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all right welcome Dr Stedman welcome to True hype cast appreciate your time today thank you so much for coming on

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and I'm excited to talk to you about your profession your experience and you know your specialty as well but first of

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all how are you what is going well oh I'm doing I'm doing well um things are going well you know here

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in Colorado things are pretty awesome getting over the heat which is a

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really good thing so yeah things are going well in my world wonderful glad to hear that well

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I'd love to get an introduction from you just let us know like who you are and what it is that you do

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yeah you know so my name is Dr Shane Steadman I mean some you know uh you know definite I lecture around the

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country but you know I don't have the crazy social media presence I think that some some famous people have but uh you

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know I kind of known for my clinic I have a clinic here in Denver and we're kind of known for kind of combining

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aspects of functional neurology with functional medicine and I think there's not a lot of clinics that know how to do

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that and that's something that we've done really well at because to me it's really hard to solely focus on the brain

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and not the functional medicine or the the metabolic or the physiological side of things

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um you can't focus on one and not the other and that's kind of been my experience even if we're going to talk about brain injuries you know there's a

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lot of things that impact the brain how the brain functions you know and so I to

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me I think addressing all aspects of the person the holistic aspect of the person I think is you know one of the most

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important things to do and so that's kind of how I developed this practice is to really look and understand neurology

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and endocrinology and Immunology and hormones and blood sugar and thyroid and

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how they are all integrated together which is kind of why the whole Clinic is called Integrated Health or our other

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kind of name is integrated brain centers very cool I mean when you talk about

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immunology and all the other aspects that make up like a person that you kind

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of have to be looking at when you have somebody in front of you telling you about their their pain their issues

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their trauma Etc it makes so much sense that you would have to look into these different areas of the bodies the

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hormones the brain and you know what's going on like as a full picture to be able to like you know make a clear

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diagnosis create a treatment plan and you know looking at root causes why is it that you know that's not a

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conventional method because it sounds like you've had to you know you've you've gone to school to become a

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chiropractor but then you've gone the extra mile to become like you know this functional practitioner and it sounds

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like you've probably done that through your through your own interest and you've you know you've seen that

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there's this necessary Gap in the market this has to happen why is that not a conventional

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way of thinking yeah that's a it's a great question and I think that's a question that I often

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get asked even by patients um you know and I think I think what we see right now in medicine in in you

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don't want to come across as like bashing because I think they have their place and they do really well you know

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in their arena with certain things I I think in medicine and this where patients are getting frustrated is that

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everything is becoming very segregated you know so we have neurology Endocrinology Immunology Rheumatology

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every ology you can think of but I also hear and feel that

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you know there's a lot of insurance and a lot of like monetary value that gets in the way you know because everybody is

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expected to go to their primary and then the primary physician then refers to a

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specialist so you know everything is becoming specialist driven so we go primary Specialists primary to the

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specialist back to the primary to this specialist which you look at it from the outside and

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sometimes it feels like it's a little bit more becoming of a financial decision you know to have people see

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Specialists because then we can charge more for that I also medicine is kind of really big

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about staying your lane you know and so you hear that term a lot in medicine you know stay in your lane stay in your lane

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and this is where patients I feel get frustrated and so in my my mind I

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thought being a doctor was you look at a person you try to understand a person

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you try to come up with a cause and then you come up with a treatment plan and it is bizarre to me that it's a very simple

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concept that I thought that's what doctors were supposed to do so when I got into practice you know I wanted to

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go into practice being a chiropractic neurologist and I did that because my mom had worked for one and the amount of

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stories that she came home with and the things that we saw were just it was like I was like I want to do what that guy does that's so cool and so I went to

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school to be a chiropractic neurologist and then as you dive into it you realize well geez hormones affect the brain you

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know blood sugar affects the brain the thyroid affects the brain the immune system affects the brain so I thought in my head well if I'm going to be an

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awesome neurologist then I need to understand how other things affect the brain as well and that's kind of where I

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dove into the functional medicine side was to figure out all those other pieces to be a better neurologist but then it

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just kind of morphed the whole practice so when you ask the question like why don't we see that I don't know and but

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this is a lot of things that patients are frustrated with is they're not getting these like holistic evaluations

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of what's going on with them so we can get to that root cause so that's what I've really tried to do is is do

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something I thought all doctors should do and I don't know why it's done I don't know why sometimes I feel like an

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enigma you know in this world of medicine but I think that's what patients are really begging for out of

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the medical system right now yeah and it's wonderful that you do exist and you've seen that you know there's so

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much more to the human body and it's it's unfortunate a lot of other people don't recognize that and take that

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Avenue it's interesting that you had that experience with um you know your mom's boss working with this you know

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Chiropractic neurology just and hearing those stories and it's you know that's that's obviously bound up in emotion and

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like it's obviously quite fascinating to hear the recovery stories of like no of somebody actually being able to heal

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significantly so that's really cool that you actually had that that's probably quite um unique in your story and I think that

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one of the biggest things when I think about the conventional modeling in how it does have this like reductionist

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segregated approach in regards to you know um speaking to different types of doctors in different areas and you might

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be waiting quite a long time for this referral and that referral ideally you would have like you know all the people you might

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need to speak to under kind of like one roof you know that's when we start talking about like functional medicine but the resources and it sounds like a

