♪ 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 therapist on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- This is interfering with our flow, Brad.
- I know Bob
- Sorry.
- Today. We are both most graciously joined by Jody.
Who's going to be our real patient today
and we're gonna talk about dramatic pain relief
for rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia.
Again, we got a real patient story here.
Some of the things that worked for Jody
and some of the things that didn't work.
- Right. And I think the most amazing thing is she has been
wow, quit doing that.
I'm not gonna eat this mic.
- You nearly gotta is.
- She had some really good success
success after going through a regimen of things
that weren't working that were supposed to,
and she does a much better job.
So I'm gonna let her finish up with that.
- Before we do that though.
Let's please welcome everybody.
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We actually have a couple people that like us now
We actually have a guest that came.
And so that that's a good sign, right?
Yeah. So, all right, Jody,
do you want to just start talking?
- I'd like to thank you.
(laughing)
In about 2013, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia
and they did a rheumatoid arthritis test at the same time.
Didn't think I had it.
And it came back with extremely high indicators.
So what happens usually when you're diagnosed with RA
is they put you on two drugs, usually to start
one actually is a cancer drug, a chemotherapy drug.
And the other one is, well, it's just
one's called methotrexate and the other's Plaquenil, so.
- Okay. You got kind of a double whammy here.
You got, I mean, two major diagnoses in one setting.
So that must have been a little bit of a shock at a,
or were you suspecting?
- No, I had, my husband's an RN,
and he has some opinions about fibromyalgia and,
- Sure.
- So yeah, it was very shocking and troublesome
because it is a progressive non-curable disease.
- Sure. Yep.
- So we, you know, I've had
a lot of medical issues in my life
and was very accustomed to having doctors
tell me what to do, following their instructions.
And you know, so that was obviously what we were gonna do.
The trouble came after I was on methotrexate
for about a year and I didn't know it,
but it can affect your liver functions and enzymes.
- Gotcha.
- So we had a test and I had to go off of it
because my enzymes were up.
The other thing that they do usually with RA
is they can for flares that I, I,
so rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease
and which basically means
your immune system is attacking itself.
- Right.
- So you can go along and be perfectly okay.
And then you'll have a flare
or you can live in a state of flare, I guess.
So I had had a couple of flares.
They put me on steroids, they dropped the flares down,
cause it helps to reduce the inflammation and,
and then found out
- But you can't obviously yeah,
you can't stay on steroids very long at all can.
- And the other thing that people take a lot
to help with the pain and the inflammation is NSAIDs.
- Sure.
- So, and that's not good to be on long-term
- For prolonged. Right?
- Right. So a lot of these things that help
manage the disease does not, is not good for your body.
- Right. And they sometimes can be end up not worse, but
- Oh wait, till you hear, it's much worse.
- I was gonna say some of 'em do get worse than the cure.
- So I had to go off the one drug.
And when we started this,
because certain drugs are advertised a lot out there
and they're called biologics for this type of a disease.
- Biologics
- Biologics. Ad I was adamant, I was not going to go on one
because they have a lot of side effects.
However after two years and not being able
to take the one drug I had a really bad flare
and basically was convinced by the doctor
to go on a biologic, which is an injection every two weeks.
So I was on that for about nine months, had several flares.
So it was not,
- Despite being on it still you were still having flares.
- The reason that we decided to go on it though,
was because of the concern about long term joint damage.
At the time I was diagnosed, they took x-rays
and I had no joint damage. So they wanted to keep
- Stave that off.
- Exactly.
- Sure.
- So I would say in about late summer of 2016
I had a flare that wouldn't go away
and they put me back on steroids
for an extended amount of time.
That's when my body rebelled
and I developed yeast all over my torso.
- Oh good Lord.
- I developed psoriasis and I've never had it in my life.
- Wow.
- I still had my flare went to a dermatologist.
And they said until you have this under control, well,
I went to my doctor first obviously,
but until you have this under control,
we want you off the biologic.
- Gotcha.
- It took months.
They put me on a steroid cream,
which then created boils and pustules.
- Oh my gosh.
So you can see things are just sliding the wrong way here.
- And in the meantime was a fibromyalgia a factor
or was that kind in a back burner
or just an irritant with, along with it?
- Well, that's a really, that's a really good point.
It seems they go hand in hand.
It seems like when I have a flare of the RA
the fibromyalgia, it's like a whole body thing
and my fibromyalgia manifests itself
in different places than the RA.
So sometimes it's like, I just, at this point in time,
I literally would limp out of bed, limp to the kitchen,
take my Advil and my prescription pain medicine daily.
And it would be hours before I could function,
move my fingers. I actually had a handicapped placard
because I couldn't walk very well.
- Oh sure.
- Yeah. It was awful.
And I really, you know, that was my future.
That to me was
- I'm sure it was not only the future was you were
expecting it to get worse?
I mean, cause things are progressive, so.
- Yeah.
- So what did you begin trying?
What, what, what, what changed you?
- Well that summer before I had a really good friend
who had some health issues and she went to a homeopath
and so I went to a homeopath to kind of talk about options
and she informed me that the number one thing
that causes inflammation in your body is your diet.
- Sure.
- So she had me see one of her dieticians
and I will tell you it scared me to death
because I kind of like food.
- We all do
- But she educated me on a lot of stuff.
