♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet. ♪
- Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Today we're gonna talk about spondoltis,
spondalathesis.
- Spondylolisthesis.
- I'll let him say it, relief,
seven real life tips to stop pain,
regain normal activity.
This is a real patient success story.
- There you go, yes, you can certainly
if you do the right things, we're gonna go through it.
How you can reach your--
- Well Brad, tell them you're the real patient.
- Well yeah, yeah, I have spondylolisthesis.
- You maybe thought I was pointing to the spine.
- Well, yeah, I didn't know.
- 'cause the spine has it, too.
- Actually, this model I've got it modified
so you can see very closely how it looks on my back
and if you have spondy, it looks probably
similar to this as well.
- And we'll show you all this close up
in just a minute but if you're new to our channel
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- There you go.
- Great all-around versatile strap for stretching.
We're giving away five of these.
- Right and we just put a nice video up
on how to use that and a number of them actually
if you look for it.
So Bob, should we carry on?
- Let's continue.
- This is quite a mouthful.
They really put a quite a large name on this one.
- It sounds scary.
- It does and actually it looks scary
but the good news is about five percent, the estimate,
of people in the United States
have this to a certain degree.
- So that's a lot.
- Actually it is.
I had no idea I had mine until I had some X-rays.
I just had backaches that lasted for quite a long time
and they weren't responding to the treatment
I was giving to myself so I went ahead and got X-rays
and so let's hold that one up.
- Yeah, we'll do a little comparison here.
- So spondylolisthesis is a shift of two vertebraes
so they are not where they're supposed to be.
If you look at this healthy spine
this red disc right here--
- [Bob] Will show a bulging disc.
- [Brad] Represent a bulging disc so just kinda
ignore that but it is nice because right
where that disc is you'll see here there is no disc
so when you have spondylolisthesis oftentimes
the vertebra shift and it may be from trauma,
there may be a number of reasons, I'm not gonna get
into that but there's a shift and the disc will oftentimes
be absorbed by the body and that takes time.
- [Bob] And then what may happen is that these two
vertebrae get fused together.
- [Brad] We hope that's what happens.
- [Bob] That's the best case scenario.
- [Brad] Right, because the shift, if it shifts
too far, this is about a grade two.
There's grade one, two, three and four.
- [Bob] So you can see how the one has shifted
forward on the other, that's what you pointed out Brad.
- [Brad] Right, yeah, the further it gets shifted
if it gets too far forward, it starts to pinch
the nerve in the spinal cord and that can be
a real problem and then they'll do surgery
and put hardware in to stabilize it
which you really want to avoid.
And that's what this is all about
is how to so you don't get that far
and actually get back to a normal activity again
which, with me, it did happen that way.
I was about seven to eight years ago
I was to the point where I could walk
about three fourths of a mile and I'd get pain in my back,
numbness and tingling down my leg,
I'm sure it was L five nerve root.
- So you were headed down a bad path.
I mean you were headed down the path of surgery probably.
- Well, yeah, I wasn't thinking that.
I didn't even think of that.
It's like I gotta do something different
so I start doing some research and I had
as a therapist I had some idea of what to do
but I really got into it quite a bit more
and came up with a good protocol
and now I can run.
I'm running three miles, I'm running actually
faster than I've run for a number of years.
I bike actively, I swim, I do a lot of things.
- Yeah, you're a real active guy
so kudos to you, Brad.
- Well, chances are, you know, if you have spondy,
are you gonna get back to power lifting
or doing some really aggressive stuff
that requires bending, lifting?
Probably not so much but you'll do pretty good.
So I list three things
of things that typically everyone with spondy
to avoid.
- You wanna avoid.
- And the number one rule is avoid anything
that increases your back pain or irritates it
or if you start to get numbness or tingling
down your leg, that just means one of the nerves
if getting pinched.
You need to avoid those activities.
With me it used to be walking.
- Right, and you can test that every so often
'cause hopefully over time when you do some of the things
you're supposed to do, you'll get enough strength
and core strength that maybe you will be able
to go back to those things.
- Precisely.
- So don't think that just because you can't do it now
you won't ever be able to do it.
- Right, and I monitored mine.
I knew how far three fourths of a mile was
and it's like oh, it's starting to get better
and it was after a couple years of doing these exercises
which I hope that does impress you
but it's still good news.
- It's not a quick fix
and you know the body really does wanna heal itself
as much as it can.
It'll fuse and lock things into place
but you gotta allow it to.
You gotta create the environment for it.
- Exactly.
Standing, typically standing still
my worst place I always wanna sit
if I go shopping with my wife
and she's working or by myself
but if I'm standing there, it's like
oh, man, this is killing me
and then, of course, as soon as I sit down
feels much better.
- You said also Brad, you talk about this one
that you do, you put your foot up on something
like this and bend forward like this.
That gives you some temporary relief right?
- Right, yeah, and that might be on an individual basis.
Typically sitting is tolerated better than standing
for someone with spondy.
- You didn't mention the walking or running or did you?
I mean you wanna be cautious about it, right?
- Right, exactly, and again
follow the rules.
If you don't have any pain when you're walking
in the back or the leg, keep walking.
That's great for it.
- So what are some of the things to try, Brad?
- Now this is something I always had in my car.