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scheduling nightmare to try and facilitate That Into You know the um conventional system but you know that's

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another topic I'd love to learn a little bit more about the difference between you know going to see like a honestly

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like a like a classic chiropractor and I would describe that in my opinion as like you go and sit you go you go in

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there it might even be your first appointment and you've never met the person before but you're in there and out of there in like five minutes and

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they just do like the general like manipulations or adjustments whatever you want to call it and I think that's

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an awful approach I think you know I've been to too many of those individuals but now I'm a little bit more wary of it

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and I want to work with somebody who might spend an hour and a half with me in like session one to really ask me some good questions and do some good

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testing and then you know performing like a therapeutic relationship there so what's the difference between like a

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classic chiropractor and what you do as a as a chiropractic neurologist yeah the traditional chiropractor you

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know and how we're kind of trained is you know you you look for the you look to the spine for abnormalities or

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abnormal motion or abnormal movement of the spine and then you know the the

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philosophy of Chiropractic is that you you know you you make the adjustments you put the the vertebrae back in place

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you know and because of that you know things are allowed to work better the nerves are able to work better the body

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can heal itself and so that's kind of the classical training of of Chiropractic and so and I

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think it's I think it's great training and I think it's a you know helps thousands and millions of people which

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is super cool that next step of the neurology really kind of comes into play with some

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of the more like complex kind of conditions or understanding how does like the brain impact the body or how

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does the spine impact the brain but you can actually take it even further which is cool so actually I

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think based on your question there's a new patient that I had yesterday and I think this is probably the best example

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of it so a new patient came in yesterday um he has a history of low back issues

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and so his two complaints where he has low back issues and he has some serious

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balance issues so he came in saying I've been to chiropractors but what I'm looking for is is my back causing my

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balance issues whereas my balance issues causing my back issues so I do a I do an exam on him and you

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know as I check it out and like obviously his back is out of place I mean most people you can find something with your lower back I mean none of us

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are perfect so I'm like yeah I find some things with your low back but I don't think that's the cause of everything so

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I then I switch over to my neuro exam so I started doing a neurological exam I get to his feet and from his ankles down

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he doesn't really have great sensation and so he doesn't you can't feel vibration very well

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he definitely feels pain but is hyper hypersensitive so you touch him and he was like he was like ah that that's

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really painful what are you doing down there and I was like I'm just I'm just kind of pricking your foot a little bit

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to see how your sensation is um he doesn't really have good awareness of his feet in space so we measure his

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balance he's really good on a hard surface but as soon as you put some foam underneath he just loses it like you can

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even complete his balance testing and so then I checked out a cerebellum because the cerebellum is the part of the brain

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that deals with balance all his cerebellum tests were perfect so then I was like well let's look at your

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vestibular system the inner ear system perfect so I'm like well it's not a

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vestibular issue it's not a cerebellum issue your blowback is totally fine

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I don't think you know where you're at in space because your feet you don't have any good representation or

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awareness of your feet so when you go to walk or you go to move quickly or if you're you know you know in thick shoes

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or in grass or thick carpet is going to change how your perception of of your

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spatial awarenesses so so you know I do some things that kind of stimulate his feet and his balancers you know it

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changed so I'm like okay well that makes sense now and that's kind of the difference in like Chiropractic neurology versus Chiropractic is you go

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okay there has to be more to this picture so let's figure it out and so having that neurology knowledge I can

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rule out that is not this part of the brain or this part of the brain but it's actually more of his feet and I don't think the feet was coming from the low

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back I think it's a separate issue because it doesn't follow a nerve pattern he's just not getting

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representation from his feet so if that's kind of a great example of kind of neurology versus the Chiropractic

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neurology versus chiropractor so he could get adjusted you know three times a week for six weeks but that's not

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going to change his foot because he's having an issue with his his perception of his feet so now I got to figure out

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that's my next plan is it more of a diabetic neuropathy is is he have like an immune condition causes his

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neuropathy so now I have to find out the why to that piece next but that's the difference in the the training that that

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we have yeah that's very very interesting and the fact that you've got these different

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neurological tests that you can do to kind of like find out where is the issues come where are the issues coming

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from and you know like the cerebellum and you know looking at the the inner ear as well like we know how connected

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that is with balance that's just like a really amazing functional like full comprehensive approach that you know

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you'd like to think that most people um get and receive do a lot of your patients who come in

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because that guy's asking very specific question I think that's a really great question though he's trying to figure out like what's the root of my like you

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know my my balance issues and my lower back pain or my lower back pain and my back so that's a really good like patient question to like dive into that

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and like you know want the answers do you get a lot of people who have come from a conventional

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um standpoint for like their pain or their whatever issue they might have and they

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they're coming to you seeking more answers because they've kind of like been you know they've not found the

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answers through a conventional model or do you do you get a lot of people who are just like

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you know I want to come and see if I want to come see a functional practitioner who's gonna like you know take care of me better

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yeah I wish we got we saw more of the latter but most of the patients have gone through the conventional system

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um even the patient right you know I was doing a consultation right before you and I jumped on and the patient has

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um her right side of her body is in a a a muscle spasm and so they're

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saying that she has like it's called like a hemiplegic spasm and they're saying it could be genetic but we're not quite sure

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um so she doesn't know where else to go they've done this to they've done MRIs spine MRIs they've done nerve conduction

