Small Adjustments You Can Make for a Huge Impact on Chronic Pain: 48

Hi everyone, welcome back to the Heal, Nourish, Grow podcast. Today I have with me Rick Olderman, and he is a physical therapist focused on pain management. So I'm really excited to chat with you today, Rick, because I know that so many people deal with chronic pain and there's a lot of various reasons for it, some related to nutrition, some related to biomechanics. So, um, you can just start off before we get into the pain stuff by telling people a little bit about your background and how you got into this work. Sure.

Yeah, I'm— I used to have back pain myself and I was treated by a physical therapist who helped me, but it came back a couple weeks later and I happened to be volunteering at that physical therapy clinic. So I thought, you know, I better learn what the insider secrets are to this. So I went to PT school and those insider secrets never seemed to really come. So what we were focused on more is understanding and identifying tissues that are damaged rather than understanding why the tissues are damaged. And so that to me was really, you know, would explain why we're having pain and how to solve it. And that bore out after, in my first year, my first job after PT school, I couldn't help people with chronic pain. And so I decided to dig in and try and figure this out for myself then. So it's been a long and windy road, but I'm here and I think I have a lot of answers for a lot of people.

Yeah. So it sounds like very similarly to the typical model of Western medicine, it's trying to put a bandaid on the problem rather than trying to find the root cause. And based on what you just said, it, it sounds like that you decided, okay, I need to find out what's actually causing this to help you better enable people manage their chronic pain. Would that be an accurate statement?

Yeah, it is. You know, Cheryl, do you have a good connection with me?

I do. There seems to be a bit of a delay, but you're not echoing or anything like that.

Yeah.

Okay.

You're cutting out on me a little bit, so I've just switched my wireless to see if that's what the case is.

So, okay.

But to answer your question, yeah. So a lot of practitioners think that they're getting to the roots when they're treating patients, but really it's based on their belief system. And so unfortunately, The evidence that there's so much chronic pain out there means that a lot of those belief systems maybe aren't as dialed in as they could be. And so what I focus on is understanding how our body works as a system. And it's taken me about, I've been working like this for about 20 years now, trying to figure out what are the true root causes of pain? Because ultimately it really comes down to we are the cause, We're responsible for our pain. So something we're doing must be causing that pain or something that we're not doing. And so that's what I've been focused on these last 20 years. And, you know, I can give you an example of that, for instance, with back pain. If you want a quick test for your viewers, I'd be happy to take them through that.

Yeah, I think that would be perfect because, and you probably have a more up-to-date stat, but I always, I have, back pain recurring on and off my— for a very long time now. And, I think it's something like 80% of people experience back pain at some point in their life. It could be more than that now.

You're absolutely right. And, for other podcasts I've been on, I ended up actually evaluating the podcast host. So, if you want me to take a look at your back, I'll be happy to. But, I'll take your listeners through one really easy test right now and it'll help them understand really what I'm talking about.

Here.

So if everyone just lies down on the floor with their legs straight, it could be on your couch or your bed or the floor, but lie down with your legs straight. And maybe, Cheryl, you can imagine yourself doing this yourself. And now feel what your back feels like in this position. And now what we're going to do is we're going to bend your knees so your feet are flat on the floor. And if you don't notice a change in your back, then bring your knees to your chest and, and see which position feels better for your back— knees bent or legs straight. And Cheryl, you know, you've got back pain, you said. What would you imagine would— which position would feel better to you?

Typically for me, it's definitely knees bent, feet flat on the ground. And occasionally at night, if I'm trying to sleep on my back more for other, you know, vanity purposes or whatever, it's, um, I typically will like kind of bend one leg in and kind of almost like make a figure four with my legs, if that makes sense, because it makes my back more comfortable.