And I had been, you know, really watching my weight
for years and years and years and doing a lot of low fat
no fat kind of thing.
- Sure.
- And found out that that actually is
very not good for for a person.
So I had some dietary changes I needed to make,
but in addition to that, I also, she does tinctures.
So these are drops that I put into water
and one's an anti-inflammatory tincture
and one's a pain relief.
- Gotcha.
- And tincture is?
- A tincture is just basically something that's
- That's oil?
- Liquid. It's not even an oil, it's like a tincture.
Well, and I'm not an expert here.
So you might wanna Google what a tincture is
but basically it's a way of distilling plants.
- So you're doing this with the diet?
- Right. And this was like, my first step was to go to her.
In addition I had, during the previous two years,
started massage therapy and acupuncture,
which actually did help quite a bit.
- Oh absolutely.
- So I, I was using those in conjunction to going
but when my body rebelled like that, I was like
I've gotta do something else.
And I made the decision that I would never
be back on any any RA drugs because of what happened.
So I said I've gotta find something else
that's going to help me.
And so so I went to the homeo path and started that regimen.
At the same time I was introduced to essential oils
and my thinking was two prong.
I need, I need to manage the pain so I could function
because I literally, I couldn't work. I couldn't walk,
you know so I need to manage the pain
and then I need to find out the underlying cause
and handle that.
So the oils absolutely helped my pain, as did the tinctures
and then the diet and the things underneath inflammation
understanding what's going on in your body
is the key obviously to solving the issue.
And I will tell you that biologics suppress
the immune system and because an autoimmune disease
is the immune system kind of going haywire.
They suppress it. So it doesn't do that.
- So biologics, you're saying the
- The biologics that the, the medical, the
- Medication that the doctor was prescribing?
- Right. So one of the cautions with that is, you know
you can get sick very easily
because your immune system is compromised.
So that also is not a great thing.
And the analogy that I used earlier was
it's like if you don't address the underlining cause
which is inflammation in your body,
it's systemic inflammation.
Then it's like stepping on a tack and taking an aspirin
but not getting off the tack.
You're, you're not actually even treating anything
other than you're trying to, it's a bandaid.
- Sure, sure.
So then the diet, you start looking
into that and doing changes with that.
- Yes. And I will tell you
I remember the first week I said to somebody
I haven't taken a Vicodin for a week.
I haven't taken an Advil for a week.
I mean, I just, everything was what I hadn't taken.
You know, how I was increasing my mobility and my feeling.
So when I started making changes to the diet
I ended up being pain free for over eight months.
- Wow.
- And without, without medication?
- Without medication or pain meds,
but here's here's what makes me really sad.
And this is why I wanted to come on the show.
I, I really want people to understand
when I went back to my rheumatologist
because you have like six months appointments
I said to her, I've been pain free.
I think this was about four months.
I was very excited.
I wanted to tell her what I was doing.
And all she said was
I really want you to go back on X, Y, Z.
- So she did not acknowledge your success
through or question it or how did you do it?
- Nothing. And all I could think of was you have
other patients this could help.
And, and it made me very sad.
So I was talking to my chiropractor and she said
start spreading the word yourself, get it out there.
What did you do? Tell your story
- Oh, this is no surprise to me at all.
I've been reading a lot on diet lately and just
the inflammatory process of nature of a lot of foods.
This does not surprise me at all.
I'll tell you, we're gonna do another video
where you're just gonna talk about diet.
- Yes.
- Is there anything else here that you wanna mention
that you're using?
- Well, one of the things that I had started using
was the Dr.Axe collagen or bone broth.
When I first went to my dietician,
she said I could make my own homemade bone broth,
but I I don't do that.
So this is very, and this helps it.
It helps with the inflammation.
I would recommend absolutely finding a homeopath
a good massage therapist, a good chiropractor,
a good acupuncture.
These are all tools that you can use in your arsenal yeah.
To help, to help manage the pain
but to also reduce the inflammation
so that your joint damage is reduced.
- So, so I'm, I'm still curious,
the big picture of the diet. What did you reduce? Carbs?
- Well we're gonna,
- Oh, we're gonna do a separate video.
- I know, but just
- Stay tuned.
- Just gimme a, a one sentence thing.
Did you, you know what I'm saying?
Did you re... you're not gonna tell me.
- She's gonna leave you hanging.
- Everyone else too!
- Coconut oil.
I, I use coconut oil now.
- Nice.
- How's that?
- Is that one thing?
- That's one thing. Yeah.
- That's one thing.
- All right, folks.
Well, we're gonna have to
did we talk about pretty much everything?
- Yeah. The other thing was very quickly.
Anything that you use that I mentioned the essential oils
or be very, very, very careful to make sure you get it
from a professional, big box stores, even a co-op
there's no regulations on, you know,
what is in an essential oil
and they've done independent testing
and some of them have like nothing in them.
- I've heard the same thing actually.
- So if you're going to go a natural route,
which I totally recommend,
find a practitioner that can guide you into what is
- Someone that you can trust.
- Right. Exactly.
- So, all right, well, you're gonna have to stay tuned
for the next video because that's where we're gonna get
into the meat and potatoes of what you should be eating.
(laughing)
- So wanna thank Jody, our guests for coming.
- Thank you for having me.
- And for sharing her knowledge and we'll see you
on the next video, we'll try to put a link to it, so.
- Yeah, thanks.