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they've done blood work and they're like nothing is showing up so we think it's this but we don't know what else to do

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you know so she's kind of been through that whole realm and so that she was in today going I don't know what else to do

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and her neurologist said you know she was asking her all just what else and she said well we'll talk about your next

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appointment in three months so right um so she was in here going like is there anything that you can do uh and

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there's things that we you know there's things that we can do you know obviously I can do a neuro exam and try to figure out exactly where the pieces are because

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they she showed me the exam that her doctor did and it wasn't it wasn't very thorough maybe it took five minutes

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um so I kind of read through those notes but there's also some testing that we can look at neuro autoimmune conditions

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so I said why don't we just test for all these neuro autoimmune conditions and see if that shows up so that's kind of this kind of example we just got through

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right before I got on with you but that's kind of how the cases are they're kind of going from specialist to

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specialist doctor to doctor and they're just like I don't know what else to do and I can't live like this

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and and a lot of times they kind of throw up their hands and say well I don't know or hey we'll just you know

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take this medication you'll be fine hopefully and that's kind of what we see most of

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the time yeah I mean when I I started practicing holistic nutrition like five years ago

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and it was remarkable that the the the age gap of people who came in to see me was always the same it was like between

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40 and 50 years of age usually men and they had been working with their doctor

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for their pain or their discomfort or their primarily their digestive issues for 15 20 years and they were just fed

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up of not feeling better and just like not really being listened to and they just like

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started to on the mistrust and really wanted to take the health into their own hands I

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just was not expecting that um but it was just an interesting it's just an interesting um it takes some

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time for you to kind of like realize that maybe you know doctors and drugs don't have all of the answers but I've

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you said before like everything has its place but for like chronic long-term significant issues it's very very

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important to work with somebody who's going to be looking at all aspects of you know what what makes a human being

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in this experience that we do have on your website you discuss neurology

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functional medicine and Immunology um I think the immune system is obviously very fascinating it's very

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fascinating because I've and it's a Hot Topic in regards to the last like few years like you know having a strong

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immune system what can we do to have a robust immune system um how does it how does Immunology fit

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into Chiropractic work um the brain and you know functional medicine

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Immunology is it's be it's kind of become a big part of my my knowledge over the years and I've been fortunate

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to you know have a mentor that's a research scientist in Immunology so it's kind of cool to be able to ask questions

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or you know to know to know more I think it plays a big role

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into a lot of things that we do because you look at the amount of autoimmune conditions

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it's it's really big I mean in almost all cases that tend to come in

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that say like nobody can figure me out I'm different I'm really hard I'll give

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you a run for your money you know all those like kind of cliches the more that they start talking about those cliches

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and like probably an autoimmune condition you know and and even like diabetes you know like most of your type

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2 diabetes like 15 of those are autoimmune condition type 1 diabetes or autoimmune conditions

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um in the United States 90 percent well yeah they're saying about 90 of thyroid conditions are autoimmune you know

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Hashimoto's then you look at lupus ra Sjogren's multiple sclerosis ALS

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um you know there's it just seems like so many of these are autoimmune conditions that if you don't quite

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understand the immune system then how are you to make a change in that person and the immune system can

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get thrown off by different like pathogens whether it be Epstein-Barr virus that causes mono or I mean covet

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now is kind of the biggest thing you know um to different like Lyme disease bacterial infections other viral

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infections candy infections mold all those different things influence the

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immune system and they can lead to an autoimmune disease you know so autoimmune diseases can show up in many

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different flavors whether it be in the brain the thyroid the pancreas the

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joints you know and so that's where the Immunology pieces could really come into play is trying to figure this out

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because there are certain things in research that can actually activate different parts of the immune system

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herbally you know or nutrient wise there's also nutrients and herbs that can also regulate or modulate the immune

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system you know for instance for example like glutathione vitamin D fish oil you know all those things can have some

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really powerful modulations into the immune system so if we're dealing with you know a neural autoimmune condition

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you know can we utilize something like glutathione you know to help support the patient

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um you know and then that's where you know sometimes the conventional medicine has their really amazing things that we

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can off offer as well like you know I have a nurse practitioner in the in the office so we can utilize sometimes you

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know certain medications that actually might activate the immune system or support it or even sometimes a patient

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takes a medication or takes a supplement and it makes them worse if you understand the Immunology it starts to

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make sense you're like that's why I made you worse so that just gave me a lot more information into the direction that we need to go and so that's why I

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started learning way more about Immunology just to kind of keep adding

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to this the struggle of how do we get patients well you know and and so then it comes

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together and you see how it dovetails into another piece and you go oh that's super cool that's why it's affecting you

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you know what it goes back to the brain gut or the brain body thing we're talking about at the very beginning is that

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if you have an autoimmune condition that affects B12 or pernicious anemia but B12

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is used to make myelin in the brain for transmission of nerves well now you can

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see why pernicious anemia can cause neuropathy so now you're chasing neuropathy and the

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whole time you have a pernicious anemia that's the cause so if we can get B12 in their system calm down the immune system

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reduce the inflammation now all of a sudden they can start feeling and sensing things better again

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yeah whenever I think about um autoimmunity I always personally I always like think to the gut I think

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about the microbiome I think about um my intestinal permeability which you know so many people have and um

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you know we have such a significant part of our immune system is is within our gut and it's heavily reliant on you know