Yes, yeah, so you're very much like 99% of all the other people with back pain out there, that their backs will feel better with their knees bent or their knees hugged to their chest rather than with their legs straight. So why is that? Well, if you straighten out your legs again, you'll feel that your back is slightly arching more when your legs are straight, and your back is slightly arching less when your knees are bent. So it's a little flatter.

Okay?

And so you can say, oh, I just need to flatten my back and my back will feel better. But that's an unnatural solution. We don't wanna walk around with our, our butt tucked underneath us flattening our back all day long, 'cause your back shape is the way it is. So instead, think of it like this. When your legs are straight, you have more forces trying to pull your back into an arch. And when your knees are bent, you remove those forces pulling your back into an arch, which is allowing the back to be where it wants to be. So the follow-up to this is, well, how does this relate to my everyday life? Okay, so if everyone now stands up and listens to this podcast or watch it on video or however you're doing this, but stand up for the next minute, all right? And while you're standing there, what you'll notice is that your knees gradually start to lock backwards in a straight position. All right. Do you think you do this, Cheryl, or not?

Do you think you lock your knees? I think I do it less than I used to because I've been a yoga instructor for probably like 12 years now, and so I'm a little bit more aware, maybe body aware than certain people. And I know that that is a typical problem because it's something I often cue people in class when we're doing standing postures that they want to lock their legs back, and you should have like a more— I like to think of it as like when I used to play basketball as a kid, it's like a more athletic posture, kind of knees slightly bent, just like kind of more ready to move than locking your knees back. So, for whatever that's worth, I think I don't do it, but I'm going to pay more attention now just to make sure.

Yeah. And, you're absolutely right. You know, unlocking your knees is an athletic stance ready to move, ready to do something. But, when your knees are locked, now your muscles are being turned off in certain areas of your body. But really, let's keep it our focus on the back. So if you lock your knees standing up right now, you'll feel your back is arching. And when you unlock your knees and soften them, you'll feel that your back slightly flattens a little bit more. So by unlocking the knees, we've removed some of those forces that are causing your back to arch. And we just found out on the floor that when your back is arching, it doesn't feel as good as when it's flatter. So one of the things that you can do really simply throughout the day, if you have back pain, is start unlocking your knees, which will remove some of the forces pulling your back into an arch. And if you're not sure if this is happening to you, if you've unlocked your knees just now, go ahead and lock them again, and you'll feel that your back indeed does arch when your knees are locked. And if your back hurts more with arching, then this is a really easy solution to solve a lot of your pain, especially if you think about taking 10,000 steps a day. Now you've got 10,000 steps a day that are not hurting your back and are instead helping your back because the knees are locking usually when people are walking too.

Hmm, interesting. Do you have any tips for people, something practical that either a test they can do to know if they're locking their knees when they're walking or some kind of sign or signal where they might start to become more aware if that's their issue?

Yeah, well, often back pain is the sign or signal.

Right. If you weren't locking your knees, your back would hurt.

Right, exactly. So because frankly, you know, I can give this one little easy tip to a lot of people and it will take away often a lot of people's about 50% of their back pain just by unlocking your knees. So it's really simple. So to answer your question though, one other easy way I have to show people is I put a little piece of tape on the backs of their knees. So I have them unlock their knees. I put a little piece of tape back there, and then when they lock their knees, they get that immediate feedback that their knees are locking, and so they unlock it. So that kind of— awesome— for those people who are really having a hard time knowing whether they're locking their knees, that is an excellent test.

Yeah, I love that. And I would almost say use duct tape just so that you really get the feedback, you know?

Yeah, yeah. So the tape I use, it's a medical-grade tape, so it's It's like duct tape. It's even worse. So, okay, it will definitely give you that feedback.

Perfect. Well, I love that. That's such practical knowledge, and that's what I'm always looking to give people on this podcast. So I think already we're, we're at 100% on this episode. Um, if we're gonna go further and offer even more value, um, and not to say that we're finished with the back, we might come back to that, but what would be maybe the second most common kind of pain that people come to you with?

