Participants: Agatha Thrash (Host), Don Miller, Justina Thomas
Series Code: HYTH
Program Code: HYTH000210
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00:01 Skeletal problems represent the commonest cause,
00:04 or one of the commonest causes of absenteeism from work 00:08 in this country. 00:09 As we learn how to handle skeletal problems, 00:14 we learn techniques that can help us with a wide variety 00:18 of other problems, that the human body suffers from. 00:21 In this program we will be talking about various skeletal 00:25 problems, and we hope that you will join us, so that you 00:27 can help people that you know or yourself, 00:30 with very common skeletal problems. 00:53 Welcome to Help Yourself To Health, with Dr. Agatha Thrash 00:56 of Uchee Pines Institute and now here is your host Dr. Thrash. 01:01 Even people who generally do not have broken bones, 01:07 may get broken ribs, and a broken rib can be so painful. 01:12 A person thinks, how can I ever, maybe I won't ever, 01:16 get rid of this pain, I'm going to have this pain 01:18 in my chest, wherever it is. 01:20 I'm going to have this the rest of my life. 01:23 But actually broken ribs do eventually heal, 01:27 and the pain does go away. 01:29 Dr. Don Miller is going to talk with you some 01:32 about broken ribs, and help you to understand this problem 01:35 a little better. 01:36 - Well I've been there to with a broken rib, 01:38 this is an extremely painful process, and the reason why is: 01:42 Every time you breathe your rib cage goes out, 01:46 you exhale they come in, and that's painful enough 01:50 now try to sneeze or try coughing. 01:53 Sneezing is one of the most strongest impulses you can have, 01:58 and it can be stopped by the very thought of how much pain 02:02 it's going to cause you. 02:03 I've been in mid sneeze before, and just dreading it happening, 02:07 and as I get ready, it says I don't want to do this, and 02:10 my body tells it don't sneeze. 02:13 So it is extremely exquisite pain. 02:16 Often it is not a broken rib, it could be a tear in the 02:21 intercostal region, it could be some, whatever, something 02:26 is torn in the chest area. 02:28 No matter what it is, it's going to be very painful 02:31 just to breathe, to cough, to sneeze, any of these things, 02:34 and to put any pressure on it, don't even think about it. 02:37 You can't put a cast on your chest, 02:40 your chest is going to move. 02:42 To think about how to treat it, I go back in my mind, 02:45 to a farmer back in eastern Europe 150 years ago named 02:54 Priessnitz 02:55 Priessnitz was coming back from the fields one day, 02:57 riding on a wagon full of hay, for some reason, somehow, 03:03 he fell off the wagon, and the wagon wheels 03:06 rolled over his chest, he had a mess on his hands. 03:10 The doctors of the time says, "sorry," you are not going to 03:14 survive this injury. 03:15 That was an acute injury, serious, fatal injury, 03:19 in his time. 03:20 Well he did not like the diagnosis or the prognosis, 03:24 so what did this simple farmer do? 03:27 He went to a window, there was a window glass, 03:31 it was cold out, and he pressed his chest up against 03:35 the window, transferring some of the cold to his chest. 03:39 He also then took rags and cloths and dipped them 03:43 in cold water, and would apply them to his chest, 03:46 sometimes wrapping them all the way around his torso, 03:49 to cover the area of his injuries. 03:51 It wasn't a very long time before he started to heal, 03:55 of course he got extremely well, and perfectly well, 03:58 to the point that he thought, I have something here. 04:01 and he started a school in a sanitarium, more or less, 04:07 that he would bring patients in, and his major treatment modality 04:11 was "cold", cold cloths, cold pours, cold water of any type. 04:15 He was unbelievably successful, Kings and Queens, heads of state 04:20 would come to his simple little place, to learn what to do. 04:23 What does that tell us that we can do? 04:25 If you injure yourself, I would recommend applying cold 04:30 to the injured area of the rib, cold is extremely good, 04:33 it's analgesic, it brings more blood to the area, 04:38 and it can speed healing. 