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having a wider range of different microorganisms be that bacterial viruses fungi you know all kind of like working

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together synergistically and then I think about the classic like North American diet which is just not feeding

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these bacteria in a way that we're biologically supposed to supposed to do now having this diversity you know the

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kind of the more diverse our diet the more the potential our bacterial species

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have got the ability to be diverse as well and they do obviously so many jobs in regards to synthesizing vitamins and

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modulating our immune system yeah that's just it's an interesting piece there's so many pieces to autoimmunity you know

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whether we're talking about the brain you're talking about like a disease like um uh pernicious anemia

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yeah it's just interesting when we have that this rate dysregulated microbiome

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reducing our ability to you know modulate our immune system and then you know you do that for the long period of time you it's going to fall into a type

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of dis-ease and we know that our gut is connected to everywhere and that disease could end up literally anywhere in the

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body and it ends up being quite complicated for somebody especially a doctor who is you know maybe specialized

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in type of like one area to be able to track that back and go back to a root issue it's complicated and it's

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difficult because some people are you know dealing with 10 20 years of you

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know doing long-term kind of subtle damage to their body which just you know compounds to turn into a huge issue yeah

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I agree you know in the microbiome I mean there's so much research on that that's come out um and I totally agree

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with you it's it's interesting couple things that came to mind one um one of the presentations I give I can't

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remember the exact article but uh at the very end of the abstract to summarize it

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it says if you want a non-immune condition have leaky gut um and it was it's a medical article and

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I was like that's so cool because they just basically summed it up for you but you know they've really broken down the

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microbiome and the different bacteria and their role in the immune system and so yeah if you're not eating a diversity

21:54

of food and the different fibers and the uh plants and things like that feed the different microbiome so if you're not

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feeding the diversity of these bugs then you also can impact on how your immune system uh operates and so this is kind

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of why I think in into the Immunology is super fascinating but even then you know if you have leaky gut then it it

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increases you know like uh some of your cytokines like tnf alpha or NF Kappa beta or NF Kappa B and and then those

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started having these amplifications of of of an effect on the immune system

22:29

that it starts to ramp it up and ramp it up and ramp it up and if you keep ramping that system up that's where you

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start getting into these what they call like th1 th2 like dominances you know where you have one aspect of the immune

22:40

system that's overactive because of a leaky gut scenario over the past 10 years but then that leaky gut activates

22:48

the immune system that then turns into an autoimmune disease whether it be you know like celiac disease the the

22:55

version that's actually in the brain or ALS I mean there's definitely some correlation out there between things

23:01

like gluten sensitivities and ALS there's correlation between gluten and

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diabetes I mean that's there's there's studies that are going on in Colorado on that

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um so it's really it is really fascinating to show like how much the gut plays a role in even brain function which I would say is why we definitely

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look at a lot of gut issues and leaky gut when it comes to brain dementias

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um ADD ADHD I mean the Parkinson's even you know the gamut of neurodegenerative

23:31

disorders or neurological disorders can be stem you know or go back all the way

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to gut dysfunction that's awesome I think that was a brilliant summary of immunology and

23:42

neurology and you know how those things are super connected and how complex it can be and you know it will take

23:48

patient and practitioner some time to really like dive into all of those different areas and you know

23:55

realize what what's not working for somebody and this is you know potentially why so let's you know get into some hard work and yeah it's like

24:01

that that healing process is it it deserves a lot of attention and it takes

24:06

and it takes a lot of time to to heal those particular areas but once we give the body the right circumstances it can

24:12

do quite miraculous things I'd love to talk to you about concussions

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and I know that you work with them quite frequently so I just I just as like um

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an introduction can you just tell us like what a concussion is and why

24:28

I mean is it common and like why should people be you know concerned about it and get you know work with somebody to

24:37

heal yourself up yeah absolutely concussions are very common I think they're definitely more common than what

24:44

we want to believe or we want to acknowledge is probably a better term

24:49

you know there's there's different levels that in my world I don't think there should be levels it should just be

24:55

you have an injury that we need to fix but you'll definitely hear like concussion mild traumatic brain injury

25:00

or mtbi or you'll hear like TBI at the end of the day you're dealing with a brain that was injured or has

25:08

a significant amount of inflammation and and that's that's and both of those

25:14

can cause issues because you can injure your brain you can have what they call like shearing effects in the brain you

25:20

can disrupt your vestibular system you know you can hit your head you know knock a few screws loose you know like

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those are things that can definitely happen but the inflammatory piece is just as damaging you know because if you

25:31

do you hit your head and now you have what they call like microgliosis or microglial activation that microglia can

25:38

cause significant inflammation which really disrupts how the signaling you know is and this is where you start to

25:45

see some of these aspects of like ctes that people are talking about you know but concussions I think they don't get

25:51

the attention that they deserve I don't think we have to be overzealous about that but at the same token I think we

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should give it as due you know diligence and recognize what can happen I think a

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lot of people you know have concussions that don't that don't say anything I think sports are probably notorious for that but you

26:11

know whenever I've treated some of the NFL players it's it's really fascinating when you actually sit down and talk with

26:16

them after retirement I've learned they will tell you oh I've had thousands of concussions

26:22

you know and they all say that and it's really interesting I think Brett Favre even came out uh maybe a couple weeks