Okay, neck pain and headaches is a big one.

Hmm, right.

And the surprising reason behind most neck pain and headaches— do you have neck pain and headaches by chance, Cheryl?

Occasionally, mostly when I'm like this over my keyboard all day.

Okay, all right. Well, the surprising cause of neck pain and headaches is actually the shoulder blades. Hmm. So, and I've got a little skeleton here, if you don't mind, I'll just kind of explain it.

Yeah, that would be great, but for people that are watching on video can see exactly what you're talking about. I'd recommend you pop over to YouTube right now for this part.

But don't worry, you audio people, I'll kind of describe what I'm talking about here. Okay, so if you're listening to this via audio, just pull up a Google search of a skeleton and the back of a skeleton, and you'll see that we have these bones called shoulder blades or scapula. And if you look at the architecture of that shoulder blade, it's unique. It's not like any other bone in the upper body system, and it's really like only one other bone in the body, and that is the pelvic bone.

Yeah.

All right. So we all know that the pelvis is the center of function for our lower body and back. And the same thing goes for the shoulder blade in the upper body system. It is the center of function for all all things upper body. And the reason— and so there are significant attachments of the shoulder blade into the neck bones and the base of the skull. And so if the shoulder blade isn't working correctly, stress is transmitted via those muscles to the neck bones and the base of the skull, which can cause side bending, rotation, uh, disc herniations, facet joint arthritis, headaches, all sorts of problems. And we have a couple big muscles that are controlling this big upper body system: the trapezius muscle, which inserts into the base of the skull all the way down here and then back into the shoulder blade, but also something called the serratus anterior. Anyway, when those muscles aren't working well— and this is the way chronic pain works in, in the body for a large part— when the big muscles aren't doing their job the little muscles deep to it have to do more work. And one of the little muscles in the shoulder blade is called the levator scapulae, which inserts from the corner of the shoulder blade here on the inside into C1, 2, 3, and 4. So levator means it's an elevator of the scapula, right? And it's a little pinky muscle as opposed to these big hand muscles. So it's trying to hold this whole system up for you when the big muscles aren't doing their jobs right. And so the arm system alone weighs, you know, 15, 20 pounds. When you add on the big muscles not doing their job on top of that, that little guy starts screaming and he causes lots of pain in the neck and also causes the muscles deep to the skull here to start becoming irritated as well.

So if you have that kind of pain, and you said so it's mostly that the big muscles aren't working, what would be your tip, if any, to kind of bring more awareness to that area and to relieve some of that pressure on the small muscles?

Oh sure, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you a really easy test to first figure out if this is your problem, all right? And I came up with it myself, and so I've called it the armpit test. So it's really easy to do. So if you have someone stand behind you and they put their hands in your armpits like this and lift up your armpits about a half inch to an inch, your job as the patient is to relax your shoulders and make sure that you're letting them hold your shoulders up. So once their hands are up like this for about 30 seconds and holding your shoulders up, you should almost immediately feel a a sense of relief in your neck and head right off the bat. But if you're not sure, move your head around and look up and down and make— and see if your pain has reduced in terms of your range of motion and all that kind of stuff. So most— and I'll tell you, Cheryl, in the last 20 years I've been working with chronic neck pain and headaches, I can't remember any patient who didn't have the shoulder blade system as the source of their problem. Interesting. So, uh, it's really powerful, especially with chronic pain. With acute pain, that's a different matter, but chronic issues, it's usually because most practitioners aren't looking at the shoulder girdle system. All right, so the next part of that test is just simply having your friend test— take their hands out of your armpit, let your shoulders come back down, and see which position you like better. Did you like it with your shoulders up a little bit and support it, or did you like it with your shoulders down? Kind of like that back pain test we did on the floor, you know?

Right.

