Participants: Agatha Thrash (Host), Don Miller, Justina Thomas
Series Code: HYTH
Program Code: HYTH000209
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00:01 Did you ever wonder what we would be like if we didn't
00:04 have a skeleton think what you would be like if you didn't 00:07 have a skeleton to support the face, or to support the 00:10 internal organs, we would just sort of melt down into 00:14 a big glob and then we couldn't carry on our functions 00:18 because we wouldn't be able to carry on a circulation, 00:20 so the skeleton is most important to us and yet 00:25 because of the very complexity of it sometimes it gets 00:29 either sick or it gets injured. 00:31 We are going to be talking about how to take care of 00:33 various skeletal problems and we think you will enjoy this 00:37 program, we hope you will stay with us. 00:58 Welcome to Help Yourself To Health 01:00 with Dr. Agatha Thrash of Uchee Pines Institute 01:04 and now here is your host Dr. Thrash. 01:08 I am very happy that we have a skeleton and I am very happy 01:12 that it is made out of bone, and I am happy that nutrients 01:16 that we have in our food can take care of everything 01:19 that we need in the way of dietary care for it 01:24 and also the things that we ordinarily do in life can be 01:28 very helpful in making the skeleton function just right 01:32 but have you ever miss-stepped and you didn't hit exactly 01:37 as you would have liked to with a foot and unfortunately 01:41 you were left with a sprained ankle. 01:44 Dr. Don Miller is going to talk with you about sprained ankles 01:47 and I'll bet that you have never had a sprained ankle. 01:51 - I wish I'd never had a sprained ankle. 01:53 I've had plenty of sprained ankles and they are very, very 01:57 painful, if you've had one you know what I am talking about. 01:59 Having broken both legs and an arm I can attest that a sprain 02:06 is often and more usually painful than a break itself. 02:10 When I broke my left ankle in a motorcycle wreck I broke 02:14 both bones and sprained badly my ankles, 02:17 I was in all kinds of pain for that one. 02:19 But a sprained ankle is a very serious injury because often 02:24 you are going to find that if you have sprained your ankle 02:26 one time, it's an injury that will be weakened and weakened 02:30 ankle for months and years to come, unless you play it 02:33 right the first time. 02:34 Before I get into to much about the sprained ankle I want to 02:37 just mention a little bit about what happens is you have 02:40 had a sprained ankle, and now you are nursing that 02:43 sprained foot and you are on the recovery process. 02:47 God has built into us a special mechanism that if you are 02:51 nursing an injured area, it will be much more sensitive 02:55 if you are conscious of the injury that you have done. 02:58 I will give you another example, let's say you burn yourself, 03:01 you put your hand on a hot stove or something, 03:04 and you burn your finger, in a few minutes the pain 03:07 goes away, but what happens the next time you wash your 03:10 hands in hot water? 03:12 Exquisite pain, the same burning is there because 03:14 the body said look you've injured us here, we are going 03:17 to be a bit more sensitive in the future in that area 03:21 to the heat and so you feel that. 03:23 Same thing with the ankle, I remember when I had my 03:26 bad ankle injury with the motorcycle wreck, I had the cast 03:31 taken off, I was in college at the time, I had taken off 03:35 to my home in Cincinnati, Ohio, had the cast taken off, 03:38 went back to my college inn Kentucky, and that night, 03:41 I hadn't been walking normal for awhile, as I was walking 03:45 out the door, apparently I stepped on something that just 03:49 tiny rotation on my ankle, not enough to sprain it, 03:52 but that tiny little bit of stress 03:54 on a little collateral ligament 03:56 the ligament said wait a minute you've done this a couple of 03:59 months ago you are getting ready to hurt yourself. 04:01 It sent a message without my permission, without my brains 04:04 conscious knowledge up to my thigh muscles and told 04:07 thigh muscles let go, and I was on my face in the dirt 04:11 wondering what happened there. 