26:28

ago and I think he was talking about oh I probably had a thousand concussions you know once and everybody goes what

26:33

because there's also the fact that if you see stars if you're seeing Birds if

26:39

you had your bell rung that was probably a concussion at some point or that was some kind of injury or

26:45

inflammatory event and and you talk to these NFL players and even maybe some of the other sports and they say how many

26:51

times have you had your bell rung oh every practice I had my bell wrong I saw Stars every practice Yeah they go hard

26:58

right like games and training they go hard oh yeah um you know in in Denver we we had a

27:06

company that was doing spect and this Imaging and so you'd measure like blood flow I mean and we'd run those on some

27:12

of these NFL players and I mean just the the lack of function going on in the brain from respect Imaging which is

27:18

astounding at times you know so I think I think it happens quite a bit and the concussion is basically looking at

27:25

injury or inflammation that's going to impact the signaling the functionality of the brain and it's of infect effect

27:31

on the body has our understanding of concussions like changed throughout the years has

27:36

there been more exposure to it through sports or has that just been like new science new testing that's been done

27:42

that's given us like a little bit more understanding of how common and how serious they are

27:48

you know actually I want to give a lot of credit to you know the the movie concussion with Will Smith you know that

27:54

definitely I think that definitely brought a lot of it to the light you know and and looking at the work that

27:59

was done kind of based on that movie um I I definitely think it'd be I think

28:06

with the ctes you know and what you're seeing in the NFL um you know and some of the people that

28:12

you know either commit suicide or have this uh abnormal behaviors you know I

28:19

think they're they're looking at it I think Junior Seau you know he was uh the Chargers um uh linebacker he you know he was one

28:27

of those people you know he passed away he said please dominate donate my brain you know and

28:33

and you're starting to hear some of that even still taking place where something happens and then they donate their brain

28:38

but even it's interesting in the in the Alzheimer's world you can donate brain you know to a foundation and they can

28:44

you know see what's going on and I think that's starting to bring more information you know to the public and

28:50

into the Science World to say like hey we need to do better you know there's some things going on so how can we take

28:56

precautions and I you know some aspects it's hard because you can wear a helmet but you start a hit in your head you

29:02

know it it definitely decreases the impact or the shock but you know Whiplash can still cause concussion-like

29:08

symptoms you know so what do we do and I think that's what's really hard is I think the knowledge is coming out but

29:14

how do we change what we do but you are seeing it change because how many parents do you hear out there that say I

29:19

don't want my kid playing football I don't want my kid playing soccer I don't want my kid playing hockey you know

29:25

I think we have a lot to learn I think we've learned a lot I don't it'd be interesting to see where

29:31

it's going to go in the next 10 years and 20 years but it's it's it's an interesting world that

29:36

I think needs a lot more attention um yeah well so let's look uh is that

29:42

like a classic treatment plan for somebody who's got like a who's got a concussion that's clear or you've done

29:47

diagnostic tests and you've you know you've come to the conclusion that they're they've got a concussion is

29:52

there like a a go-to like you would get into right away or is there you know or

29:57

is it different for everybody it's definitely different for everybody you know because you can have one concussion

30:03

where they hit the front of their brain or their head and so you can have more like frontal lobe issues so you might

30:08

see people like irritability you know abnormal behavior aggression motivation issues depression right you can have

30:14

somebody that hits the back of their head really hard and now they have balance issues and gross motor and

30:20

vision you know and and reading comprehensive issues or you have those people that you know especially see this

30:26

in sports where you know their body is one way they're looking another way and then they just get kind of lit up so to

30:33

speak and they have all these inner ear problems uh you know you have another

30:38

person that has dysautonomia or pots so they have postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome you know so then

30:45

you get another person has pots another person that has memory issues and so each of them kind of come in with

30:51

different varieties of what a concussion is but that's the importance of doing a full neurological examination to find

30:57

out you know how is your cerebellum working how's your frontal lobe working how's the brain stem how's the inner ear

31:03

so once you identify those pieces then that's your treatment plan you know so there's no different than

31:10

you know injuring your you know having somebody like crush your lower body like

31:15

in a sport you know take out your legs and then you go to the physical therapist right and the physical therapist says well let's check your

31:21

right ankle left ankle right knee left knee right hip left hip right and then they say well it looks like all your

31:27

problems in your left knee looks like you have an MCL tear you know looks like your meniscus so we're going to give you

31:32

exercises for that it's no different than brain function right in the way that we treat the brain

31:39

the way that we treat the body are totally different and I don't think they should be different you don't ever go to a physical therapist and they say oh you

31:45

hurt your knee well let's just uh why don't you just not do anything for the next six months and uh hopefully it'll just heal itself

31:52

right you know don't don't ever walk again and uh you know just wear boots and everything should be fine and you

31:58

know if you do have problems we'll just give you a bunch of exercises and hope for the best but that's what we do for the brain

32:04

it's great it makes sense obviously that trauma that energy that goes into the body now that's got to go somewhere and

32:10

there's obviously the brain super complex in regards to you know which areas control

32:16

different parts of the body be that autonomic or not and I wonder like does

32:21

the do the surrounding areas like of the brain like closer to the closer to the like

32:28

you know the edge of my head here are those more commonly disrupted or does it

32:34

kind of like go deeper is it depend on the impact like I'm talking about like the you know like right into the you

