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Traumatic Brain Injuries, Concussions Didn't Stop Extreme Athlete Amanda (Since Age 2!) · Sporting Good Posture

0:00
Speaker 1: What's up, sports, fitness, and posture fans? Coach Frank here,
0:02
Speaker 1: and I'm about to tackle one of the most important
0:04
Speaker 1: issues I see in practice. That's right. In this episode,
0:07
Speaker 1: I'm going to cover the subjects of concussions and traumatic
0:09
Speaker 1: brain injuries, TBIs, which are running way more rampant these
0:12
Speaker 1: days than they seem, with people suffering from them who
0:14
Speaker 1: don't even know they have them. My guest today is
0:16
Speaker 1: an athlete, an executive, and an all-around ass-kicker. who was
0:18
Speaker 1: not only diagnosed with multiple concussions and brain injuries, she
0:21
Speaker 1: was told it would shut her down completely. Well, she
0:23
Speaker 1: defied those odds, turned them to her favor, and has
0:25
Speaker 1: quite a story to tell. And she's here to tell
0:27
Speaker 1: her story and raise awareness of what the symptoms are
0:30
Speaker 1: as well as what she did to overcome them. So
0:31
Speaker 1: sit back and let us tell you a story that
0:33
Speaker 1: just could help change your game. And I'm going to
0:35
Speaker 1: bring her to you right after this. Stick around.
0:37
Speaker 2: Game on, sports, fitness, and health fans, with another episode
0:41
Speaker 2: of the Sporting Good Posture digital radio experience. Gear up
0:45
Speaker 2: for Coach Frank's advice from the sidelines as he helps
0:48
Speaker 2: you crush your game. No matter what sports, health, or
0:51
Speaker 2: fitness game you play.
0:53
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Coach Frank. I'm sporting good posture. What
0:56
Speaker 1: are you sporting?
0:57
Speaker 2: Hey, Coach, what do you got for us today?
1:00
Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Sporting Good Posture. I'm
1:03
Speaker 1: Coach Frank, Dr. Frank Margiela, doctor of chiropractic. And this
1:08
Speaker 1: episode is probably more relevant than any of the over
1:11
Speaker 1: 100 episodes I've done with my show. And that's going
1:14
Speaker 1: to be to your advantage right now. Today, I have
1:17
Speaker 1: a special guest I connected with through my producer, Frank,
1:20
Speaker 1: who came to me one day and said, hey, I
1:22
Speaker 1: have this really kick ass powerhouse of a girl I know.
1:25
Speaker 1: who not only had multiple concussions and traumatic brain injuries,
1:28
Speaker 1: but she defied what so-called modern medicine told her was
1:31
Speaker 1: an impossible situation, and in spite of it all, bounced
1:35
Speaker 1: back and is crushing her life harder than ever. Among
1:38
Speaker 1: the logic she employed to the situation was that chiropractic
1:41
Speaker 1: was an integral part of it. When he told me that,
1:45
Speaker 1: I had to meet her. Now, I can't say I
1:47
Speaker 1: have particular personal experience with TBIs or concussions, but I
1:51
Speaker 1: certainly come across in my practice, especially and probably most commonly,
1:55
Speaker 1: the cases which don't even know they even have an injury.
1:59
Speaker 1: But I can say that the reason, as you know,
2:01
Speaker 1: that I got into the chiropractic profession was because of
2:03
Speaker 1: the fact that I had injuries as a young athlete
2:06
Speaker 1: and probably wouldn't have played sports for very long if
2:08
Speaker 1: I hadn't seen a chiropractor for my injuries and then
2:11
Speaker 1: had one help me maintain my optimum performance level to
2:14
Speaker 1: keep me operating the way my body was designed to operate.
2:18
Speaker 1: And if you've been listening to me these last 100
2:20
Speaker 1: plus episodes, you know the body's natural design is athletic.
2:24
Speaker 1: That's nature, and it's designed to keep the human body
2:26
Speaker 1: surviving this playing field called planet Earth. Anyway, let's get
2:31
Speaker 1: to the reason I'm doing this episode. My guest and
2:35
Speaker 1: her story are not only educational, but awe-inspiring. Not just
2:40
Speaker 1: a success in overcoming injury, but a story of attaining
2:44
Speaker 1: goals and dreams in spite of these injuries. My guest
2:47
Speaker 1: today is the all-around, she's-got-it-all kind of girl, and who
2:51
Speaker 1: I would refer to as an ass-kicker on many levels.
2:54
Speaker 1: As for her athletic background, how about going back to
2:57
Speaker 1: age two? A thrill-seeker of the ultimate kind, her interests
3:01
Speaker 1: she took up including boxing and snowboarding, Muay Thai, jiu-jitsu,
3:05
Speaker 1: and even shooting, just to name a few. She was
3:08
Speaker 1: even a female self-defense consultant for quite a few years.
3:12
Speaker 1: As if that weren't enough, She's an accomplished public relations, communications,
3:17
Speaker 1: and project management executive co-founding multiple technology companies, working extensively
3:23
Speaker 1: in the field of human rights. She is very vocal
3:26
Speaker 1: these days about the array of head and neck injuries
3:29
Speaker 1: she's had since her youth on into young adulthood and
3:32
Speaker 1: the challenges she's had to overcome, including especially the prognosis
3:37
Speaker 1: of disability from her many doctors. Now, I'm sure you
3:40
Speaker 1: can tell just from her background here how acceptable these
3:43
Speaker 1: kind of apathetic outlooks were for her. And I can
3:46
Speaker 1: tell you, she didn't take any of it lying down.
3:50
Speaker 1: In fact, just the opposite. She got up and kicked ass.
3:54
Speaker 1: It wasn't easy, as you'll hear from her inspiring story
3:57
Speaker 1: of perseverance and belief in reaching and exceeding her goals,
4:01
Speaker 1: no matter what, and not allowing just recovering from injuries
4:05
Speaker 1: to become her life's work. This is the success story
4:09
Speaker 1: I wanted to bring to you, and we're going to
4:11
Speaker 1: discuss it all with her. So please welcome to Sporting
4:14
Speaker 1: Good Posture, Amanda Smith. Amanda, welcome to the show.
4:18
Speaker 3: Hey, Doc. Thanks so much for having me. It's an
4:20
Speaker 3: honor to be here.