04:13 It's because my body was protecting itself from 04:17 further injury, let's say you do have a sprained ankle 04:21 80% of the sprained ankles are when you rotate you foot in 04:25 or stepping wrong or whatever else and you tear some 04:28 tiny ligaments in your ankle area that keeps everything 04:31 together, extremely painful. 04:34 Normally when you first injure yourself, usually you are able 04:39 to then walk a bit further, not the best thing to do, 04:43 once you've done a good sprain it's best to go through the 04:47 whole process and there is an acronym I want you to remember 04:51 we used to use the acronym rice, we are going to make it 04:54 the acronym price, the first thing is you want to protect it 04:57 from further injury and that's why not walking on it 05:01 watching where you walk if you have to walk don't injure it 05:05 any further than you already have: That's the P. 05:08 R- Is you want to rest it, you don't want to sit there 05:11 and keep it in activity. I - Is you want to ice it. 05:15 C - You want to constrict it. E - You want to elevate it. 05:19 These are very nice things to do for your ankle. 05:21 A few years ago I was working in my yard and I stepped in a hole 05:25 sustained a very bad sprained ankle, this was a Wednesday 05:30 evening I was getting ready to go on a long trip the next day 05:32 driving my truck which had a clutch which means it was 05:36 my left ankle, that's your clutch foot. 05:38 I was in a lot of pain but I wanted to go to prayer meeting 05:41 that Wednesday night, I went and all I had in my refrigerator 05:44 was one of those little blue ice things, not the ice pack 05:47 the rigid blues, I'm sitting in the back of the church 05:51 balancing this rigid piece of ice on my ankle and a friend 05:55 of mine looked back and saw what I was doing, 05:57 left, came back in about 15 minutes with a large 06:00 bag of ice, he put that on my ankle, very thankful for his 06:04 thoughtfulness there, and I put the ice there, I kept it on 06:07 all that night as much as I could while I was sleeping, 06:10 the next day it was still very painful. 06:12 When I got to my destination I did a very good treatment, 06:16 now when you do a sprain or a strain and you want to use ice 06:19 for the first 24- 36 hours. 06:22 I got there it was now close to the 24 hour period, 06:26 I did an extreme hot /cold treatment, I put my foot in 06:30 water as hot as I could tolerate it three minutes, then I put it 06:34 in frigidly cold water which there was at the area I was 06:38 for 30 seconds I went back and forth, back and forth. 06:41 By now my ankle was very very purple, even though I placed 06:45 the ice on there I still had a lot of bleeding underneath 06:48 the skin so I did have a very purple and bruised ankle 06:52 so I could tell that yes I had extremely injured my ankle. 06:55 By the next day on Sabbath I was walking with a very minor 07:00 limp, by Sunday I could not feel any pain any more at all 07:04 the treatments that I had done the hot and cold treatments, 07:07 the initial application of ice, completely did away with 07:10 my pain problem. 07:11 But still whenever you sprain it you do have a weakened condition 07:16 so what you want to do, if you sprained your ankle, 07:20 or even broken a bone, you want to start doing some 07:23 strengthening exercises, very simple exercises. 07:26 You can sit down with your legs out straight and you want 07:29 bend your foot back, on it's own power, 07:33 don't reach down there and grab it, and point the toes 07:36 toward yourself, you want to just stretch it and hold it 07:39 there for about 10 seconds and relax, stretch it and 07:43 hold it for about 10 seconds and relax, nice exercise. 07:46 You can stand there and stand on the injured foot about 07:52 6 seconds, come back down, stand on the injured foot 07:55 6 seconds, come back down, sit in a chair, put your ankles 08:00 together, your feet together and push the recovering foot 08:07 into the good foot, a little bit of strengthening exercise 08:10 and the muscle is there. 08:12 You can put something to the outside of your foot, 08:16 I like to sit on a rigid object like a chair, and I put a 08:20 broom stick through there so that it is sort of sticking out 08:23 in front of me and I put my ankle up against this 08:25 and push against this broom handle, so it's keeping my 08:29 foot from going all the way out but it's a little bit of 08:31 pressure there, you can also put some type of a band 08:34 around your ankle and affixed to what you are sitting on 08:37 and try to pull your foot a little bit forward, 08:40 very nice treatment for re-strengthening the muscles 08:43 that you have injured. 