32:39

know let's say like the pineal gland or somewhere that's like kind of like really deep into the brain like would it depend on the actual impact and how deep

32:46

that would go and is there any types of scans that you can do that give you like a good diagnosis of like brain

32:53

inflammation that's a great question you know definitely I would say clinically there's it always seems to be more

32:59

issues that are closer to the score because you you know you have basically like a ball of jello you know and if you

33:04

took a bowl of jello and you did this really fast you know it's the edge parts of the jello that they get thrown off

33:10

you know so when that's where you get into the concept of a coup Contra coup injuries you know you hit the front and

33:16

then you hit the back and so you'll see symptoms and symptoms um or one of the Bronco players that I

33:23

used to treat he was a a tight end and you talk about being down in the stands and he would always get hit from the

33:29

side because you always like hit them and try to come around and uh when we did Imaging this part was

33:36

hypofunctioning like big time on the image um so definitely kind of where you get hit can make a difference when you get

33:42

deeper into the brain some of the things that they've talked about that we've seen as more of those like shears

33:48

because you have like the brain stem and then you have the brain you know and so if the if the brainstem and the brain

33:53

are kind of shearing you can have like Shear effects that kind of go deeper into those systems and that's when you

33:59

get some of like the major whiplash injuries or some of the rollover car accidents where you're just like sheared

34:04

and whipped and um and so that's what you kind of see to answer your next question there's not really great Imaging unfortunately I

34:10

mean if you do CT scans or MRIs and and you find a brain bleed or you find brain bruising you know then that's pretty

34:17

significant but I would I would tell you that most people that come into our office say that MRIs and CT is negative

34:25

you can do a spec Imaging which is s-p-e-c-t you can do a spect image

34:30

but not all insurances cover that it can be two to three thousand dollars

34:36

some people can afford it some people can't and not all places have them so you know I know there's you know a Specs

34:42

scanning and uh I think La there's one in Dallas there used to be one here but no longer so I don't have access to that

34:48

anymore so they're not they're not readily available so you're kind of left to

34:55

doing a good neuro exam and symptoms yeah I mean as you say like from that movie obviously the the blew everything

35:01

oh that concussion movie of Will Smith you know he was doing um like autopsies on brains right and really seeing the

35:07

damage like you know a cellular level so incredibly difficult without doing like brain surgery to be able to to even do

35:14

that test so yeah it makes sense but you know hopefully we've got we'll have technological advancements that we'll be

35:19

able to like potentially change that to really you know to really be able to to scan that better but you know we can

35:25

work with what we've got right now but um do you use how do you use nutrition

35:30

supplements and any like specific nutrients when it comes to like tbis and concussions I do I do you know a lot of

35:38

the kind of the research shows that some of the acute injuries it's not always the best to use supplements within maybe

35:44

the first two three weeks because the brain has to heal and it's expending a

35:49

lot of energy to heal so if you input supplements um sometimes there's not always the best

35:55

decision because then the brain has to process those and there's always byproducts and waste

36:00

that goes with it so there's definitely some of the research is shown to like maybe the first few weeks let the brain

36:06

actually kind of heal and then after that we'll tend to use definitely some supplements you know so we'll use things

36:11

like um you know DHA which is part of fish oil um turmeric which is good for reducing

36:17

tnf Alpha in the brain we use glutathione that's good for the brain maybe Alpha GPC you know and then then

36:25

you have some of your nutrients as well but there's definitely some things that can help with like cell to cell communication reducing inflammation in

36:33

the brain and trying to get things back on track so we try to do that as as quick as we can because if we can get

36:39

that inflammation to calm down it's much like your ankle if you can get the swelling and the inflammation to come down it makes rehab easier for an ankle

36:45

but if your ankle is swollen and inflamed it makes rehab a little bit tougher so if I get that inflammation to

36:51

calm down then when we get into brain physical therapy exercises I think they they take hold a little quicker

36:58

are there any Pharmaceuticals out there or coming out that you know of that like

37:03

a concussion kind of specific to be able to like do that double whammy of like reducing inflammation and also you know

37:09

helping the body facilitate like a healing process oh great question I would say no I have

37:15

not heard any patient be placed on a medication with on a concussion yeah cool yeah I just wasn't

37:22

sure so I just thought I'd throw that out there but yeah that's cool um in regards to like is there any

37:27

things are there any things or activities you wouldn't recommend parents let their kids do like with all

37:33

your experience with concussions and head injuries that have already had a concussion no

37:38

I'd like to potentially reduce the chance of getting it I'm not saying that all parents should take their kids out

37:44

of sports because I think Sports you know it's a risk benefit analysis you know the benefits of playing with a team

37:50

sport and using your body and um you know obviously exercising and being outside it's obviously a vital

37:55

part of um being a kid or being an adult as well I suppose and you know mental health and

38:01

community and all of that but like they're you know I've got a one-year-old and a three-year-old and the one-year-old just started walking and

38:07

you know they're falling over all the time not necessarily on their head but like you know you you kind of get worried and you get worried about it

38:13

like you know they're sensitive their skulls aren't even properly formed yet so it's like what do you do what can you

38:19

type of what can you restrict and I think that also on the you know I can ask that question in regards to what

38:25

your recommend parents kind of like don't let their kids do or don't let them do too much but also like what