4:22
Speaker 1: So I was speaking with Frank a while ago, and
4:24
Speaker 1: we thought you'd be a great guest. I actually started
4:27
Speaker 1: following you on Instagram just to kind of see some
4:29
Speaker 1: of your background, and there's a lot of cool things
4:32
Speaker 1: that you've done, and I want to get to some
4:34
Speaker 1: of those in a minute here. But I just wanted
4:36
Speaker 1: to ask you, I'm a chiropractor. I've worked with a
4:39
Speaker 1: lot of athletes over the years. And you had mentioned
4:42
Speaker 1: that you've had a long history of some injuries. Can
4:45
Speaker 1: you go into some of the things that's happened that
4:48
Speaker 1: you've dealt with?
4:49
Speaker 3: So my family is a bunch of wild Arizona cowboys
4:52
Speaker 3: just to get started, but they're also very athletic. My
4:55
Speaker 3: dad was a golden glove boxer. My mom's a black belt.
4:58
Speaker 3: My brother's a black belt. So we're just kind of
5:00
Speaker 3: the sporty, I don't know, rough and tumble part of
5:04
Speaker 3: the family. But My sports were always high adrenaline, and
5:08
Speaker 3: I actually ended up breaking my neck in gymnastics when
5:10
Speaker 3: I was eight years old.
5:11
Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
5:12
Speaker 3: And that kind of kicked it off. I actually ended
5:15
Speaker 3: up breaking C2, which is a big constriction on my
5:18
Speaker 3: spinal cord. But then I went on to the gentle
5:22
Speaker 3: sports of boxing and snowboarding. And of course, as an
5:26
Speaker 3: adrenaline junkie teenager, I was way too cool to wear
5:29
Speaker 3: a helmet when snowboarding. And we'd go like Mach 5
5:32
Speaker 3: down icy slopes in California.
5:34
Speaker 1: Yeah.
5:35
Speaker 3: Trail and black diamond runs and the whole thing. And unfortunately,
5:39
Speaker 3: I had two traumatic brain injuries from that pretty severe.
5:42
Speaker 3: The first when I was 15 and another in 2017.
5:46
Speaker 3: And then just boxing was my main sport. You know,
5:49
Speaker 3: along I do some jujitsu and Muay Thai and I've
5:51
Speaker 3: trained other disciplines. But the ones that we think I've had,
5:55
Speaker 3: I think I've also had 12 concussions. So concussions on
5:59
Speaker 3: top of TBIs or traumatic brain injuries. And, you know,
6:03
Speaker 3: I had multiple doctors saying that I should be fully disabled.
6:06
Speaker 3: And yet here I am.
6:07
Speaker 1: So we're talking about TBIs and things like that. Concussion
6:12
Speaker 1: is actually part of a TBI. And there's different levels
6:17
Speaker 1: of that. You can have something like a concussion and
6:20
Speaker 1: it can be mild, moderate to severe. But a TBI
6:24
Speaker 1: stands for a traumatic brain injury. It's damage to the
6:27
Speaker 1: brain caused by a sudden external force. So like a fall.
6:31
Speaker 1: or a blow to the head, jolt to the head
6:34
Speaker 1: or the body. Most people don't realize that a concussion
6:37
Speaker 1: actually falls into the TBI category because it can happen
6:42
Speaker 1: really with a fall, with a car crash, with a
6:45
Speaker 1: sports injury, martial arts or boxing that can happen during
6:48
Speaker 1: that as well. So that's kind of what we're talking
6:51
Speaker 1: about here. And we treat a lot of that in
6:52
Speaker 1: our office. I've seen that over the years. But Amanda,
6:57
Speaker 1: you've done the gamut of different sports and different martial
7:01
Speaker 1: arts and, you know, snowboarding and everything. That's pretty amazing
7:05
Speaker 1: to do all that. And then you even train people.
7:07
Speaker 1: So I admire that. I love sports. That's what got
7:10
Speaker 1: me into chiropractic. I started going to the chiropractor in
7:13
Speaker 1: high school when I was having some football injuries. So
7:16
Speaker 1: I'm a sports junkie too. I mean, but you really
7:18
Speaker 1: take it to the next level, even more so that
7:20
Speaker 1: I'm more of like the field sports and stuff. And
7:23
Speaker 1: you've kind of gone on to like the extreme sports,
7:25
Speaker 1: which is pretty cool.
7:27
Speaker 3: There's times, trust me, I wish I had chosen a
7:29
Speaker 3: different sport, but I mean, plenty of times. And no,
7:34
Speaker 3: thanks doc for, for chiming in on that as well,
7:36
Speaker 3: because I've had concussions and I've had two traumatic brain
7:40
Speaker 3: injuries and there were very severe differences between the two. Uh,
7:45
Speaker 3: just kind of as a notable thing, the first concussion
7:47
Speaker 3: that I had when I was 15 years old, I
7:50
Speaker 3: was racing my friend down and in California, the slopes were,
7:54
Speaker 3: melt during the day, freeze over at night, and they
7:56
Speaker 3: blow a little powder. So it looks like you've got snow,
7:58
Speaker 3: but it's really just a sheet of ice. And I'm
8:00
Speaker 3: racing for my shoulder. My board catches an edge and
8:04
Speaker 3: I just full motion, full send, slam the back of
8:07
Speaker 3: my head on ice. And I lost vision. I could
8:10
Speaker 3: not see for four hours.
8:13
Speaker 1: Oh my God.
8:13
Speaker 3: Could not see. And from that one on the MRIs
8:16
Speaker 3: and the CT scans, you know, they can see it
8:18
Speaker 3: was brain swelling, brain bleeding. I've got scar tissue up
8:23
Speaker 3: the back of my skull still to this day. Brain damage,
8:27
Speaker 3: I've got that. That's always a fun one to talk about.
8:29
Speaker 3: But after my second TBI, doing actually something pretty similar, snowboarding,
8:35
Speaker 3: I overshot a landing and it was icy and I
8:37
Speaker 3: hit the same part of the back of my skull.
8:41
Speaker 3: I believe they call it a compounding injury. And after
8:44
Speaker 3: that last head injury, I was having migraines like 20
8:47
Speaker 3: days a month.