08:45 Your body will protect your self from further injury, 08:48 you have to cooperate with it but you want to speed healing. 08:51 now the reason why I did the hot and the cold is I wanted 08:55 to bring more blood into the area which is going to carry off 08:57 some of the inflammation, it's going to carry off some of the 09:00 blood that's spilled underneath, it's going to bring healing 09:03 and what you need when you injure yourself: 09:05 You need good blood, you need a lot of blood right away 09:09 the two foundational health principles: 09:11 One is the life is in the blood, you want life in your ankle 09:14 get blood down there, but the second one is perfect health 09:18 requires perfect circulation, you want a healthy ankle 09:21 get the blood down there, good blood to the ankle that's been 09:25 injured, you will find that you'll have a whole lot 09:27 better time recovering from your injury. 09:31 Quite simple Dr. Thrash, I've done these things because I've 09:35 sprained my ankles and it helps. 09:36 - Yes! These are good principles and I would like to show you 09:41 how to help a sprained ankle once you've got it done 09:45 it's all bruised and painful. 09:49 There are some things that you can do that will make you 09:53 suffer less, this is Justina Thomas and she has a 09:57 freshly sprained ankle here, it's not yet swollen, 10:02 not yet blue but we will pretend that it's a 10:06 sprained ankle, and I'm going to show you a very nice way 10:10 to strap and ankle. 10:11 First thing you do is to is to cut two pieces of tape, 10:16 a one inch tape, and the tape needs to be the same length 10:22 as the distance from her small toe, the base of her small toe 10:28 and it sets right on the bottom part of the foot, just like this 10:35 almost off, then on this side it goes all the way around to 10:40 the base of the big toe. 10:42 This one is the most important one that you place, 10:46 if you rub adhesive that makes it stick a little better 10:50 so you do that to make it stick nicely. 10:54 You have a second one that is exactly the same length and you 10:58 make it stick on the first one lapping it over just about 11:03 a third, this is one inch tape and it works very nicely if 11:07 you'll do exactly this way, then bring that over and then rub it 11:13 so that it will stick very nicely. 11:16 Now the next one goes on the bottom of the foot 11:20 just like this, just the back of the heel, 11:24 and the and the person should bend the foot up just a little 11:27 bit like that, so the tape goes right on the back of the heel, 11:32 make it stick and then bring it down and cross it over 11:37 on the foot, like this, see how that is crossed over 11:41 on the foot like this, and then you take a second one and now 11:47 you make a Roman boot, you come about a third of the way 11:51 of the first one that you put across the top of the foot, 11:55 and do the same thing, make it fit over the first one in 12:00 this way, and you make it fit across there and bring that 12:03 across like this, and you keep on doing that until you have 12:08 come all the way up. 12:09 You can keep on traveling up so it's shorter and shorter 12:12 pieces of tape are required for that and this is strapping 12:18 the foot, you will finish that always when you are doing this. 12:29 Now with this kind of sprain you will get some good relief 12:39 immediately, just by strapping it in this way, what happens is 12:43 that you take the pressure off the plantar fascia and bring it 12:48 up to the side and top of the foot, and that's an enormous 12:53 amount of comfort for you. 12:56 But you need to study the anatomy of the area in this 13:01 place and I would like to teach you to take more responsibility 13:06 for your own health, so I have a graphic that will help you 13:09 to do that, notice number one: 13:38 So these thing can help you to know how important it is 13:42 and how beneficial it is for you to take more responsibility 13:46 for your own health. 13:47 When you think of it no one can take this responsibility 13:51 for you, you health is in your hands, it's not in your 13:55 physicians hand, nor some trainer's hand, nor some 13:59 counselor's that you may be working with, it's actually 14:02 in your hands with your day to day lifestyle. 