It's one or the other. So almost everyone with chronic neck pain and headaches will say, oh, I kind of like it with my shoulder blades up. And that's because one of the most common problems with the shoulder girdle is that it's resting too low. All right. So what we've done is we've just lifted that up to unload that connection of that little tiny pinky muscle, that levator scapulae, We've unloaded it from the neck, and now your neck says, oh my gosh, this feels a lot better. So we need to fix how the shoulder blades are working. All right? So rather than getting into the exercises that would do that, because that would be kind of difficult to do on a podcast. Most people out there sit at their desk when they're working. So here's an easier way to fix this while you're working at least. When you're sitting at your desk, your elbows should be— your arms should be resting at the seam of your shirt by your side here, like this.

Okay.

The arm should not be forward like this, typing on your keyboard. So with the arm back like this, then also we've just learned that your shoulder— your neck likes it when your shoulder is up a little bit. So the arm of your chair should lift the shoulder blade up maybe a half inch higher than what your normal normally having it. And so wherever your hand is at that position is where your keyboard should be. So if you're reaching forward beyond that for your keyboard, then you automatically are turning on all those neck and shoulder muscles to hold up your arm system for you.

Mm-hmm.

And the same goes even if you're here, but your elbows are out here to the side, further away from your body. Again, you've lost the correct support of the armrest. And so your neck and shoulder will start to work again. So the elbows have to be close to your body, and it needs to be in line with your midpoint of your trunk. And most people with neck pain or headaches, if you make that small, simple adjustment, that will start eliminating a lot of your neck pain and headaches. You'll actually love it to do that.

Yeah, no, that, that is such a great tip. And again, practical knowledge. And I think we give a lot of lip service to ergonomics in the office and things. But I have definitely noticed this for myself over the years because my, my work has mostly been like writing, typing at a desk. And the times where, like this particular setup I have today, I had to come to a coworking space to do the podcast because my internet at the little cabin in the woods is way too slow for this. But I could tell, like, if I had to sit here and work all day, it's too elevated. It's already, like, putting, you know, stress on my neck, where if I— when I had my standing desk that was adjustable, I could get everything just perfect, and, you know, everything felt a lot better. So, and there, as you— maybe you can speak to this more than I can, but there are some, like, little tools that can be useful to recreate your desk space, like a elevator for your monitor that allows your hands to be at the right height and the monitor to be at the right height. You know, you can modify your workspace without having to buy, you know, a whole new desk or things like that. Or one time I installed a little cart underneath my desk so that I could have my hands at the proper height. Anything else that you can think of for people if they're struggling with this problem, like little tweaks to their workspace?

Yeah. So, oh gosh, there's so many little gadgets out there that you can buy and use. But what I just use, the simplest things from home, really. And so most, especially females, most chairs are too big for females. They're these huge, even the ergonomic chairs. A lot of people can't get the arm of their chair in close to their side. Their elbows stays out here. So the way I have people solve that is that I get a, I have them get a pillow from their bed at home, simply just fold it in half and shove it between your waist and the arm of the chair. And now the pillow becomes your armchair, the arm of your chair instead of the arm of your chair. And then, and usually when you folded that pillow in half, it is resting higher than the arm of your chair naturally. So that'll almost, it's almost always the perfect solution for a lot of people's ergonomics. So you just put one of those on either side of you and boom, you've solved the armchair problem. And then also for those with back pain and head and neck pain is I have them bring out a pillow from their bed and put it behind their back too, to bring the back of their chair to them. 'Cause most people sit at the front of their chair to work on their computer. And so what, there's nothing that's signaling your body to relax in this position. So when you put pillows behind your back so that your back can get that feedback, it signals it to say, oh, I can relax here. I don't have to sit up so rigidly all the time. I once had a woman cry because I just did those simple solutions. She didn't realize that she could sit without pain. And it was the first time she had sat for years without pain. She literally cried. She was so happy. That she could finally sit with no pain at all. And it's that simple. So you don't need to buy a lot of expensive things. Just use things from your home and first figure out and play with it and see exactly what is the perfect setup for you. And you'll know because if you keep that setup for a week, your pain should diminish significantly. And so once you've figured out what that is, then you can go out and buy one of those expensive ergonomic chairs if you really want one. But most people just stick with the pillows because they work so well.