38:30

would you recommend that they do to potentially reduce the chance of like you know falling and hitting their head

38:35

like in regards to like balance training and strength training I'm not sure what do you think about that

38:41

I think it's another great question man that's a great question I think I

38:48

think in development here's here's my first answer and then I'm going to clarify that and because

38:55

I'm sure some people will be like are you for real I think my first answer to that is almost I think it's good to let kids be

39:02

kids and the reason why that kind of comes to mind first is because

39:07

I mean I don't know if you played a sport I played the sport my daughter plays a competitive soccer which is the

39:13

number one concussion for for girls is soccer um I also know that like when you're doing

39:19

stuff you learn how to fall and you learn how to roll you know it's like because you see some of these kids

39:25

that are you look at some of like the skateboarders and some of these like snowboarders and people that it's

39:30

amazing how they can fall pretty well from really high you know big Heights you know and you're

39:36

like man if I did that I'd be in the hospital you know but I think there's something to learning how to fall and

39:43

learning how to not be injured and learning how to avoid it and learning you know I think there's some of those pieces that do come from trial and error

39:49

a little bit so it's like it's hard to be like you know to bubble wrap a kid per se and then they don't learn any of

39:55

those techniques and tools skill sets you know so I think

40:00

yeah so I think kind of going back to maybe that second part of your your question almost could be well what do you do

40:06

to either prevent as much as possible or to to support you know I think there are things like concussion headbands there's

40:13

helmets wearing a helmet when you're riding a bike a skateboard those things are just almost common sense because

40:19

I've had patients that would that brought their broken helmets in and I'm like your brain actually is doing fairly

40:25

well and I think that helmet definitely helped you out a lot so I think there are common sense things like helmets and

40:31

concussion headbands and things that we can do for our kids I think when they're little you know you can not have them play a

40:37

sport and then they trip over the sidewalk and land phase first so it's like you know you you prevent them to

40:43

playing a sport but then they fall into their dresser and hit the corner of it um you know you know or if they don't

40:50

play a sport they go skiing and I hear this all the time somebody was skiing downhill and a snowboarder came out of

40:56

the trees and walked them whacked them upside the head so I think there's some things you can

41:02

prevent in life so I think then it goes back to the next thing is what can you do to help them and I think this is I

41:07

think a Clean Diet I think eating healthy and keeping your inflammation down is imperative because if you do get a

41:14

concussion you want to be able to recover quickie quickly so I think keeping your inflammation

41:20

down keeping your stress down you know and eating healthy are some of the best things that you can do I think

41:25

supplement wise I think there's some definitely good things supplement wise too like fish oil you know fish oil is

41:31

something that's really good that you can take when you're a baby when you're adolescent when you're adult again it helps with the inflammation

41:37

helps with signaling maybe even glutathione could be really good in somebody who's like playing a sport so

41:43

if you do whack your head you know the inflammation doesn't it's not like a seven alarm fire maybe you just needed a

41:49

one fire truck to come out there and put out the fire and you're good to go you don't want your brain to be on fire so

41:56

much that you need the whole entire City to come out and put out the fire maybe you can just use a really you know

42:03

get a get a garden hose you could put out the fire and that's kind of what you want in a prevention acute phase in my opinion yeah I don't

42:11

see the difference between like you know uh high-paid high-class athlete you know

42:17

getting unique nutrition and unique supplementation for their sport but you

42:23

know for that potential um ability to recover from healing and injury I remember I played quite high

42:29

level football in the UK and there are players that would get injured and be out for like a few months or

42:36

something and then they would just you know they they can't play anymore so they would you know go and party and they would you know not be training as

42:43

much and you know they were putting alcohol and bad foods into their body because they you know they weren't

42:48

playing so you know why not but I think it's obviously in the last 10 years has been a very very different approach in

42:54

regards to that but like giving your body the actual ingredients on a day-to-day basis to be able to deal and

43:01

be used to using things like glutathione and and um fatty acids to be able to be there as resources to you know

43:09

continuously keep the body repairing because it's continuously breaking down um but just in case that incident

43:15

happens to have that there and yeah I think the sports thing is is tricky obviously parents can make their own

43:21

decision on this but as you say like if you just take your kid out of all sports and you bubble wrap them up

43:26

they might not have the agility or the flexibility or the balance or the strength to be able to yeah like walk

43:33

down the street correctly and I'm not sure what that does to to posture into walking into you know

43:39

all these other things as they were to where they as they took grow up but yeah it's It's Tricky and yeah I think we're

43:46

working through and it's awesome that we've got like people like yourself that you know are bringing attention to these things so yeah that's great but I'd like

43:54

can you tell us about your book concussion discussions yeah right yeah so myself and Amy zellmer she's a big

44:02

brain injury Advocate you know so she has a TBI tribe on Facebook that's uh really great I mean she's out there

44:09

trying to like she's trying to do good good things in this world too you know and so uh her and I kind of hooked up

44:15

and and we've been doing some stuff together and so we we put together an anthology book and it has different docs

44:22

that do this kind of work you know from all over the country that you know I've gotten to meet which is really helpful

44:28

and all my my travels and lecturing you get to meet all these different doctors and so it's been great to you know ask

44:34

them like hey what would you know contribute something you know let's talk about hyperbaric oxygen let's talk about nutrition let's talk about brain