14:06 Now the plantar fascia which I have spoken about concerning the 14:12 foot is a membrane, a very tough ligament and again 14:17 I've asked Justina to let me demonstrate on her foot 14:20 just what the plantar fascia is, so I will first show you 14:25 a picture of it, and if you will just look at this picture, 14:30 this one right here is the one that we want to see. 14:35 This nice picture of the foot is not one that I drew, 14:40 but I got it off the internet actually, and with 14:44 plantar fascitis, the place where you feel the pain the most 14:47 is usually right here, but the entire foot has the 14:51 plantar fascia, so let's take another picture that will help 14:56 you to see a little better just what the plantar fascia is. 14:59 So here is a sheet, this sheet is the plantar fascia, 15:05 right here this dark line, the plantar fascia goes all across 15:11 the foot, and if we look at it head on 15:13 here it is, the plantar fascia 15:16 goes from the heel all the way up to the base of the toes. 15:19 Now once you know this information then your quite 15:24 prepared to treat plantar fascitis, or understand it 15:28 at least. 15:29 So Justina let me see your foot again, and if you will notice 15:33 her foot does not show exactly what I have shown you but it 15:38 does show the bottom of the foot, so that this is the place 15:42 where the pain is going to be. 15:44 It can be anywhere from here to down here, but the worst 15:48 part of the pain is always right here, or right over here, 15:52 or right over here, it may have a very strong tendency to be 15:57 right in the center, just like that. 15:59 But some people will have plantar fascitis that hurts 16:03 the whole bottom of the foot. 16:05 How do we get plantar fascitis? 16:08 Well it's pretty simple, it's by having the foot in this kind 16:13 of position a lot of the time, that's one of the big reasons 16:17 why we have it, so women wearing high heel shoes will have a 16:20 greater tendency to have plantar fascitis. 16:23 But also people, especially weekend exercisers, 16:28 they are also likely to have plantar fascitis because they 16:32 exercise on hard surfaces on the weekend without adequately 16:39 preparing the foot for that kind of exercise and they get 16:43 plantar fascitis as well. 16:45 There are other reasons why people get it but 16:48 what can you do once you have it? 16:51 One thing you can do is to massage the foot and of course 16:56 just as you would expect, it's in the place where you have 16:59 the most pain, so right down here is where the massage would 17:04 go the most, and you can just massage the foot in a 17:10 stepwise fashion across the entire fascia of the foot 17:15 (plantar fascia), and just keep asking the person 17:19 does this hurt? 17:20 Once you've gotten out of the painful area no need for you 17:24 to continue to massage, but just the place where the pain 17:29 is the worst, it's there that you put your attention. 17:33 Thank you Justina! 17:35 So plantar fascitis can be treated with massage and 17:41 also with icing, icing is very important for this as well as 17:46 many other afflictions of the skeleton and we will be showing 17:51 you that in a moment, but before we show the ice I would like to 17:56 tell you about a product that you can get on the market 18:00 called Zostrix, which is a red pepper solution in a cold cream 18:07 of some kind, and this can be purchased fairly inexpensively 18:12 if you don't buy the Zostrix but instead of that you buy 18:16 one called Red Pepper Extract or Cayenne Extract. 18:20 Just ask the druggist for it, and he will get for you the 18:27 inexpensive kind of this product. 18:31 Then it is smeared on the foot, rubbed in a little bit 18:34 and six times a day is the schedule and then for six days 18:43 you rub it in six times a day, then you can drop down to 18:46 two times a day and as long as you continue to do that 18:49 it will usually help quite a great deal. 18:51 Now there are sprains of the back and other afflictions that 18:56 require icing and Dr. Don Miller now has an ice block here 19:05 that he's going to demonstrate something, what is that? 19:08 You know everyone in their home medicine cabinet should 19:11 have some Styrofoam cups, but not in their cabinets, 19:13 they should take their Styrofoam cups and fill them partially 