04:39 After you've done cold, you can't keep cold on 24/7, 04:43 I like to, whenever I injure my ribs, I will put something 04:47 confining around, perhaps a very wide ACE bandage, 04:50 just to try to keep myself in place. 04:52 There is something else you can do for the ribs, 04:56 if you have some surgical tape, 04:58 about 11/2 or 2 inches wide surgical tape 05:01 find approximately where the injury is, 05:04 and take about an 8 inch piece of tape, 05:07 and place the center of it right over the injured area, 05:11 push it on one side of your chest, and then pull it tight 05:14 to the other side. 05:15 Take a second strip, and put it at right angles, 05:19 making a big X on your chest there, 05:22 and then take a 3rd piece, put it between two of those legs 05:25 and a 4th piece between those, until you have 05:28 about 8 pieces of tape, you are stretching these things 05:31 across your chest area, and until you got these 8 radiations 05:36 coming out of your injured area. 05:40 This will help you hold the ribs in place, 05:43 now you want to keep this in that situation 05:46 for a number of weeks, two or three weeks. 05:48 You might get a little bit of irritation from the tape, 05:51 if so, try to get some hypo- allergenic tape, 05:53 or some tape that does not give you the problem. 05:55 But we find that this is a pretty nice treatment 05:58 for mobilizing and stabilizing the rib area, 06:02 other than that, it just takes time, it takes vitamin R. 06:06 Vitamin rest, vitamin T, vitamin time, to finally 06:10 heal this wound. 06:12 It's a serious wound, but it's not a death dealing one. 06:15 Now if you got a real full break that might go down 06:18 and puncture the lung, this is a serious one, 06:20 and you've got to get to a hospital 06:22 and get it taken care of. 06:23 But most of them are just small fine cracks, 06:26 in the ribs, they will repair in their own time. 06:29 So Dr. Thrash, it is hard to breathe when you have them 06:32 and everything else, but that's nature's way 06:34 of saying don't mess with me, I want to get myself well. 06:37 - Yes and strapping of the chest it will indeed relieve the pain. 06:43 I would like to talk to you a bit about scoliosis. 06:47 Scoliosis is something that begins often in childhood, 06:51 and I've asked Justina to assist me 06:54 with this little demonstration. 06:56 It's a thing that happens on the back, and a lot of times 07:01 it begins in childhood. 07:03 The child does not have any awareness at all 07:07 that it is going on, the parent notices that the spine may be 07:13 getting crooked. 07:14 With Scoliosis it is an S shaped curve, or a C shaped 07:20 curve that you get with the Scoliosis. 07:23 With kyphosis, that means that the chest is out like this, 07:30 a great big hump out like this, may even be a barrel chest 07:34 which is out in front and out in back, with the ribs holding 07:40 the chest in a kyphotic condition. 07:43 A big chest that is humped out this way, that's kyphosis. 07:49 Some kind of curvature down here in this area, where there is an 07:55 exaggeration of the lower dotic curve, 07:57 that's a very common place for people to get a back curvature. 08:03 If a child is getting scoliosis, the parent may not be aware 08:12 of it by seeing an S shaped spine, 08:15 but if the child will just bend over, 08:20 and let the arms hang down, one shoulder blade or the other 08:27 depending on where the major part of the scoliosis is, 08:30 will stick up. 08:32 If one shoulder blade is a little higher than the other, 08:37 then you know that the child is developing scoliosis, 08:42 and that can be very helpful in making an early diagnosis, 08:46 so that things can be rectified if possible, 08:49 or if not, the orthopedic surgeon can assist 08:54 with some kind of treatment. 08:55 The kind of treatment that you can do in the home, 09:00 is to avoid tight bands around the waist, and if 09:05 you can do that, that will be helpful. 09:09 If the child is not wearing tight bands, 09:11 then you are not going to have much help from that. 09:14 Another thing, is somebody over weight? 09:18 With any kind of skeletal problem, the child or the adult 09:23 will be much better off, if they have a normal weight. 09:27 I have a graphic for you that illustrates what 09:31 good weight is, what proper weight is. 09:34 I will first show you what the weight is in an average adult. 