Yeah, that's amazing. And I would say you're exactly right about those good chairs because I got really lucky one time. This is probably 15 years ago on Facebook Marketplace. There was one of those— oh, what's— you'll know the name of it. It's like a real—

like Herman Miller or something.

Yes, Herman Miller. Herman Miller chair. And it was like, I don't know, new, they're something like $1,200. And somebody on Facebook Marketplace just had it for $100. So I got it. And it's fantastic. But you're exactly right, it seems like it should be perfect, and it's, it's like I can tell, like, my arms aren't in the right place in that chair. So now when I finally have a house and have my chair back, I'm just going to put some pillows in there and it should be pretty good.

There you go. Yeah, cheap is easy. Please, Herman Miller, please don't sue us.

Uh, right, right. I mean, it's an awesome chair. It's an awesome chair.

I got a great deal.

Maybe I'll, like, reach out and they can give a link or something, but it is a nice chair, but they are very pricey. I don't even— I can't even imagine what they must be now. Well, we haven't talked, Rick, yet. We haven't talked about the fact that you have a book, and I'm assuming that it's focused on chronic pain and that people can learn so many more great tips like this. Can you share a bit about what prompted you to write the book and, you know, what your goal was in putting that information out there?

Oh, sure. So, a lot of the biomechanics of how I look at the body came from a particular researcher called Dr. Shirley Saruman. She's a professor out at Washington University in St. Louis. She's written a couple of textbooks and I've taken her seminars. And it's all about movement mechanics and how those create problems, but also the deeper, you know, geekier stuff that's going on in the body. About what's really happening. But anyway, I made friends with a PT who was taking these same seminars. And over the course of a year or two that I had been taking these seminars, I met him at the end of the last seminar. I said, "Hey, how's this information going for you?" And he says, "Eh, you know, I'm a manual therapist. I might use these for maybe a home exercise program or something." I said, "Are you kidding me? This is really solving chronic pain." And he says, maybe, but, you know, I'm a manual therapist, so, you know, I'm not really gonna use it that much. And that's when I realized that we as practitioners are filtering information that we are receiving through our belief systems. And so if we don't believe something will help our patients or help us be better practitioners, we kind of just kind of blow that information off. And only focus on the information we believe will help our patients solve pain, even if that other information is valid.

Mm-hmm.

And so that's when I decided, I, I realized that, oh my gosh, you know, a lot of people are not receiving this information because of our practitioner bias. And so that's when I decided to write my books. I wrote actually 6 books and nice. And, and published those about 10 or 12 years ago. I do have a new book coming out next year. But, and anyway, those have sold well. But in the meantime, I also own a physical therapy clinic here in Denver, 'cause I wanted to test my theories out in a clinical environment with all age groups and all types of injuries, acute, chronic, whatever. And it did amazingly well. And I've trained all of my therapists to use this information too. So it showed me that I, that this is trainable. I don't have some magic in my eyes or my fingers that help people. This is, it's all really basic, simple stuff like what we've been going over today that just other practitioners have been overlooking. And so, uh, that's why I wrote my books is to do an end around, around the practitioners. And then since then, I've created these downloadable home programs based on what I've learned in my clinic these past 10 years too. So those are the most up to date. Comprehensive but simple solutions that people can find.

Very cool. And I love that you're— so rather than write for practitioners, these books are meant for just average people that have chronic pain. Am I— is that accurate?

You're absolutely right. Yeah. Yeah.

And are you able to share much about the new one or are you— is it kind of a secret still right now?