8:48
Speaker 1: Whenever you have multiple concussions, It just kind of builds
8:53
Speaker 1: on the last one. So it gets typically worse and
8:55
Speaker 1: worse and then the symptoms linger longer and longer. So
8:59
Speaker 1: when you had all this stuff going on, what was
9:02
Speaker 1: kind of the route that you took to overcome some
9:04
Speaker 1: of these concussions and injuries and things that you've had?
9:08
Speaker 3: It was really quite a journey to be completely honest
9:11
Speaker 3: with you. I didn't really know where to start. So
9:13
Speaker 3: I started out going to just my regular medical doctor
9:17
Speaker 3: at the hospital and he did steroid injections in the
9:20
Speaker 3: back of my head. It seemed to relieve a little
9:22
Speaker 3: bit of the pain, but I was still having migraines.
9:25
Speaker 3: And at that time I was a public speaker and
9:27
Speaker 3: I would do lectures with these blue spots in front
9:30
Speaker 3: of my vision. And I couldn't really hear that well.
9:33
Speaker 3: Like there was a whole host of just struggles that
9:36
Speaker 3: I was having now almost on a daily basis. I mean,
9:38
Speaker 3: 20 migraines a month. Yeah. So I went into the
9:41
Speaker 3: hospital and they just kind of said, okay, well, you're
9:43
Speaker 3: having headaches. So here's some injections, slightly help. So I
9:47
Speaker 3: decided to switch over to the holistic side. I was
9:50
Speaker 3: doing vitamin IVs. I started really going to chiropractors, but
9:55
Speaker 3: they focused more on my neck and lower back and
9:58
Speaker 3: different areas, which really helped. For me, it was a
10:01
Speaker 3: whole combination of things. I mean, I can't say enough
10:04
Speaker 3: about chiropractic. And I say this almost on a daily basis.
10:08
Speaker 3: Anytime the subject comes up, I openly say, and it
10:11
Speaker 3: is completely the truth, that chiropractors have saved my life.
10:15
Speaker 3: There's no question in my mind. So thank you for
10:18
Speaker 3: what you're doing for all those crazy athletes like me.
10:21
Speaker 1: I love hearing that. And just to chime in, if
10:24
Speaker 1: you look now, all the major sports teams have a chiropractor.
10:28
Speaker 1: All the Olympic teams have like hundreds of chiropractors that
10:31
Speaker 1: go overseas to these events. So it's really become a
10:35
Speaker 1: big reason why the athletes are doing so well. And
10:38
Speaker 1: also there's actually the head of the Olympic medical team
10:42
Speaker 1: is actually a chiropractor. I don't know if people actually
10:44
Speaker 1: know that. And probably it was 10 or 15 years ago.
10:47
Speaker 1: that he became the head of the medical team. And
10:50
Speaker 1: I really feel like a lot of that's because they
10:52
Speaker 1: do the conservative route first. They do chiropractic, massage, stretching, PT, acupuncture.
10:59
Speaker 1: They really stay away from the injections. They really try
11:03
Speaker 1: to be more holistic. And I think it's kept those
11:05
Speaker 1: athletes in better shape and less injuries throughout their careers
11:09
Speaker 1: and then faster recovery, I feel like, when they've gotten
11:11
Speaker 1: the injuries. So I'm glad that you kind of went
11:14
Speaker 1: that route. But a lot of people don't realize that
11:16
Speaker 1: it's more mainstream now. So you had that C2 injury.
11:20
Speaker 1: You actually had a break in the C2, which is
11:23
Speaker 1: extremely traumatic. The C2, for people that don't know spinal structure,
11:28
Speaker 1: is the upper neck. So that's a very severe area
11:32
Speaker 1: to have an injury like that. It's very dangerous. It
11:35
Speaker 1: can even be life-threatening. It can cause paralysis. It can
11:38
Speaker 1: cause a lifetime of disabilities and hard to recover from
11:43
Speaker 1: in general. It seems like you've taken an integrative approach
11:48
Speaker 1: A lot of chiropractors are doing a more integrative approach
11:50
Speaker 1: as well, where not only are we doing spinal adjustments,
11:53
Speaker 1: but we're also doing different kinds of therapies that we've
11:57
Speaker 1: added on to the programs that we do. But as
11:59
Speaker 1: far as like that C2 injury, what specifically did you
12:03
Speaker 1: have to do for that? And how long did it
12:05
Speaker 1: take you to recover from that?
12:07
Speaker 3: Doc, you're going to be completely appalled at my answer.
12:12
Speaker 3: I'm older than you think, and we're just going to
12:14
Speaker 3: leave it at that. I'm not further. But we'll just
12:18
Speaker 3: say that the x-rays at that time really didn't show anything.
12:22
Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
12:23
Speaker 3: All of my MRIs and, you know, advanced scans clearly
12:27
Speaker 3: see a very severe obstruction of my spinal cord now
12:32
Speaker 3: at C2. So if you take your hand and put
12:34
Speaker 3: it in front of your face for a second and
12:36
Speaker 3: curl your fingers so that there's a hole, you know,
12:39
Speaker 3: your spinal cord is supposed to fit through the center
12:42
Speaker 3: of your vertebrae, like through that hole. because I was
12:45
Speaker 3: eight years old, my bones were still very much growing.
12:49
Speaker 3: When I broke C2, not only was it severe, but
12:53
Speaker 3: the bones grew like you're stepping on a hose. And
12:56
Speaker 3: the hose in this example is my spinal cord. The
13:00
Speaker 3: bone grew pinching off 70% of my spinal cord at C2.
13:05
Speaker 3: And then my body builds up a bit of a
13:07
Speaker 3: callus on my spinal cord. So it would prevent the
13:10
Speaker 3: rubbing on the bone there. And So on a perfect
13:13
Speaker 3: day where Miss Amanda has no spinal, which unfortunately I
13:18
Speaker 3: have a lot of that just from boxing, I have
13:21
Speaker 3: structurally the potential of 10% fluid flow to my brain.
13:25
Speaker 3: That's how severe it was. But at the time when
13:29
Speaker 3: I was eight years old, this is the part you're
13:31
Speaker 3: going to cringe at. I got a foam noodle neck support.
13:35
Speaker 1: Oh man.
13:36
Speaker 3: That's all. That is legit all. I had for six
13:40
Speaker 3: weeks or whatever because they didn't train it.
13:44
Speaker 1: And it's amazing to see where we've come from there.