09:39 By a rule of thumb, 100 Ibs. for the first 5 feet, 09:44 and for women 5 Ibs. per inches thereafter, 09:48 for men 6-7 inches thereafter depending on how muscular 09:53 the man is. 09:54 That's the average, the average for a person who is in health. 09:59 But often we are very interested in the health when a person 10:02 is not well. 10:03 Perhaps a they have cancer, or perhaps they have emphysema, 10:08 or some other serious health problem, and it's advantageous 10:13 for them to weigh less than the 10:16 average healthy adult would weigh. 10:19 So the therapeutic weight for women is different from the 10:23 average weight for women. 10:25 Here you see therapeutic weight in disease and the elderly. 10:29 For women, multiply the height by 3.5 and subtract 108, 10:35 and that equals the total weight. 10:38 An example is a 5'6" woman 66 in. multiply that by 3.5 10:46 and that gives us 231 Lbs, then if you subtract 108 from 231 10:54 that gives us 123 o approximately 7 Lbs less 10:59 than the same person would, we would expect that she could 11:03 weigh healthfully, in good health and not fighting 11:07 any kind of disease, and also in youth. 11:10 For men the formula is about the same except that the factors 11:17 are a little different. 11:18 In a man, it's the height times 4 minus 128, 11:24 and that should be the total weight. 11:26 As an example a 70 in. man multiply that by 4, equals 280, 11:33 280 minus 128 is 152 Lbs., and that should be 11:39 the therapeutic weight for a man who's fighting some kind 11:42 of serious illness. 11:44 Being thin is a blessing in a lot of ways, and there are some 11:52 diseases that people can have that can make us very 11:57 happy when they weigh the therapeutic weight. 12:00 TMJ or tempromandibular joint problem. 12:06 This is a serious matter for some people, they can't eat 12:11 they can't chew, they don't have an easy head, 12:15 and this makes a serious problem in some peoples lives. 12:19 Dr. Don Miller is going to talk with you now about 12:22 tempromandibular joint disease. 12:25 - This is one I don't have, and I'm glad I don't have it 12:29 although I am surprised I do not. 12:31 TMJ can be caused by a number of things, 12:36 one that I've read about, and I can see how it can happen, 12:40 have you ever gone to the dentist office, 12:42 and he's sitting there looking in your mouth, 12:44 or she is looking in your mouth, 12:46 and they give you a shot of Novocain, 12:48 because they really wanted to get in there without much 12:51 impediment, and then say open wide, and you do, and they say 12:54 open wider, and you open wider, and pretty soon your head is 12:58 completely wide open, and this can cause some serious problems 13:03 later on, because you over extend your jaws which really 13:07 don't go back together right again, so what you want to do 13:10 is when they say open wide, you want to open it not quite as far 13:18 and that might be good. 13:19 The TMJ can be caused by separate different problems, 13:24 like you could have some arthritis in your joint, 13:26 basically a wearing away the articulating joint, 13:29 so when your lower jaw moves up and down where it connects 13:34 back here at the tempromandibular joint, 13:36 it causes some rubbing, which causes the pain, and therefore 13:40 you've got your TMJ, your tempromandibular joint 13:43 dysfunction. 13:44 Normally it is characterized by pain right about where 13:48 the joint is, that can radiate up to the temples, or down 13:51 to the neck. 13:52 There are a few things that you can do with that, 13:54 you can try doing some pressure on the area, we call it, 13:59 trigger point therapy, and sometimes you can get relief 14:02 by pressing on an area and holding it there for awhile 14:06 and then releasing your pressure. 