♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ on the Internet ♪
- Howdy folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- Together we're the most famous
physical therapists on the internet.
- In our opinion of course, Bob.
- Today we're gonna talk about ankylosing spondylitis,
a self-treatment you can do.
- That's right, Bob.
- What a mouthful Brad.
- It is, it is.
Ankylosing spondylitis, an inflammatory disease.
We're talking about where it affects the spine,
things can actually fuse together.
You can get a really rounded, flex-fold posture.
- Right.
And start compromising your breathing.
- Yep, shoulder mechanics.
- All the problems that come with being flexed like that.
- Exactly, so we're going to show you
a good option from an expert in the field.
- Yeah, by the way Brad,
I remember when we were first studying this,
that the spine takes on a bamboo appearance.
Do you remember that? It looks like bamboo.
You don't remember that do you?
- I do remember, I'm trying to remember
the details of it.
I mean, that was like a long time ago.
- That was like 30 years,
- (laughs)
- 40 years ago.
- So, are we going to talk about anything else Bob?
We don't have a giveaway?
- No. Well, we've always got a giveaway.
You just go to Bob and Brad, go to the giveaway section
and you'll find out what it is
or it'll be pinned to the top of the page on Facebook.
- On Facebook, absolutely.
- And we always want to mention our podcast,
we're quite proud of that.
We're interviewing some major people,
- Right.
Major authorities and subjects.
- As a matter of fact the person who's
leading this treatment that we're doing,
we have him on two podcasts, right?
- Right.
- Steve August.
- Yes
- Right. So what we want to do,
let's look at the area that we're going to focus
on with ankylosing spondylitis
and that is the thoracic area.
Although that's not the only part of the body it affects,
but it is a real common area.
And that's the part that you get that
rounded flex posture,
typically a head forward,
it will come forward a little bit,
shoulders round out as a result.
And we want to have this as much as possible
because as Bob mentioned, that affects your breathing,
which is obviously critical, shoulder mechanics,
neck problems, neck pain.
- Yes.
- So we want to maintain that,
and that's what we're going
to specifically focus on.
- Yeah if you were to focus on one area,
that's the area you want to focus on.
- Exactly.
- Because one, you can make the most
difference there I think.
- Mm, I agree.
- And two, it's going to affect the most things,
- Right.
- By going bad.
- Exactly.
So what we're going to do is we're going to use,
this is what Steve August,
he's a physical therapist and a outstanding one.
He's-
- From New Zealand.
- He does continuing ed,
or educational things for doctors.
- Right.
- Diagnoses like this, and costochondritis.
- Including costochondritis, yes.
- Yep.
So this is specifically made for it.
Now, oftentimes we give options,
like can you use a tennis ball?
Can you use a rolled up towel?
For this particular diagnosis
I think it's worth getting a back pod.
- Right.
It's going to be tough to get the right fit.
- Right.
And because we want here,
not on the spine so much,
but off to the side of the spine.
- Between the spine,
and between the shoulder blades, so.
- Right.
- This is kind of made for that area.
- Exactly.
It gets into the muscles and to the facet joints
and helps loosen things up.
And we're going to do it at different areas,
and you're going to get a feel for this as you do it,
it can be pretty aggressive initially.
- Yeah, I think for anybody
who has ankylosis spondylitis,
the first time you're gonna want to have the pillows,
- Yep.
- Like he recommends.
And maybe even a towel all day.
- Yep.
We'll to demonstrate that here.
So, you know,
once you get this diagnosis,
you can talk to your doctor.
If this is going to be an okay treatment,
I have a feeling they're gonna agree with it.
So, you should do this,
you cannot do this on a bed,
It's gonna be too soft.
- [Bob] Yep.
- And it's going to not do what it needs to do.
We can start with three pillows.
Here we have the back pod.
I'm going to start on my left side of my spine,
right between the shoulder blades.
And then I'm going to actually take a folded towel,
put it there for a little cushion,
so it's not too aggressive.
- [Bob] You know, all these things are designed
to blunt the force of it because eventually,
hopefully you can tolerate lying on the device
without pillows and without a towel.
But to start off with it
you want to incrementally go at it.
- Exactly.
- [Bob] And he explains this all on the booklet,
that comes along with the back pod.
- Yeah.
He does a really nice job explaining.
- [Bob] Really nice job.
- For the ladies, some pages-
- [Bob] It's really quite intensive.
- So I'm going to start like this Bob
and what Steve recommends is one to three minutes.
You may not tolerate that initially,
if you only go 30 seconds at first that's okay.
Then you can, you know,
move up by moving your body up and down the spine.
- [Bob] Would you have your arms overhead
on this one, Brad? To start?
- Well that's a good point
we can go like this.
- Right.
Quite often you'll find out in ankylosis spondylitis,
it affects your shoulders too.
- [Brad] Sure.
- And partly because the back is affected
and the back affects the shoulders.
- [Brad] Right that's all connected.
- Yeah.
Well, the inflammatory processes through the body.
- Yep.
Now let's say I do this for a couple of weeks
and it starts to feel,
I need a little more pressure.
So simply a couple things you could do,
one is remove a pillow,
you know, you might be ready to remove the towel,
you'll definitely feel that change.
Now, I use this regularly for costochondritis,
a completely different diagnosis.
But I started out with a towel under there,
and one pillow, and now I'm without anything.
And I actually find it comfortable and enjoyable.
So again, like Bob said work like this.
- [Bob] Right.
- And like this.
And I just had little cavitation in my back right now.
- [Bob] In other words, his back cracked.
- Yep.
I'm going to go on the right side of the spine now.
There we go and let's say, it gets better.
You know, eventually you may get to-
- [Bob] That point.
- You may get to know no towels.
And you may hold your head like this,
and this is one thing I do,
and I actually lift my butt up.
And like I said, I've been using this for about a year now.
- That's what my wife does.
She, she actually swore at me quite a bit,
because the first time I told her,
(Brad laughing)
get on there and don't worry about the pillows.
And then she read that about the pillows.
- [Brad] Yeah.
And she's like, "Why didn't you recommend that
it was too aggressive to start?"
(Brad laughing)
But she does the same thing now,
She lifts her butt up and put some more pressure on it.
- With no pillows, no towel? Yep.
- No pillows, no towel yeah.
She loves it. She it's one of her favorite devices.
- Oh yeah.
You know, I didn't use this for about five days
because I was on a little trip out
in (intelligible) with the boys.
- [Bob] Right.
- And I came back,
and I could not believe how my back cracked
because I had not,
- Sure.
- Cracked you know,
- I go one day without it, and I'm hurting.
- Are you really?
- Yeah.
Well, there you go.
It is a nice device, it'll last you.
- A little pricey.
- It'll last forever, though.
- But it'll yeah you could drive a truck over it.
- Oh yeah.
- And it's very, very solid.
- Yep, absolutely.
So, very good. Good luck with it.
This is a disease that is a pretty serious,
and this treatment isn't going to fix you.
- Right.
- It's gonna help maintain it,
- Right.
- And keep that posture,
as long as possible.
And definitely I think it's worth a try.
- As if we already don't have a height differential, your-
- Yeah. How's this?
- Make it even worse.
(laughing)
- Thanks.
- All right, take care.
(outro music)