19:17 full of water and stick them in the freezer, and then when you 19:20 have the occasion to need to do an ice massage, 19:23 now this is not just for the back, people with frozen 19:26 shoulders, they have stiff muscles, ice massage is an 19:30 excellent treatment, I suggest you give it a try. 19:32 What you do is you freeze the water and then you cut the 19:35 bottom of the Styrofoam cup off and put it on top of the cup 19:40 what that will do is let the ice protrude at the bottom 19:44 of the cup therefore when you do the massage, your hand is 19:47 not freezing just their back. 19:50 And you do a circular motion over the area, what I like to do 19:54 when you first start, someone is laying there and they are 19:57 already in pain and you sick a cold block of ice in their back 19:59 and I like to wipe once and rub with my hand, wipe again 20:05 rub with my hand, I go back and forth with my hand 20:08 and the ice until it starts to get a little bit pink, 20:12 then I just go with the ice itself. 20:14 I will also keep a towel handy because it will be dripping down 20:18 and you are going to be melting down quite quickly 20:20 and that doesn't feel good for a person to have water running 20:23 down their sides and puddling underneath their stomachs 20:25 and so I keep a towel right in my hand or stuck underneath them 20:30 but basically you do a circular motion over the muscle. 20:33 It doesn't really matter whether it's circular, up and down 20:36 is fine, I like to do a circular motion over the area 20:39 and you do it until it is red, you do it until the pain 20:43 subsides, and I can almost guarantee that in most cases 20:46 it's going to almost completely subside. 20:49 At least subside to the point where they can now relax 20:53 and they can get some rest. 20:54 I did this treatment like this a number of years ago... 20:57 I was in Ukraine and a man injured himself in the little 21:03 town of Noviabyhoti?, and they called for us to come over 21:09 and help him, it was in the evening time, 21:10 he had been stepping out of a truck, he slipped and fell and 21:13 badly sprained his back. 21:15 Now this was extremely cold, I asked one of the young men who 21:19 came in with me, go outside and get an icecicle that's 21:22 hanging off the house and they had big icecicles, 21:24 he broke one off brought it in I had the woman of the house 21:27 bring some hot water, I doused the end of the icecicle in the 21:31 hot water which basically just smoothed it off, and then I 21:35 started doing the ice massage for this man's back, 21:37 and he was in a lot of pain from this thing, so he wasn't 21:40 even feeling the ice, I knew I had finally reached success 21:45 when he started complaining about the ice on his back. 21:48 Although it is very analgesic pretty soon it gets pretty numb 21:52 but then he didn't really like the ice because 21:54 his pain was gone. 21:55 Before we started he could not be moved, and he wasn't even 22:00 in his own home, he was in the nearest home that they could 22:02 carry him after he had injured himself, he was able to get up 22:06 and go to his own home that night, so if you have some 22:09 blocks of ice in your home, this is great if you have any 22:13 type of a sprain or a strain. 22:15 Remember this, a sprain or a strain the treatment of choice 22:20 is ice or extreme cold for the first 24- 36 hours, 22:25 so have a number of these things lined up in your freezer, 22:28 and again cut it off because you don't want to freeze 22:30 your hand, this Styrofoam cup, I can't feel a thing about 22:34 the ice, just the person who is your subject can feel it. 22:37 So not very high tech, not very expensive at all, 22:42 but it really works, and that's what we're looking for 22:44 Dr. Thrash, things that don't cost a lot but really do work. 22:47 - That's what we want, we want the things that really do work 22:50 and I wonder if you would like to show us how this works 22:53 on a real live patient. - I think I would like to 22:55 so I am going to ask Justina to come on, and now a very good 22:59 principle about giving treatments to somebody 23:02 is let them be a part of the treatment process, 23:05 it gets their mind somewhat off their injury, so we're going to 23:08 say that Justina has hurt her elbow, so I'm going to have her 23:11 hold the towel herself, that way she is involved with 23:15 what's going on, and then all you do is take the ice, 23:19 and like I mentioned before I'm going to rub a few times 23:21 and rub with my hand, sort of get them acclimated to the cold, 23:26 and it just takes a few times, then you start rubbing 23:30 and I want to just bring this down, it doesn't take long 23:33 before you start to see a little bit of color developing in the 23:38 area, you want to move all around the injured area, 23:41 it's quite simple but it is quite effective. 