14:08 One thing I've learned, when I'm doing some trigger points 14:11 on people, they can be extremely sensitive, and when you press 14:15 on these things, and you've got it smashed down pretty good, 14:19 they are going through some pain, what you want to do is 14:22 divert their attention by doing something with your other hand. 14:26 What I like to do, I like to go back and give a little scalp 14:30 friction with my finger tips as I'm pushing here, 14:33 or I might massage their shoulder while I'm pushing here. 14:36 Now that I've got two major inputs of sensations coming 14:42 in, and the brain really can't deal with them all, 14:45 and so they will both be lessened, 14:47 and you want to lessen the pain as much as you can. 14:50 There are some other things that you can do, 14:53 applying heat three or four times a day, 14:57 a lot of heat, you can use a heating pad, 14:59 you can put it in front of a heating lamp, 15:01 but you want to heat up the area. 15:03 You can tell if a person has TMJ, if when they open 15:06 and close their mouth, you hear a clicking sound. 15:09 That clicking sound means that they don't have good functioning 15:12 in the joint and that can cause a lot of pain. 15:15 TMJ can be very, very painful for the person. 15:19 We recommend a person with TMJ to fast, at least one day 15:25 a month, but perhaps even a few times a week 15:29 not the whole day, but a meal a week, 15:31 you need to let your jaws rest. 15:34 A person with TMJ should eat a meal and rest 15:37 at least five hours in between that meal and the next meal 15:41 to let their jaws completely recover. 15:44 A person with TMJ should not keep their jaws clenched 15:48 all the time, when they are sitting there, 15:52 keep their teeth apart when they are not talking, 15:56 or doing anything else, and a good way to do this, it to put 15:59 your tongue on the roof of your mouth, when you do that 16:03 you pretty much force your bottom jaw down a little bit 16:06 and your teeth aren't together. 16:07 People with TMJ have a tendency to grind their teeth at night, 16:12 and if you practice keeping your jaws apart during the day, 16:16 it might carry on over in to the night. 16:19 But there also some nice things that you can purchase 16:21 that you can put into your mouth which will keep you 16:24 from injuring your teeth in this grinding process. 16:27 There are other bite plates that you can purchase 16:29 that will keep you from grinding your teeth at night. 16:32 Good Things To Do. You need to learn how to relax, 16:35 people are just to tense all the time, 16:38 learn to relax the jaws and that will help out. 16:42 Keep away from chewy foods, things that take a lot of 16:46 chewing, I'm not talking about a carrot, yes it takes a lot 16:49 of chewing, so you might not want to eat a whole lot 16:51 of carrots, you might want to chop them up first. 16:53 But especially that are gummy, that gives you a clue 16:57 right there, don't chew gum, 16:58 not a very good thing to be doing if you have TMJ. 17:02 You will want to drink through a straw, which will be helpful 17:06 for a person, and chew on both side of the mouth, 17:09 even though one side might be tender, chew on both sides, 17:13 so you do not strengthen one muscle, and weaken the other 17:16 muscle, you want to chew on both sides. 17:18 There are some exercises that you can also do, 17:21 you can take your hands, wash them nicely, 17:24 you never put your fingers in your mouth, 17:26 unless they have been washed, because you don't know where 17:29 they have been the last time. 17:30 You will want to take your finger, 17:31 and lets say your pain is behind your right eye, 17:34 you take your right index finger put it in the right side 17:37 of your mouth, put it up behind the upper molar, 17:42 and push behind that molar, pointing in the middle 17:45 of your head, and give it a good push for two 17:47 or three seconds and then relax it, and push it again 17:51 and relax it, do this a few times, you could also do some 17:55 jaw exercises, put your thumbs below your jaw, and then 17:59 open your jaw, giving a little bit of pressure, exercising, 18:04 then put a hand on the side of your jaw, and push over, a hand 18:09 on the other side and push over, another nice one is 18:13 take your fingers, put them inside your cheeks, 18:15 you know how children do this sometimes, and you pull it out 18:19 until you just start to feel the pain, hold it for a slight 18:23 period of time, and then release it again. 18:25 Some people, when they are talking on the telephone, 18:28 they cradle the telephone in their neck, 18:30 so they can go about other business, don't do that. 18:33 If you have a tendency to do this, get a headset, 18:36 and so you do not have to do this type of an action. 