say thank you and I can share it too. So anyway, thank you, Perry. I look forward to talking to you again and taking some of your courses just to heal my body even more. So thank you so much.

You're very welcome. And thank you everyone for listening.

Thanks so much for joining us this week on True Grit and Grace Podcast. If you like it, please rate it or share it with your friends.

That would help too.

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