No, no, no secret story. So in my my first 6 books. So those focus on the, the, the structures and the mechanics and the muscles and bones and all that kind of stuff that are causing pain. And then what I have in there are little client connection stories that show how this information was used to help someone with pain. And so over the years, I've gotten lots of feedback from people who said, I love those client connection stories because those are the— that's Sounds just like me. And so I thought, well, let's flip this on its head and make this last book about the clients or the patients and with just a little— and make the mechanical stuff and the muscles and so forth the secondary part of the book. So it's— I've just kind of reversed that whole thinking because so many people love those client stories. And I really think it helps people see themselves and see a solution for themselves. If they can read about someone who's going through something similar that they are. So, that's what this next book is about. And yeah, I'm kind of excited about it.

No, you should be. I think that sounds amazing. And I think that's exactly why people like listening to, actually lately I've had on sort of more practitioners and doctors on the podcast, but one of the things that I really wanted to do when I started this was just to talk to kind of quote unquote everyday people about their their experience with their health journey or their pain journey or whatever it is. It just so turns out that they're not always as willing to come and share their story with millions of people. But, but I'm glad, you know, you kind of have both sides of that because you have all these wonderful patients that you're working with. So you have their stories and their knowledge that you can kind of share too. And if you're open to it and you can think of one off the top of your head, it could be one from the book or maybe not, but just like a brief snippet of kind of somebody's pain situation and how then their life changed after that?

Oh, sure. And for those of you who are really interested, they can go to my website and I've actually posted 3 of these stories from the book on my website. And I've—

Oh, nice.

I've also got the audio version of me reading them too. So, if you really want to dive deeply into it, go for it. Go for the website. At rickalderman.com and you can look at those and listen to them. But, for instance, we started off our conversation with back pain. So, one story jumps out to mind is that this one guy, he had had back sciatic pain for 8 years. He had had surgery. He had been to— you name any practitioner you want and he had been to that person, but nothing had changed his sciatic pain. And, I evaluated him. And so, the unique way that I evaluate is anyone with back pain on down to the foot, we look at the rib cage all the way down to the foot because it's all part of that whole system. And so, anyway, once I evaluated him and he was a real doubting Thomas, arms crossed, "You're not going to help me. No one's been able to help me," kind of thing. "I'm only here because my doctor forced me to be here." You know, I said, okay, I thought I need to make, you know, a big change in this guy pretty fast. So I had him do a butt strengthening exercise and I had him turn over and retest his pain again. And his pain was completely gone in 10 seconds and it stayed gone. So the reason was, is because when you look at the body as a system and, you know, it would be easy for me to say, oh, you've got sciatic pain, it must be coming from these nerve roots in your back. It wasn't though. That wasn't where the problem was. And that's why systems solutions can be very rapid and more comprehensive. So his pain never returned again, just after that first one exercise that we did. And then I taught him how to walk correctly, like what you and I talked about at the beginning here, unlock your knees, and it turned on his butt muscles and all this kind of stuff. So that's a really easy one. It was startling even for me. I didn't expect to, expected to solve his pain, but not that fast. That was kind of crazy. So that was a fun one.

Yeah, that's absolutely amazing. And thank you so much for sharing that because I'm already feeling like, oh my gosh, I know one person who sounds very similar to this guy that you just described. I'm giving her your website. I'm telling her to buy your books, all of the things. And just for me, myself, it's making me think of my biomechanics and some of the pain processes I've had in a much different way. So before we wrap things up here. You mentioned your website, which is justyourname.com, and I'll have you say it again here and it'll be in the show notes. All of your books. You mentioned that you have online courses. Tell us, do you do online consults? If people want to— you've mentioned that you've trained multiple therapists now. So if people want to work with you or somebody who's been trained by you in this particular method, what are the best ways they can do all of that?