18:40 When you are sleeping at night, don't sleep on your 18:42 stomach, don't sleep on your side, don't sleep with your 18:45 hands behind your head, try to lay as much as possible, 18:48 straight on your bed, and it will help you. 18:52 Ice can be extremely good for this, wherever you might 18:55 feel your tension and your pain. 18:56 Let's say you feel the tension from your TMJ radiating 18:59 up and down your neck, apply ice to this for a short period 19:02 of time, and then start doing some stretches to that area, 19:07 stretch and do ice on the other side, stretch it, 19:10 do stretching of your head, even if you do not have TMJ, 19:15 it's good to do some stretching exercises, right, left, 19:19 forward, backwards, with resistance, pushing against 19:23 resistance, pushing against resistance, these things 19:27 can find very good benefit if you have the TMJ. 19:31 Some simple things you can try to do, again I can't talk 19:36 as an authority, because I've never had it, but if you had it, 19:39 try these simple things, and I believe that no matter what, 19:42 you are going to get some relief, if not complete relief, 19:45 from your problem, I think those things are pretty good, 19:48 and I think you know someone that has TMJ, 19:50 do you know anything else than they do? 19:51 - Yes, No, those things are very good, 19:55 I do know someone who has TMJ, someone in my family, 19:58 and an allergy turned out to be big cause of her bruxism, 20:05 which is the grinding of the teeth at night. 20:08 The bite plate can be very helpful that's worn at night, 20:12 and sometimes has to be worn for some years. 20:16 We do hope that these simple things that Dr. Miller mentioned 20:20 for you, can be helpful for the TMJ. 20:24 If a person has dislocations, these can be nicely treated 20:29 with just some very simple things that you can usually do 20:33 at home. 20:34 Now if these occur in a place where you can get professional 20:37 help, you may want to do that, because there may be some 20:41 problem with the joint, that makes it slip out of joint. 20:45 I've asked Justina Thomas to help me with this, 20:50 and we will start with a pretended elbow 20:53 that is out of joint. 20:55 Now if she actually had an elbow out of joint, 20:58 she would not be so free in moving this arm, 21:02 but would probably hand it to me in a very gentle way. 21:06 When someone has an elbow that is out of joint, 21:11 you can usually tell it by simply looking at it. 21:13 It looks out of joint, and so you simply put your thumb 21:18 between the two bones, and put a little traction on it, 21:23 like this, and then rotate, so it's pressure there, pull, 21:30 and twist a little bit, and usually it will roll right back 21:36 into joint, and by looking at it you will be able to tell 21:39 which direction you should turn it most of the time. 21:43 That's very helpful with an elbow joint, that's out of joint 21:48 and you don't have a doctor available. 21:50 Another thing is a shoulder out of joint. 21:53 Same kind of thing, these often occur in children, 21:59 when they are walking along with a parent, 22:00 they have the hand over the head, the parent is holding 22:03 the child's hand, and then the child starts to fall, 22:07 and the parent jerks the child's arm, and jerks it out of joint. 22:12 That's a typical scenario, and if you are the only person 22:16 around, who can put it into joint, you may want to just 22:19 put one hand up here, the patient won't like it, 22:23 so don't spend a lot of time doing it, 22:25 pull, you are putting a little pressure here, and pushing away 22:30 and a little traction, and again it's a little twist, 22:34 and it will often just go right back into joint, 22:36 and the person has very little difficulty with that. 22:40 A hip out of joint, is much more difficult, but again, 22:47 if you are the only person around, you should try to do it. 22:51 The person lies down, you put your foot in the groin 22:55 on the side where the out of joint hip is, 23:00 then pull on the foot, and again it's rotated a little bit, 23:06 and often it will go right back into the joint, 23:10 with a great big scream from the patient. 23:12 Thank you very much Justina. 23:15 Osteoporosis has some very good causes, 23:21 and we're going to show you some things that cause 23:25 osteoporosis, and Dr. Don Miller is going to talk with you 23:28 those causes of osteoporosis. 