44:40

injuries let's talk about nutrition and and whatnot and so um so we started that book and and

44:46

finished it and it's actually it's actually it was fun to to write and apparently it won two Awards this past

44:53

year which is crazy um but we actually have a second one coming out so we have a concussion discussion part two and uh so we got

45:00

some some different doctors and said hey you know give us your your Insight on concussions and do a chapter and so we

45:06

have all these different docs doing chapters and I think it's good because I think patients and people can see kind

45:12

of different viewpoints of a concussion and like maybe some different treatment aspects is not one size fits all you

45:19

know but I think it helps to bring awareness to people who are struggling to say there's a lot of cool things out there for you to do instead of you doing

45:27

all the research here's a book to kind of show you some different Avenues and maybe some doctors in your area that might be super helpful

45:34

that's really cool I think that just looking at I just had a quick look at the um

45:39

at the book online concussion discussions a functional approach to recovery

45:46

after brain injury yeah that sounds like a really good read and you shouldn't be surprised that a

45:52

book like that gets Awards buddy you should be proud of yourself that's great

45:57

because you have like this really cool idea you know and so we and then you're like oh look at that it actually did

46:03

something cool that I wasn't expecting you know because I I and maybe that just goes without saying I think people like

46:08

you and uh not to be a girl but you mean it's like you're humble in what you do and you're just trying to educate people

46:14

you're trying to help people because a lot of people are suffering you know and that's why we do what we do to help those who are struggling

46:21

and to get information out to them and so sometimes when good things happen you go oh that was kind of cool

46:28

yeah giving people options and you know and serving and you know doing those things is you know it's a it's a

46:35

valuable part of being part of a community and if there's no one person listens to this podcast and they find your book and they have a history of

46:41

just of concussions and they've been looking for you know what can they do on their day-to-day day-to-day basis to

46:47

take like a functional whole body approach to you know recovering from a brain injury I think that's quite remarkable we have one really cool study

46:54

on our Flagship product here at true hope Canada for for TBI and you know giving the brain the nutrients necessary

47:01

at the right time to actually begin like that type of healing process because as you said you know after any type of

47:07

injury the body is obviously going to send the immune system out there to try and reduce the reduce the inflammation

47:13

that's very like resource intensive work for the body to do so it's drawing resources from other areas like you

47:19

might have poor digestion for a couple of weeks because your body's not putting the same energy into digestion as it

47:25

would because it's got to take care of this like brain injury right so what can we give the body that's like super absorbable super bioavailable that can

47:32

get in the body like quite quickly to you know facilitate and help the body with that like resource

47:39

that that big resource kind of um distribution concern I suppose you could

47:45

say but that's awesome yeah it's very cool I am how can people connect with

47:50

you how can people find a bit more information about the book uh and you've got social media out there as well yeah

47:56

you know we're on social media too like everybody else you know usually the quickest ways to find us are you know

48:02

use the integrated brain centers you know.com and then you know we have our you know Instagram and Linkedin and all

48:09

this stuff like that has the same integrated brain centers or Integrated Health Systems you know or like the two areas and they're kind of they're

48:15

separate because sometimes the Integrated Health Systems people will come into our office for things that are

48:22

not brain related so we kind of separate them a little bit just to not confuse people because they go I don't have a

48:27

brain injury why do I need to come in there it's like well we do other things besides that too so um but yeah if you go to Integrated

48:33

Health Systems or brain centers integrated brain centers you can you know follow us on Facebook and you know

48:39

and we we do cool things in here too where we will do webinars um right now I know Dr Maynard the other

48:44

Doc in the office he's been doing a lot of information on uh pots and and we really truly is kind of similar to this

48:50

we're just trying to disseminate information out there you know to educate people um so you know so people want to learn

48:56

more on like the different topics that we do you know that's it's a great way to follow us on on social media so they

49:03

can see when we're going to do webinars and we actually do them live so people can actually do q a with us which is

49:08

kind of a risk um because you don't never know what those questions will come through as but it actually can make it super fun

49:15

sometimes we go a little bit longer than we need to because there's so many questions but it's it's actually kind of

49:21

fun for us so so that's a good thing to watch out for that's great and I feel like you're the

49:26

type of individual who if they don't know the answer to something they'll be honest with that rather than just trying to BS your way through it to sound like

49:33

you know everything um so that's really cool as well so I think that that would be a really great place for people to connect a bit more

49:40

with you and if they do have further questions about concussions or functional neurology or immunology and

49:46

how that connects with Chiropractic work that would be awesome and yeah if we have more um practitioners around like you be

49:53

amazing to connect people with those but I want to thank you so much for coming on to True Hope cast today to discuss

49:58

all these things I learned so much I know audience is going to very much enjoy this information and I'm probably

50:05

going to put your book on my huge stack of books that I need to read in the next I don't know 60 years I've got left

50:13

um so yeah thank you so much yeah absolutely it's so fun hanging out with you today really appreciate that well thanks again

50:19

and for more information and to connect with Dr Stedman I'll put links in the show notes so you can get connected with

50:25

with him and learn a little bit more if you are not a subscriber yet consider it leave us a review on iTunes I think you

50:32

can do a review or five star thing on Spotify now so consider doing that as well but that is it for this week thank

50:38

you for listening to True Hope cast the official podcast of Drew hope Canada we will see you next week

50:44

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