13:47
Speaker 1: Now people, you get an injury like that, you'll be
13:50
Speaker 1: on a spinal board and they'll, you know, stabilize the
13:53
Speaker 1: head and strap you in place and everything. Wow. So
13:58
Speaker 1: it didn't really heal correctly, I guess. It did.
14:00
Speaker 3: It absolutely did not heal correctly. And if we use
14:03
Speaker 3: today's protocols of immobilizing the head, it potentially would have
14:08
Speaker 3: allowed the bone to grow back correctly. But it grew
14:12
Speaker 3: so deformed that it's constantly restricting fluid flow to my brain.
14:16
Speaker 3: And as we all can imagine, that's super important. That's
14:19
Speaker 3: nutrients to your brain, to your whole system. And it's
14:23
Speaker 3: funny because to be honest, I didn't even have an
14:25
Speaker 3: MRI that found that until 2021 when I was working
14:29
Speaker 3: with an upper cervical specialist. So I've had tons of x-rays, MRIs,
14:34
Speaker 3: CT scans, all the different things that you can peek
14:37
Speaker 3: into the body. But they would do it neck and
14:40
Speaker 3: they would do head. And they would always avoid where
14:44
Speaker 3: the two connected, where the brain connects to the spinal column.
14:50
Speaker 3: And so the first MRI that I had done on
14:52
Speaker 3: the upper cervical, it was clear as day, 70% restriction.
14:57
Speaker 3: from the bone, 20% from the callus, 10% potential fluid flow.
15:02
Speaker 3: And so you're totally correct. It's 100% an integrated system.
15:07
Speaker 3: It's the reason I'm walking and talking and alive, really.
15:11
Speaker 3: Anytime I start working with a new doctor, because I
15:14
Speaker 3: moved to Georgia about a year ago. And so anytime
15:17
Speaker 3: I have to switch doctors and they see my MRIs
15:19
Speaker 3: or x-rays and everything else, I hear different variations, but
15:24
Speaker 3: always very similar comments. It's amazing you're not in a wheelchair.
15:28
Speaker 3: It's amazing that you're not eating through a straw. I
15:32
Speaker 3: had one doctor who's the one who did that MRI
15:34
Speaker 3: that found the restriction. And she goes, honestly, I've only
15:37
Speaker 3: seen one MRI worse than yours. And she's in a
15:40
Speaker 3: full body cast. Those are the responses I get. And
15:46
Speaker 3: he mentioned red light therapy and nutrition or supplements. Those
15:50
Speaker 3: have all played a huge, I mean, just a huge
15:53
Speaker 3: role in my recovery. I love red light. I actually
15:56
Speaker 3: started doing that when I was doing Muay Thai. And
15:58
Speaker 3: if you've ever fought like that, trained like that, you
16:01
Speaker 3: wake up in the morning and every single square inch
16:03
Speaker 3: of your body is excruciating. And so I found red
16:07
Speaker 3: light to alleviate pain, which was amazing. But then I
16:11
Speaker 3: realized that I was more flexible. I was sleeping better
16:14
Speaker 3: and my neck was looser. So there's a lot of
16:16
Speaker 3: things that I've integrated along the way. But yeah, I
16:19
Speaker 3: had a foam noodle. And even on the MRIs, you
16:22
Speaker 3: can tell, you can see that I broke the tendons
16:24
Speaker 3: that hold the atlas. Like the break was that bad.
16:28
Speaker 1: Just to support your head with like a pool noodle
16:30
Speaker 1: is pretty crazy.
16:31
Speaker 3: Home things, just little Velcro strapping around your neck and
16:35
Speaker 3: you're good for school.
16:36
Speaker 1: Let's go, girl.
16:38
Speaker 3: It was rough.
16:39
Speaker 1: Yeah.
16:40
Speaker 3: You know, many years later, I mean, I was eight
16:42
Speaker 3: when I broke it. So I got into snowboarding when
16:44
Speaker 3: I was 13. I got into a really seriously got
16:47
Speaker 3: into boxing around 14. Yeah, concussions, they'll mess up your day.
16:51
Speaker 3: There's no question. From that, I've got instability in my neck.
16:55
Speaker 3: I think it's between vertebrae three and four, five and
16:58
Speaker 3: six and six and seven or whatever it is.
17:00
Speaker 1: There's typically like a chain reaction. And if people can
17:04
Speaker 1: relate to this, we all remember Christopher Reeves when he
17:07
Speaker 1: got that neck injury. And that's almost similar to kind
17:11
Speaker 1: of what you had, except for whatever reason has caused
17:13
Speaker 1: him the paralysis. You know, I look back to when
17:17
Speaker 1: I played a lot of sports. football, baseball, basketball, hockey, lacrosse,
17:23
Speaker 1: like all year round from the time I was like,
17:25
Speaker 1: you know, three or four years old to the time
17:27
Speaker 1: I graduated high school in competitive leagues. And I look
17:32
Speaker 1: back and, you know, now they say that basically anytime
17:35
Speaker 1: that you would hit, you know, if you played football
17:37
Speaker 1: and you hit somebody and you just kind of like
17:40
Speaker 1: see some stars for a second, even if you didn't
17:43
Speaker 1: get knocked out, technically it was a concussion. So I
17:47
Speaker 1: never had like a major, major concussion where I had
17:50
Speaker 1: headaches and, you know, the vision problems and the hearing
17:53
Speaker 1: issues with like loud sounds and stuff like that. But
17:56
Speaker 1: I probably had many concussions all the time. I was
17:59
Speaker 1: a running back. I was a receiver. I was a
18:00
Speaker 1: kick returner. I was a safety. So I played all
18:04
Speaker 1: the time. I was basically in on almost every play.
18:06
Speaker 1: I can only imagine the damage I had. And I'm
18:09
Speaker 1: lucky because I started going to the chiropractor in high school.
18:12
Speaker 1: It probably helped me through some of these little mini
18:14
Speaker 1: concussions I had really helped me along the way to
18:17
Speaker 1: stay healthy. You know, I'm around a lot of athletes
18:19
Speaker 1: now and I see how prevalent concussions are. My daughter
18:23
Speaker 1: plays volleyball and I've seen so many concussions over the
18:27
Speaker 1: last few years watching these kids play volleyball. And this is,
18:30
Speaker 1: you know, middle school and high school girls volleyball. There
18:33
Speaker 1: was multiple girls that I saw miss either half the
18:36
Speaker 1: year or the entire year from concussions that didn't heal.