Yeah. So first of all, if you buy any of my downloadable home programs, if you type in Fixing You, all one word, you'll get a 20% discount. So I do do online consults, but I believe that I shouldn't— you shouldn't need me to fix your pain. I believe we have everything inside of us to fix our pain. And so my programs are designed to help you do just that. So I, you know, I'm happy to do telehealth, you know, and consults and so forth. But really just try the program. If you follow the program, you will solve your pain. You don't actually need to have a consultation with me. So on, on my rickalderman.com website, you'll find all of my programs to help you solve your pain. But I've also created an online training program for health and wellness practitioners to train them how to solve people's pain using this type of information. And, you know, Cheryl, my belief is that you— I'm a last resort for a lot of people. So people will go to someone like you, like a yoga instructor or a Pilates instructor or a personal trainer before they'll ever come to me or even their doctor. So, and you guys are all like, that's what you do is you teach movement. And so it seems like if, if everyone knew this information, we could nip chronic pain in the bud. Cuz you would see exactly what the problem is right off the bat, nip the chronic pain and put people like me out of work, which would make me very happy to put me out of work.

Right. That's the same way I feel about people just getting more metabolically healthy and feeling better. It's like, wow, if, if we could just distill this into a way that people could just do it, it would be, I mean, it'd be such a miracle. So, yeah. So rickalderman.com, they can get 21st 20% off by entering Fixing You on any of your programs, or does that include the books and things like that as well?

The books are sold on Amazon, and I can't create a coupon code for that. But the, the home downloadable programs and even the practitioner training program, you can get 20% off that too.

Oh, that's fantastic. I'll definitely be sharing this with some yoga instructors that I know because, uh, and that could be a new like line of, uh, training for you. I think that Yoga people in particular are just really hungry for learning more about biomechanics and kind of extending their training because quite often the basic yoga teacher training doesn't focus a lot on anatomy and some of the things I feel like we should really be more practiced in when we're teaching. So, for whatever that's worth, get in touch with Rick if you're a yoga instructor. Maybe he can create something especially for a big yoga class.

Well, I'd be happy to, but my very first graduate was actually a personal trainer.

Oh, nice.

So, and it was designed for physical therapists, but I've made, I've intentionally made it simple enough for anyone to use. And also for, if you're considering it, in most states I offer 30 CEU credits for physical therapists. And I provide all the documentation you would need to submit to your certifying agency to get whatever CEU credits you're looking for. So if we can get 30 CEUs for physical therapy, I'm sure you would get whatever you needed for whatever other license or certification you have.

Yeah, for— I mean, for— I can't speak to other personal trainers, or— but for yoga instructors, it's just kind of ongoing continuing education, and you don't have to have any special certificates. It's just, oh, you know, kind of— yeah, so it's pretty easy for that. Well, Rick, is there any final things, anything else you have coming up that you want to share with people? Places you're speaking, trainings you're doing, any final thoughts before we wrap it up?

You know, no final thoughts in terms of where I'm speaking or things like that. But, you know, the message I want to give people, because, you know, Cheryl, so many people have been around the block with their aches and pains. And a lot of people tend to start thinking that they're broken, right? I'm not fixable. But I believe that just about everyone is fixable. They just haven't gotten the right information. If you can cut yourself and the cut heals, or if a bone breaks and it can mend, then you have everything inside of you naturally occurring to solve pain. What my programs help do is remove the hurdles for that to happen. One of those hurdles, and we mentioned this at the beginning when you and I were just chatting, is our diet and nutrition intake, which you're covering that really well on your podcast.

Right.

And another one is emotional or psychological trauma also contributes to this type of these hurdles. So, you know, my message to my, my final message would just be that you're not broken. You just haven't received the right information yet.

Well, I love that. And I'm so glad that you're helping all of us get to a point where we can hopefully fix ourselves and experience less pain. I'm excited to dig into your content more after this conversation, and I'm excited for everyone listening to go to your website and listen to what you have to offer and to get some of your knowledge so they can be pain-free. This is so exciting.

Great.

Thank you. Thank you so much for coming today.

My pleasure.