♪ Bob and Brad, the two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists on the internet ♪
- Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
Together we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion of course, Bob.
- You woke up yet, Brad? - Oh, I'm ready to roll.
- All right, let's go.
Today, we're gonna talk about how to stop that back pain
when you have spondylolisthesis,
and we got the five best treatments for it.
- And they're proven.
- And they're proven, because we have
a spondy victim right here.
- You better believe it.
- Is it alright if I call you a victim?
- Yeah, call me a victim, Bob,
but just don't call me late for supper
or something of that nature, anyways-
- Boy, that's a good joke. - Ha, ha, ha.
They're just laughing out there.
- Oh, by the way, since you are coming out,
why don't you come on in, please subscribe to us.
We provide videos on how to stay healthy, fit,
pain free, and we upload every day.
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Brad, should we do this? - Go ahead, Bob.
- We're gonna, no, we're gonna beg you.
Please come over to Facebook and like us, so.
All right, let's get started, Brad.
- Okay, spondylolisthesis.
First of all, you gotta figure out how to pronounce it.
We think we're getting it right.
- Right. - I don't know.
Bob and I do it a little bit differently,
but it depends on what part,
he's from Minnesota, I'm Wisconsin,
that's, you know, there's a difference there.
But we're looking at a shift in the vertebra,
and that's what the name actually refers to,
is that a shift, you got, typically it's gonna be
in the lumbar region, it can be in the cervical,
we're looking at the lumbar for this,
that's where the majority it is.
And in my case I have grade two, between L4 and L5.
So one vertebra has literally shifted forward.
- Should I do the (indistinct) or not?
- Yep, go ahead. - So one's shifted forward.
- Yep, and there's four grades 1, 2, 3, and 4,
one's the smallest, four's the greatest.
If you're up to four you're probably gonna have surgery.
- Right.
- Obviously want to minimize the chance for that
or just avoid it all together.
- You're grade two, Brad?
- Yeah, grade two, or just a little less than that,
depends on who's measuring (chuckles).
- Okay, sure.
- And oftentimes the disc in between disintegrates or is,
you know, the body absorbs it over time.
- And that's your case, 'cause it's really, basically,
they look like they're fused together.
- Right, and that's the goal.
Once the disc is gone, if that's your situation,
you want the bones to fuse together and you want to have it,
it's nice to have it done naturally
so it conforms to your motion
versus putting hardware and surgery.
- Right. - So we wanna-
- It's amazing what the body will do if you allow it.
- Right.
- And so that's, we want the body to allow to heal.
- Right, it's gonna take some time.
I'm talking, not months, but it is gonna take
a number of years with the proper amount of treatment.
And it's not a big deal,
there's some things we're gonna do that, you know,
feel real good, and other things that take a little effort,
but it's not, it's just a way of life if you have it.
- All right, so what's the first thing
we're gonna try, Brad?
- First of all, just avoid things that hurt your back.
- Sure.
- Almost everybody with spondy is gonna say
standing in one place for any length of time,
like when I go shopping, back ache.
- Yeah, don't fire things up.
- Right, if I'm doing overhead work,
I was just putting some blinds up for my wife this weekend,
and overhead for about 20 minutes, it was killing my back,
I was getting ornery, I said we don't need blinds, dear.
- Yeah.
- We needed blinds, I had to put them back up.
(both laughing)
- But it is, a lot of the time, it is extension.
So, you know, this is the back is bending,
this is I'm extending the other way.
- So don't do this exercise. - Don't do this, yeah.
And, you know, standing, it's this way.
- Right, so don't do this exercise.
Some people, walking bothers it.
For me it used to, until I start doing
some of these exercises I'm gonna show to you,
show you, three fourths of a mile was all I could walk
and I'd get a numb leg.
That's been resolved after working on these five treatments.
- Same with the running, right?
- Right, yeah, running has greatly improved too.
So, you know, you can improve.
If you have a flare up, which you probably will have,
and any spondy you get flares up, flare ups,
the first thing that I do, is my go-to treatment,
is right below you, Bob, is you take the leg wedge,
which puts your back into a little flexion,
which is what the back wants with spondy.