18:39
Speaker 1: And not even like extreme things that happened, just like
18:43
Speaker 1: a ball hit them in the head or they dove
18:45
Speaker 1: and like hit their head in the ground. semi-traumatically, but
18:49
Speaker 1: nothing that you'd be like, oh my God, that's the
18:50
Speaker 1: worst thing I've ever seen. I feel like people don't
18:53
Speaker 1: realize the devastating effects that has as a middle school
18:57
Speaker 1: or high school athlete. And then it lingers on and
18:59
Speaker 1: on and on if nothing gets done with it. And
19:01
Speaker 1: I'm seeing these girls having multiple concussions again, like you
19:04
Speaker 1: said before, compounding the situation with those symptoms. It's definitely
19:09
Speaker 1: more prevalent than people realize. I don't always think that
19:12
Speaker 1: people know how to diagnose that or or realize what's
19:16
Speaker 1: going on and what to do about it afterwards.
19:18
Speaker 3: But one thing I really had to realize is that
19:21
Speaker 3: you cannot see a head injury. You know, if somebody's
19:25
Speaker 3: hurt their knee, they're going to limp. If somebody broke
19:28
Speaker 3: an arm, there was an arm cast, but you can look,
19:32
Speaker 3: especially when you've done, like I have, you know, years
19:35
Speaker 3: of martial arts training, you get a certain amount of
19:38
Speaker 3: I call it forced composure. They're in severe pain, but
19:42
Speaker 3: you're not, you're like focused and you're like, okay, I'm
19:44
Speaker 3: going to push through this. You definitely get some toughness
19:48
Speaker 3: from that kind of thing. But also I been a
19:50
Speaker 3: professional public speaker for years. And so, you know, you
19:53
Speaker 3: can push through a lot of things. So based on
19:57
Speaker 3: all of that, I was having focal or partial seizures
20:01
Speaker 3: daily for years and I didn't know what it was.
20:04
Speaker 1: That's so scary to hear that. Oh.
20:08
Speaker 3: It was absolutely horrific. So a focal or partial seizure
20:12
Speaker 3: is part of the brain. It's not a grand mal seizure.
20:15
Speaker 3: I'm not visibly convulsive. Couldn't see it. However, for me internally,
20:21
Speaker 3: I felt like I was losing control of my body.
20:24
Speaker 3: I had these weird jitters going on. I was losing
20:27
Speaker 3: my ability to see clearly, whether it was like blue
20:30
Speaker 3: spots in my vision. Or one of the scariest things
20:33
Speaker 3: I went through is if I looked at a pattern
20:35
Speaker 3: like someone's plaid shirt, the patterns would vibrate or, you know,
20:41
Speaker 3: wallpaper would shake. And so I'm seeing this stuff, you know,
20:46
Speaker 3: I had really bad vertigo at one point as well,
20:48
Speaker 3: but I also to this day still get numbness down
20:51
Speaker 3: the right side of my face from my ear all
20:53
Speaker 3: the way down to my chin, like all these different things.
20:57
Speaker 3: But to somebody else, I could be like, I'm not
20:59
Speaker 3: doing well. And they're like, yeah, I don't feel good either.
21:01
Speaker 3: I'm tired. Let's go to work. Like there was such
21:03
Speaker 3: a misunderstanding.
21:05
Speaker 1: Of, Yeah, they didn't understand the severity of it.
21:09
Speaker 3: No, and I really realized how little understanding there is
21:13
Speaker 3: because there were days I didn't know where I was. Honestly,
21:17
Speaker 3: could not remember that I just told you something two
21:20
Speaker 3: minutes ago. My memory was like completely falling apart. I
21:24
Speaker 3: felt like I was losing control of my body. And
21:26
Speaker 3: I finally did find out after I think it was
21:28
Speaker 3: like seven visits to USC that the emergency room there
21:32
Speaker 3: and special rehab center. We were doing EEGs over duration.
21:36
Speaker 3: They're like, without question, you're having seizures. That's pretty scary.
21:40
Speaker 3: But to anybody else on the external side, I was
21:42
Speaker 3: a public speaker. I was doing celebrity event announcing. I
21:45
Speaker 3: was doing all these things and I was able to
21:47
Speaker 3: keep enough composure where not a single soul in the
21:50
Speaker 3: room knew I was going through anything. It was horrifying though.
21:55
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it just goes to show, you know, you
21:59
Speaker 1: definitely have a lot of mental composure and just a
22:01
Speaker 1: high pain tolerance too. And I always tell a lot
22:04
Speaker 1: of women that come in the office, they'll tell me
22:07
Speaker 1: this stuff's going on. And I'm thinking, wow, like the
22:09
Speaker 1: pain should be, you know, a nine or a 10.
22:11
Speaker 1: And they're like, yeah, it's like a three. And I swear,
22:14
Speaker 1: like women in general, especially moms, just kind of like
22:18
Speaker 1: push that pain down and just put everybody ahead of
22:20
Speaker 1: themselves to just kind of plow through whatever they're doing
22:23
Speaker 1: and work or help with the family and the kids
22:25
Speaker 1: and stuff. You know, in your case too, that's extremely severe.
22:28
Speaker 1: So are you still having these kinds of symptoms or
22:32
Speaker 1: have they gotten better over the years with some of
22:34
Speaker 1: the treatments that you've been doing?
22:35
Speaker 3: Oh, it's night and day different. I mean, I do
22:38
Speaker 3: have what I call the episodes that kick in sometimes
22:41
Speaker 3: and I can tell what it is. If I feel
22:43
Speaker 3: jittery at all, I know I need to lay down.
22:46
Speaker 3: My schedule is high stress. I definitely like tackling big projects.
22:50
Speaker 3: And so I know the things to look for, but
22:54
Speaker 3: generally it's after sleep deprivation, just a crazy week with
22:58
Speaker 3: lots of events or this or that. I mean, there's
23:01
Speaker 3: days for work. I'm literally awake at 3am and out
23:03
Speaker 3: of the house at four and I'm not done till seven, eight,
23:06
Speaker 3: and then I have an event. So I run a
23:08
Speaker 3: little bit too hard, but for the most part, if
23:11
Speaker 3: I had any semblance of a normal schedule, I would
23:14
Speaker 3: say it's 70, 80% like fixed. So there were multiple
23:19
Speaker 3: different factors. Loud sounds can affect me at times when
23:23
Speaker 3: that's going on, the numbness kicks in. It's more annoying
23:25
Speaker 3: than anything. Now that I know what it is, I
23:27
Speaker 3: just kind of acknowledge it and keep going. And maybe
23:29
Speaker 3: a comment on us, you know, tough women out there
23:32
Speaker 3: that are not acknowledging the pain. It's not that we
23:35
Speaker 3: don't feel it, but what am I going to do?