23:32 - Well you can't really have a discussion on bones and things, 23:37 unless you discuss what causes the problems with the bones. 23:40 Bones are made up of a lot of calcium and it's lack of calcium 23:46 that causes us to get osteoporosis, 23:48 and we're going show you on the screen a few things that 23:52 cause us to loose our bone calcium. 23:55 You see the first thing on the list is protein, 23:58 protein goes up, calcium goes down, you see alcohol, 24:01 It's a bone waster, tobacco, 1% of your bone calcium lost 24:05 every year, if you are post menopausal. 24:07 Coffee and tea, cola and chocolate, 24:09 1.4% of your bone calcium every year if you are post menopausal, 24:14 it's gone right down the drain. 24:15 Then you have the soft drinks, phosphoric acid, 24:18 they call them soft drinks because they make your bones 24:20 soft, that's what I say anyway. 24:23 The next things Aluminum compounds - like antacids, 24:27 baking powder, pickles with alum, all cause us 24:30 to loose our bone calcium, high phosphorous compounds 24:33 like soft drinks, baking powder, diets high in sodium, 24:37 sounds like the American diet to me, that causes us to loose 24:40 our bone calcium, A diet high in sugar, 24:43 here we are America, thyroid supplements, 24:46 drugs, steroids, tetracycline, all of these items cause us 24:50 to loose our bone calcium, and the bone calcium 24:53 is what we need to keep our bones strong. 24:55 So as we stay away from these things, we don't have the 24:58 major problem of loosing our bone calcium. 25:01 The countries that lead the world in osteoporosis, 25:06 lead the world in violating these particular things we 25:10 just saw, they use these things in abundance. 25:12 Go to a country that does not have osteoporosis, 25:15 and see how they live, and then live like them in one sense, 25:19 as far as their dietary habits. 25:21 So I think we should stay away from these things. 25:24 Another thing we need for osteoporosis, our bones need 25:27 a daily shake up, we need to get out and exercise. 25:30 It's a woman who gets good exercise, 25:32 bone stressing exercise, making those muscles 25:35 pull on those bones, you are going to find that you have 25:38 stronger bones, because every time you stress the bones, 25:41 the bones say we need some more calcium over here. 25:44 Those are some simple things Dr. Thrash that will help us 25:47 to have good strong bones until we die of old age. 25:49 - Oh yes! And osteoporosis is one of those things that 25:53 hastens death in some people. 25:55 Interestingly one of the places that a lot of people get 25:59 osteoporosis is in the maxilla, or in the mandible, 26:04 the two jaw bones, around the teeth, and one of the reasons 26:09 for that is because of infection. 26:11 A little pyorrhea can start with a little infection, 26:16 the change in the PH of the surrounding bone, can encourage 26:22 the loss of bone and fairly soon the tooth becomes wobbly 26:28 in the socket, and all because of a little infection, 26:32 and this then makes the tooth ready to fall out. 26:36 So the patient goes to the dentist, the dentist says 26:40 "Sorry" I'm not going to be able to save your tooth. 26:44 That's one of the commonest causes of tooth loss in those 26:49 in those who are over the age of 35. 26:51 How do you keep from getting pyorrhea? 26:54 One of the ways is not to eat a lot of sugar, 26:57 Sugar encourages infection around the gums, 27:01 around the teeth and the gums and up into the tooth socket 27:07 which then encourages osteoporosis. 27:10 With thyroid supplements, for some reason they cause the 27:16 bones to become soft, so thyroid supplements, 27:21 especially if they are not needed, but are just given 27:24 because of some symptom that is unpleasant, 27:26 like being cold in the morning, or not having good energy. 27:31 Those things may not mean that you need thyroid supplements 27:35 at all, and then having celiac disease. 27:38 That also can encourage the getting of osteoporosis. 27:43 So armed with this knowledge you may be able to help 27:47 yourself not to get osteoporosis with it's humped back, 27:50 and it's painful bones here and there, and loss of tooth. |
Revised 2014-12-17