Like this, and I'll go on the floor,
sometimes I'll use my bed,
but like Sunday night or Saturday night
this is what I did after putting those drapes up.
Took my ice pack, put it under here.
(change clinking) - [Bob] There goes your money.
- Whoa, that's a tip, Bob.
And I laid on this wedge and I literally fell asleep
on it until midnight, things felt much better.
I got up and went to bed and carried on.
So this leg wedge almost guaranteed really comfortable
for a spondy person.
- [Bob] And sometimes you'll actually go to sleep with this.
- Oh yeah.
- [Bob] I mean, like you'll bring it into your bed?
- Yep, I do that too sometimes.
I like a firm floor, depends.
It all depends on what I feel like doing, you know?
- [Bob] Sure.
- So, you know, my wife was mad at me,
so it was better out living room (chuckles).
I'm just kidding.
I hope she doesn't watch this video.
- So then, you know, after a while you might
just push it out of the way I imagine-
- Right, oh yeah, I don't sleep on it all night long,
but I'll lay there comfortably for two or three hours
before I push it off.
- All our products we always list below
in the description below.
- Nice, soft gel pack, keep it in the freezer.
Okay, next thing, you need to work on core exercises
in the front and, you know, you can focus on these
if you do them properly, but the biggest thing
is getting strong abdominal muscles,
and that's gonna keep those vertebra
from slipping forward more.
When you do abdominal strengthening
it's gonna push them back to a certain degree.
It's not gonna move it back but it's gonna help-
- Certainly gonna stop the progression, hopefully.
I mean that's- - Right.
And I highly recommend doing these.
Oh, Bob, you wanna grab a ball?
- Sure. - Whichever one.
Doing your abdominal exercises on a floor, carpeted floor,
with your back on the carpeted floor,
and if you use a ball, it forces your back
into the proper mechanics and the posture,
and these just always feel good to me,
they're working my core.
I'll do them this way.
You start at 10 to 20 of them, I do 50 of them,
then I do 50 this way, and then I do the double crunch,
and then I'll do the obliques.
- [Bob] These are not that easy.
- No, no, they're not.
- [Bob] I started doing these and I've, you know-
- If you look at our playlist of spondy I have,
we have a whole video dedicated-
- [Bob] Just to the ball. - To the ball, yeah.
So work those and you don't have to do them every day,
you kind of start out with,
I do mine three to four times a week now
for a good maintenance program.
So, core exercises.
If you wanna, I've tried planks.
Do not do planks.
When I do planks, it kills my back,
I'm sore for a couple days afterwards.
Except for the vertical planks that we do.
- [Bob] Yeah, I think part of that is
because you are almost extending a little bit.
- Yep, yep.
- You're going into that direction, anyway.
- Right, my experience is, planks, I've tried them sideways,
they're just, I don't even consider them at all.
The next thing is, remember we want to get the blood flow
to that injury where the shift is, to heal quicker,
so if we can increase the blood flow
through getting some deep heat into the area,
that's a big plus.
So the only thing that I've found, that we've found,
that gives deep heat is you can use a regular hot pack
and it'll go as deep as your skin, basically,
but if you use infrared,
Thermotex makes a really nice product, this is what I use,
and I put this right in my recliner.
- Yep. - And can I get that, Bob?
You have to have proper back support with spondy,
and it's not always easy.
You're not gonna use a lumbar roll,
like for a herniated disc,
you need something a little broader.
This is what I use in my recliner.
I put this down.
- What is that?
- It's just, I bought it at the airport,
it's for your back or your neck
when you're sitting in the plane.
- Wow.
- And then I put this on there
and that fills in the gap in my recliner,
and then I sit with this.
And this will go two, almost two and a half inches deep.
So you know the heat's getting into the vertebra
where you need that increased circulation
to help accelerate the healing over time.
- It's very pleasant, too,
because there's only one temperature basically,
or one setting, and you just click on and click off.
And again, you know, it's very energy efficient also,
I mean, it only costs a couple pennies a day to run.
So I mean.
- Yeah, the infrared is really the ticket
on this particular injury, 'cause you gotta,
you have to get deep to make some real healing progress.