23:37
Speaker 3: You know, complain every single day or be totally thankful
23:41
Speaker 3: that I'm here and alive and that chiropractors exist. And y'all,
23:44
Speaker 3: I see my chiropractor every week.
23:46
Speaker 1: That's awesome. I love that.
23:49
Speaker 3: Yeah. I'm not, I'm not actively right now boxing. The
23:52
Speaker 3: last time I went, I was just training, but it
23:54
Speaker 3: was a new partner who did exactly what he's supposed
23:56
Speaker 3: to do, which is to push, right? We had a
23:58
Speaker 3: new coach. He's phenomenal. And I felt a ting in
24:01
Speaker 3: my left shoulder while we were training and I pushed
24:05
Speaker 3: through it. But by the end of it, I couldn't
24:06
Speaker 3: lift my right arm. And so there are times I'll
24:09
Speaker 3: take a slight break from one of my sports, go
24:12
Speaker 3: back and kind of do some more things. But I'd
24:15
Speaker 3: say 70, 80% completely fixed. But I had to rebalance
24:20
Speaker 3: my gut. People don't realize the amount of neurotransmitters you
24:23
Speaker 3: have in your stomach is more and it can actually
24:25
Speaker 3: overload your brain even more than the brain typically can
24:28
Speaker 3: from what I understand.
24:30
Speaker 1: There is a big link to how the gut and
24:33
Speaker 1: the microbiome and your digestive tract affects your brain. It
24:37
Speaker 1: can cause brain fog, mental fatigue, memory loss, forgetfulness. There
24:42
Speaker 1: is a big link to that. You being aware of
24:45
Speaker 1: that will help you with some of your symptoms. And
24:48
Speaker 1: my wife's had some dealings with seizures over the years.
24:52
Speaker 1: I really feel like chiropractic's helped her where she's really
24:56
Speaker 1: symptom free now and she hasn't had a seizure in
24:58
Speaker 1: like 15 years or so. Wow. But she had like
25:01
Speaker 1: what you were saying too, like the light would kind
25:04
Speaker 1: of set it off, especially like sleep deprivation would set
25:08
Speaker 1: it off. And she had those little mild seizures, like
25:11
Speaker 1: where she'd kind of black out for a second or
25:14
Speaker 1: her hand would just twitch real quick. but you wouldn't
25:17
Speaker 1: have a grand mal seizure. People don't always realize that
25:19
Speaker 1: that's considered a seizure too.
25:22
Speaker 3: And I've had those as well. I mean, one day
25:24
Speaker 3: I was getting my nails done and the girl, I
25:26
Speaker 3: just had really sharp stomach pains this day. And this
25:30
Speaker 3: is before I knew anything of really what was going on,
25:32
Speaker 3: but I was having focal and partial seizures constantly. And
25:35
Speaker 3: I was just like, man, I've had some head injuries.
25:37
Speaker 3: Like it's part of the game.
25:38
Speaker 1: Yeah.
25:40
Speaker 3: One time I'm in the nail salon and literally the
25:42
Speaker 3: woman keeps going, relax. And I'm like, what is she
25:44
Speaker 3: talking about? And I looked down and my hands are,
25:47
Speaker 3: fingers are all touching, both hands. And my hand was
25:51
Speaker 3: as stiff as a board and I could not open them,
25:54
Speaker 3: could not control my hands. They were like totally frozen,
25:57
Speaker 3: paralyzed is what it felt like. So I was having
25:59
Speaker 3: a seizure there and I didn't even realize it until
26:01
Speaker 3: years later. There was a chiropractor that I worked with.
26:05
Speaker 3: He recommended a keto diet. gut balancing, obviously lots of
26:09
Speaker 3: nutrition supplement recommendations. We were doing decompression on the neck,
26:13
Speaker 3: which helped out tremendously, traction, red light therapy, physical therapy, massage,
26:20
Speaker 3: like all these things together. And over the years, I've
26:23
Speaker 3: really figured out the things that make so much sense
26:25
Speaker 3: to me. And consistency is going to be key. I
26:28
Speaker 3: look at it every single day that I'm lucky to
26:31
Speaker 3: be alive, truly so blessed.
26:34
Speaker 1: Yeah.
26:34
Speaker 3: I mean, I can look at it and be like,
26:35
Speaker 3: I'm in pain. I can't do this, but why not
26:37
Speaker 3: look at that positive side? But trust me, if I'm
26:40
Speaker 3: having a rough day, the chiropractor is honestly the first
26:43
Speaker 3: person I call. And they know, they sometimes will see
26:45
Speaker 3: me three times a week, depends on what sport I'm doing.
26:48
Speaker 3: And they just know they're going to piece me back together.
26:51
Speaker 3: And I mean, I just, I, when I said, when
26:53
Speaker 3: we started this, that I'm truly honored to be speaking
26:55
Speaker 3: with you, I really mean that from the bottom of
26:57
Speaker 3: my heart, because I was told by a neurologists, by
27:01
Speaker 3: other medical doctors and different things that I would be
27:04
Speaker 3: fully disabled and prepare for that. And I'm like, when
27:07
Speaker 3: they told me they wanted me to get an extra
27:10
Speaker 3: eight hours of sleep a day. And I was like, yeah,
27:12
Speaker 3: no problem. I'm already sleeping as they told me to
27:15
Speaker 3: 10 hours a night. I'm like, well, that'll be fine.
27:18
Speaker 3: They're like, no, you're not understanding. Like in the middle
27:20
Speaker 3: of all this stuff, they wanted me to get 18
27:22
Speaker 3: hours of sleep a day. Jeez. Yeah. It was bad.