23:44 Now how does that feel Justina? - Cold! Very Cold! 23:48 - I'm glad it feels cold, because cold in analgesic, that 23:52 means it's pain relieving, and already, you may not be able 23:55 to see this but there is a slight pinkish tone to the area 23:59 because see now blood is coming to the area. 24:01 The first reaction to ice is vasoconstriction, 24:04 let's get out of here and find a warm spot, the second reaction 24:08 is wait a minute we really need to warm the place up so more 24:11 blood comes to the area which brings oxygen, nutrients, 24:15 white blood cells, and healing. 24:17 So that's all you would do and you would continue this process 24:21 for 30- 90 minutes whatever it takes to get the pain away 24:26 and get the person recovered from the acute phase of their 24:29 injury and then you want to go to the hot and cold later on. 24:33 Very simple treatment but extremely effective, 24:35 and I'm very thankful that God has given us something as 24:38 effective and as available as ice Dr. Thrash. 24:42 - Yes it is very effective and very available in most places. 24:45 Now as we get older we tend to have more spinal problems 24:50 than we do when we are younger and one of the important things 24:54 that people get in old age is hump back, or they begin to 24:58 slouch, and I want to show you how you can tell if a person 25:03 has an actual collapsed vertebra. 25:05 As we get older the osteoporosis may cause that to happen 25:10 so Justina would you step forward again and let show 25:13 just how to make this kind of determination. 25:17 What you do is find the spine and it's easy to do in Justina 25:22 she doesn't have so much skin and subcutaneous tissue over it 25:28 that I can't feel her spine, so if you just rub your finger down 25:31 you can feel these knobs down so what I'm going to do is 25:36 I'm going to press right here, does that hurt? 25:38 - No! - Does that hurt? 25:41 - No! - Now what I'm doing is 25:43 pressing on the spine on one of these knobs, does that hurt? 25:46 - No! - Does that hurt? 25:49 - Yes! - Oh, that does, there is where 25:52 it is, right there! Now I'll go down to the next one 25:55 does that hurt? - No! 25:57 - No, okay! - Does that hurt? 25:59 - No! - No, okay so she just has one 26:03 vertebra that's collapsed and that's this one. 26:05 Now let's say she is 70 years old then I have just isolated 26:12 a place where she has a collapse in her vertebra, if she has that 26:18 then I suspect right away she has osteoporosis or perhaps 26:24 she has been in an injury. 26:26 She may have been having pain in her back and hasn't been able 26:30 to localize where it is, but I just found where it is. 26:34 With such an injury she will probably need some 26:38 professional help, but if you want to try to help a person 26:42 with an aging back, you can do so by some back exercises 26:47 even with a collapsed vertebra they can still do some exercises 26:52 that can be helpful. 26:53 One is simply a stretching exercise so they just stretch 26:57 upward as much as they can, they can even elevate themselves 27:01 on the heels a little bit as they stretch upward. 27:05 They try to get as much space as they can between the vertebra 27:09 and that often helps quite a lot for the aging back. 27:13 And then any good extension type of exercise that makes 27:20 the person go backward, that can help in this kind of 27:23 problem, if the person lifts the hands up over the head and 27:29 makes a circle backward, that will put the back in a good 27:32 position, so Justina would you just show what that position is. 27:36 Up over the head high, back as far as you can and then 27:40 down by the side, now that's perfect posture for the chest 27:44 shoulders back and down, and the chest in a good position. 27:49 So I hope with these small tips that you will be able to help 27:53 someone not to have a humped back. |
Revised 2014-12-17