- It's just kind of a nice, I use it too,
I use it to help higher. - Sure.
- Just because it's just one of those things
when you get that between the shoulder blades
or the upper neck.
And it actually comes with straps now
that you can put on that we call posture straps,
and it'll strap it right onto your back,
and then you can even unplug it, so.
- He's butting into my video, he's going for the (laughs).
- Well I wanted to mention that because-
- That's a good thing.
- The straps actually can even be used for the spondy.
- Yeah, you can.
You can strap it right around here
so you can walk around with it.
- Right, exactly.
- If you got a long enough extension cord.
Actually-
- Yeah, the cord, what it does, you know,
if you wanna walk around, the cord's eight feet long
or nine feet long?
- Right, yeah, I mean, so you can,
well, keep it strapped around your back
with the elastic around front, and if you want to get up
and, you know, use the restroom or something, you can.
- You just unplug it.
- Yeah, and then come back to your chair and plug it in.
But they're just a great quality hot pack, anyways.
- Infrared. - Yep, infrared.
- Yeah. - So.
- Okay. - The next thing.
You really, I've found very beneficial,
is trying to find the proper back support in your car.
I drive quite a bit every year
and I always used to get out of my car
and I'd be stiff and I'd walk around a little bit
and it didn't feel good for, you know,
30 or 40 steps, then I'd loosen up and it'd be alright.
Once I found, I used to use lumbar rolls,
and I used to use just about, towel rolls, anything I could-
- Did you pull it out? - It's right in there, Bob.
And we found a product- - Oh, here it is.
- Actually I think Bob found this.
And I remember the first time I tried this-
(poster warbling)
It's made on a memory foam, and I put it in my car seat
and I thought, oh, this is way too big.
I thought I don't even wanna try it,
but I thought I'll give it, you know, I'll give it a chance.
And what happens is the memory foam squishes in
after about two or three minutes
and boy it starts feeling good.
And then I noticed after I got out,
I got a 30 to 45 minute drive home,
I got outta my car and I got up walking around
and I didn't even realize, oh, my stiffness is gone.
- Didn't you say you were using this when you cut lawn too?
- Yeah I use it in my lawnmower.
(both laughing) I got a riding lawn mower,
and I'll put that in my riding lawn mower.
I just love it.
Now, this isn't good for everyone.
- No, it isn't, again, it's very personal.
I don't care, it is too much for me by far.
I don't have spondy, though.
And, but I did like it in my office chair
because it just gave me,
it keeps me upright in the office chair
while you're working forward a little bit, you know?
- Yep, yep.
- So, yeah it's, I hate to recommend it for everybody
because there's people that are gonna go it's too much.
- Yeah, when my wife drives the car,
she takes it and throws it in the back seat.
And when I go, I gotta put it back in there,
but it really has been the ticket for me.
I just love it.
So for some people it's gonna be great.
Although if you live in a cold climate
and it's about zero or 10 below-
- It gets real hard? (Brad chuckling)
Yeah, memory foam does.
- Takes about 10 miles down the road
to heat up before it starts to warm up.
So the only other thing I do wanna, this is a bonus,
and I don't recommend this to everyone but you can try it.
If you have a pull up bar you can just hang,
but only do it if it feels very good.
- Right, it should be some immediate relief.
- Right, if it hurts, for me, typically it feels good.
And I'll hang three times for ten seconds-
- So again, if it hurts, don't be doing it.
- Right, it's gotta feel good.
- It's gotta feel good.
So how long do you hang?
- 10 seconds for three times.
10 seconds, then I relax for a little bit,
and 10 seconds again, I do that three times.
And it's, you know, it's good for my shoulders.
You know, we have a video on that as well, so.
Boy, if you got spondy, there's definitely relief,
you don't, you know, you don't think about surgery.
This is, becomes, you know, your spondy's
not gonna go away, this is just a part of life,
and it's okay.
You can get back to, you know, living quite actively-
- A normal life, right. - Right.
And Brad is a very active guy.
- Yeah, so, once again, Bob, this really fits into
fixing just about anything in the human body.
- We can fix just about anything, except for?
- A broken heart.
- But we're working on it, we really are.