27:27
Speaker 3: So there are times we have to like abort mission,
27:29
Speaker 3: stop doing other things, take care of the body. I
27:33
Speaker 3: did a super severe diet, all the nutrition. I did
27:36
Speaker 3: everything my doctor said I needed to do on the integrated,
27:40
Speaker 3: holistic chiropractic side of things. All the other doctors, all
27:44
Speaker 3: they were saying is you're screwed. You're going to be disabled.
27:47
Speaker 3: Take tons of drugs that really have so many side
27:50
Speaker 3: effects as they love to call them. But they're really
27:53
Speaker 3: effects of the drug that were horrific. The one thing
27:56
Speaker 3: I can say is just use common sense. If it
27:58
Speaker 3: makes sense, do it. But if it doesn't make sense,
28:01
Speaker 3: don't do it. There are solutions. Chiropractic is my key
28:05
Speaker 3: thing that saved my life. And I'm over here doing
28:09
Speaker 3: big things. Nobody in the world would know that I'm
28:13
Speaker 3: in a corporate seat communicating all day. Nobody would know
28:16
Speaker 3: that I have had multiple head injuries, traumatic brain injuries, concussions,
28:21
Speaker 3: and the whole thing. Because I stack up using that
28:24
Speaker 3: integrative approach.
28:27
Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad you've been so aware to expand on
28:30
Speaker 1: the things that you've done. Because in most cases, it
28:34
Speaker 1: does take more than just one thing to fix it.
28:36
Speaker 1: But at the same time, you have to know the
28:39
Speaker 1: true cause of the problem. You have to know where
28:41
Speaker 1: it's coming from. And until you had those images later
28:45
Speaker 1: on that you really knew how much restriction there was
28:48
Speaker 1: at the C2 up top and and how much damage
28:50
Speaker 1: it really was. So you could actually get to the
28:52
Speaker 1: cause of, okay, this is where it's really stemming from.
28:55
Speaker 1: I have to get the pressure off of here. Like
28:57
Speaker 1: you said, it's like, yeah, if you parked your car
28:59
Speaker 1: on the hose, like you literally lose the flow of
29:02
Speaker 1: the water out of the other end. So that's kind
29:04
Speaker 1: of what's happening. So if you remove that interference, that's
29:07
Speaker 1: exactly where you can get that relief from.
29:10
Speaker 3: Exactly. And I think a big key was, you know,
29:12
Speaker 3: we got to look at the diet side of things.
29:15
Speaker 3: For me, this was in my whole adventures of trying
29:18
Speaker 3: to stay alive and have some semblance of quality of life.
29:23
Speaker 3: I mean, I've read so many different articles and books
29:25
Speaker 3: and things about inflammation, food allergies. And you know what
29:29
Speaker 3: I'm allergic to? Corn.
29:31
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. Surprisingly, it actually is a very inflammatory food.
29:37
Speaker 1: The other thing that a lot of people don't realize...
29:40
Speaker 1: is like dairy, even if you're not full-blown like lactose
29:44
Speaker 1: intolerant or have like IBS or something, for most people
29:47
Speaker 1: does inflame your body and your joints and your digestive tract.
29:52
Speaker 1: A lot of people really don't realize that that's affecting
29:55
Speaker 1: their total body inflammation that they're dealing with.
29:57
Speaker 3: It's massive. And I can look back at photos and
30:01
Speaker 3: I can tell by looking at a photo of me
30:04
Speaker 3: if I had corn a few days before it because
30:06
Speaker 3: I look puffy.
30:08
Speaker 1: Yep.
30:08
Speaker 3: Like now I know it. And so when I really
30:11
Speaker 3: figured that out, I was like, oh, my gosh. OK,
30:13
Speaker 3: so I cut corn out of my diet and there's
30:16
Speaker 3: cornstarch and corn syrup in it. Legitimately everything. Yep. You
30:21
Speaker 3: got to watch what you eat and drink. And so
30:24
Speaker 3: just cutting that out, cut out a huge percentage of
30:28
Speaker 3: my pain. Because I would wake up some mornings and
30:30
Speaker 3: my neck would be legitimately frozen. I don't know if
30:33
Speaker 3: you've ever had this happen where you move your head
30:36
Speaker 3: too fast, like move your neck too quick. And it
30:37
Speaker 3: feels like the muscles like roll and freeze. And you're
30:41
Speaker 3: like Stepford Wife or you're Batman. You cannot move your neck.
30:46
Speaker 3: You can only move your whole torso. I was waking
30:50
Speaker 3: up like that so many mornings where I literally couldn't
30:53
Speaker 3: stand the amount of pain. So I wouldn't move. And
30:55
Speaker 3: I just had tears rolling down my cheeks. It hurts
30:58
Speaker 3: so bad. Turns out that was because I ate corn.
31:02
Speaker 3: That's how severe my corn reaction was. And so I'm
31:07
Speaker 3: happily not eating corn these days.
31:10
Speaker 1: So Amanda, you mentioned about quality of life now. So
31:13
Speaker 1: what would you say it's like now with all the
31:15
Speaker 1: sports that you're doing compared to what it was before?
31:19
Speaker 1: How would you say you've progressed through all that?
31:22
Speaker 3: I would say my quality of life today is really
31:25
Speaker 3: better than it's ever been. I can't say it's been
31:28
Speaker 3: an easy road. But every single aspect of it has
31:32
Speaker 3: been 100% worth it. I'm kind of on the taller side.
31:37
Speaker 3: Most of the girls in my family are like 5'1
31:38
Speaker 3: to 5'3. I'm 5'8, but I'm still very petite. So
31:42
Speaker 3: I'm like a small human that you've stretched out a
31:44
Speaker 3: little bit. And I'm lifting heavy. I'm focused heavily on
31:49
Speaker 3: legs and core these days. I think I'm up to
31:52
Speaker 3: doing the squat or the inverted leg press up to
31:54
Speaker 3: 390 now. That's impressive. Thank you. Thank you. Especially because
31:59
Speaker 3: I'm such a young little whippersnapper. Again, won't say my age,
32:03
Speaker 3: but no, but I do. I feel stronger than I've
32:08
Speaker 3: ever been. I sleep well. I constantly get comments from people.
32:12
Speaker 3: They're like, we don't know how you do what you do.
32:14
Speaker 3: Just meaning maintaining my schedule and work and all these
32:16
Speaker 3: different things. And so I was able to fully regain
32:20
Speaker 3: a quality of life that I was looking for. I
32:23
Speaker 3: love to travel. I get to do quite a bit
32:24
Speaker 3: of it. I do well. I'm successful in all ways.