I feel fine sitting but if I'm going for a long ride,
a half hour or longer, it'd become uncomfortable
and particularly getting out of the car,
it'd be always no fun
until I found, I've been using lumbar supports,
whatever, and I found this.
It's a memory foam, made out of memory foam.
It's called the Kebado.
- Yeah, Kebado, we have a link down below.
- Right, and I have another one that was similar
to this and that worked pretty good but this one
I'm convinced this works better.
I can now get out of my car feeling
not 100% but 90% better than it used to be
so it's really good and I just--
- Now just to be honest here, though
I probably wouldn't like that cushion.
- Probably not.
- Yeah, I don't have back issues per se
and I do use a cushion, a hard one
but that, I wouldn't like that one.
- Right, you use more of a lumbar support.
- A lumbar support that's real solid.
- Right, and that, for spondy people,
if you get one of those round ones
or it's made for usually a herniated disc--
- They tend not to work.
- Probably not, you can try but listen to your body.
- These full ones, these full back supports
that are again, memory foam, tend to be better.
- Right, they keep that spine supported
throughout the whole length
which works well for this particular diagnosis.
And the next thing, and this is really key,
is core strengthening.
You wanna strengthen the abdominal muscles
because with spondylolisthesis anything going backwards,
if you're gonna paint a ceiling
or clean windows overhead you're probably
gonna get a backache pretty quick
and it's gonna hang out for a day or two
so we wanna do things to keep the spine
bent forward slightly and strengthen in front
and that'll help those bones from shifting
farther apart, which we don't wanna have.
- And what you'll probably wanna do
is type in Bob and Brad
what do you think that's under Brad?
- Bob and Brad, spondylolisthesis exercises
I got four of them.
- Yeah, he did, you've done these a lot
different videos.
- We've got a whole playlist and a number of them have
and I use the exercise ball that's up here.
I don't wanna take the time now
'cause this video is gonna get too long
the way it is but it is very specific
and they're simple exercises.
They take me about 10 minutes to get through them
plus I do a little more.
- Make it part of your routine.
- Exactly, the next thing is the leg wedge.
- This is one that a lot of people
with back pain may like.
If you have arthritis, this may feel good.
This is
pretty much universally, I think most back issues
would feel better with this.
- But I'm gonna say particularly with spondy
because it flexes the back.
I take a cold pack.
Let's say I've been outside, I like to do yard work
and I know I've been overdoing it,
especially if I'm using a chainsaw.
That night I'm gonna put my leg wedge down,
put a cold pack down just like this
and I'll lay like this
and sometimes I'll do it in the afternoon
and this makes me feel much better.
I can go on and live the rest of the day.
- But you've mentioned before, Brad,
quite often you'll even fall asleep like this
at night and you'll wake up like at 2:00 in the morning
or something like that and then you take it out
and you go back to sleep.
- Exactly, matter of fact, just last week I did that.
- Yeah, so like on a bad day.
It's all about managing your pain,
you're managing your back.
- I'm not always as disciplined as I should be
'cause it's like I wanna get things done
and you know.
- Imagine that, Brad.
- Sometimes a therapist
isn't their best patient, you know,
but this works really good.
I really enjoy that, been wonderful.
- Give you some relief.
- Yep, now planks, for core strengthening
I have found I cannot do the planks.
I've tried them a number of times
and I get a sore back.
- So what he's talking about, I'll do
I'll show a plank real quick here Brad,
is just like, this would be a typical plank.
- Yeah.
- Am I straight now?
- Yeah, you're pretty good,
you can put your head up a little bit.
- Oh yeah, how's that?
- Yep, these and particularly the ones on the side
when you're doing the side plank,
wow, those really get my back going
in a big way.
I mean it hurts just watching him do that for me.
So what I have done is I went to the vertical planks
to work core strengthening
and this has been a real help for me.
- [Bob] Brad's using our wall anchor here
and along with some body-lastic,
exercise bands.
- And so I'll do core strength.
Right now my stomach is tight,
I'm flexed forward, it feels comfortable
and I may do these or I can just hold it.
I don't like to do static exercises
so I usually do these or I work my pecs
along with it.
- Yeah, you're getting your arms moving
while you're working the core.
- Exactly, yep.
- And the final thing Brad
is you can use the Thermotex, right?
- Right, if your back isn't flared up,
it's just another normal day,
things are going good and you wanna
get some more circulation to those bones
that are healing, you want those two bones to fuse,
if you get in deep with a good hot pack,
infrared hot pack, because these'll go deep enough
into that vertebra where it's gonna increase circulation.
- Yeah, regular heat only goes a few millimeters.
- What he means by regular heat is just the normal
hot pack you go buy for $30.
- Infrared heating pad with the infrared waves
actually goes 2.36 inches
so that'll penetrate into the spine a bit,
into the joints of the spine
and Brad and I tend, especially during the winter,
I did last night, I have it set up on my chair,
I just sit down, I automatically go on it
'cause for me it helped with my knots
up in the upper back.
- Not in your head?
- Knothead.
- So yeah, I just have that in my recliner.
I'll set it back there, lean back
and take care of my business before I go to bead,
reading a book or whatever.
- Thanks for watching.
- Oh, wow, that was close.