32:29
Speaker 3: I've regained my ability to focus and think and have
32:31
Speaker 3: a good memory and I talk for a living. These
32:34
Speaker 3: are all things that the doctors had said were going
32:36
Speaker 3: to be impossible and that I needed to prepare for
32:39
Speaker 3: being disabled. The doctors at that time basically said they
32:42
Speaker 3: wanted me to lay around on the couch to take
32:45
Speaker 3: it easy and to almost accept that I was kind
32:50
Speaker 3: of doomed. And I'm so thankful that I've got that
32:53
Speaker 3: fighter spirit.
32:54
Speaker 1: Cause to me, I was like, no, that would have
32:56
Speaker 1: been terrible advice to, yeah. I'm so glad you didn't
32:59
Speaker 1: listen to them.
33:00
Speaker 3: That's what they were telling me. Take this drug and
33:03
Speaker 3: just get used to it. And I'm so thankful for
33:06
Speaker 3: there's a specific chiropractor who I told what was going on.
33:09
Speaker 3: I said, can you help me? And he goes, I'm
33:11
Speaker 3: going to try. I think so. And he was the
33:14
Speaker 3: one who balanced the gut with me and did so
33:17
Speaker 3: many different things. And that was the turning point of
33:20
Speaker 3: one thing I love about the integrative and holistic approach
33:22
Speaker 3: is there is hope for fixing things where I haven't
33:26
Speaker 3: experienced the same optimism in other realms. But what I
33:30
Speaker 3: did at that time, I did everything my doctor said.
33:34
Speaker 3: I did it to a T and I started doing
33:37
Speaker 3: sprints and weightlifting and got back to the dojo. So
33:41
Speaker 3: I consistently worked on getting stronger and healthier. And if
33:47
Speaker 3: I didn't do that, I probably would have been disabled
33:49
Speaker 3: without question. So it was an interesting turn of events.
33:53
Speaker 3: But I really think that it starts with that realization
33:56
Speaker 3: that help is possible. Just because you have something going
34:00
Speaker 3: on right now does not mean that you're cursed for
34:02
Speaker 3: the rest of your life. It might take some hard work,
34:05
Speaker 3: but it is so completely worth it. And working with,
34:10
Speaker 3: I mean, doctors like you is the reason that I'm
34:13
Speaker 3: alive and here today.
34:14
Speaker 1: I appreciate you saying that. And I feel the same way.
34:18
Speaker 1: I haven't had the same, you know, extreme injuries that
34:22
Speaker 1: you have, but I just feel being a chiropractor and
34:25
Speaker 1: having access to just the knowledge that I've gained over
34:30
Speaker 1: the years, it's helped me overcome some injuries I've had
34:34
Speaker 1: playing sports over the years and just having the physical
34:36
Speaker 1: job of being a chiropractor so I can be able
34:38
Speaker 1: to help these people and recover my body. I really
34:42
Speaker 1: found that it's the best way. Honestly, if I hadn't
34:46
Speaker 1: gone the chiropractic route 25 years ago when I was
34:48
Speaker 1: in high school, through now, I probably would have needed
34:52
Speaker 1: back surgery because of some of the back problems I
34:54
Speaker 1: had even in high school and into college from playing
34:57
Speaker 1: sports and stuff. If I had gone a different route
35:01
Speaker 1: that I would have major restrictions and major problems, and
35:04
Speaker 1: maybe I wouldn't even be a chiropractor right now because
35:06
Speaker 1: my body may have failed me at this point.
35:08
Speaker 3: There's no question. If I didn't work with chiropractors and
35:11
Speaker 3: integrated medicine, as I have, there would have been zero
35:15
Speaker 3: chance that I could think and talk for a living.
35:18
Speaker 3: and run a crazy schedule like I do. I run teams,
35:21
Speaker 3: you know, I used to build and run teams around
35:22
Speaker 3: the world. Now I'm doing it locally. And I really
35:26
Speaker 3: would not, I don't even know what I would have done.
35:28
Speaker 3: I mean, I maybe would have been selling like plants
35:30
Speaker 3: on the side of the road because I love plants,
35:31
Speaker 3: but I mean, I would not be doing what I'm
35:34
Speaker 3: doing today if I had not followed the integrated, you know, route.
35:40
Speaker 3: I've never had a single surgery. I was lucky to
35:43
Speaker 3: have chiropractors like yourself that worked on the structural integrity
35:47
Speaker 3: of the body. Because really at the end of the day,
35:50
Speaker 3: if your nervous system is like totally tweaked out, the
35:53
Speaker 3: way I describe having one of those seizures is like,
35:56
Speaker 3: if you've ever tried to have a phone call with
35:58
Speaker 3: a person that's about something urgent and the phone line
36:01
Speaker 3: is cutting out. Yeah. Imagine that being the communication with
36:06
Speaker 3: your body. And that is really at the end of
36:09
Speaker 3: the day, what it is. Why can't I see? Why
36:11
Speaker 3: can't I hear? what the heck is going on? Like
36:14
Speaker 3: there's a glitch in communication and chiropractic is, and the
36:19
Speaker 3: integrated approach, the holistic side of things, rebalancing things. It's,
36:24
Speaker 3: it's real solutions. That's what I always refer to it as.
36:27
Speaker 3: I'm not putting a bandaid on it, but if you
36:29
Speaker 3: actually do the work to get something fixed and reset,
36:33
Speaker 3: that thing is now fixed. And that's what I see
36:36
Speaker 3: in your industry is there's truly the ability and the
36:39
Speaker 3: technology today to fix things and where it's no longer
36:43
Speaker 3: going to be a problem in the future. And I
36:46
Speaker 3: just hope everybody takes that time to really kind of
36:50
Speaker 3: digest the power of that. Because I know a lot
36:52
Speaker 3: of people who are living in constant pain and they're
36:54
Speaker 3: very unhappy. So thank you again for this opportunity to
36:58
Speaker 3: be here and to share my story and to hopefully
37:00
Speaker 3: contribute to more people coming into using your services. Because
37:04
Speaker 3: I mean, you truly save lives, quality of life, no question.
37:07
Speaker 1: Amanda, that's an amazing story that you shared today and
37:11
Speaker 1: thinking about There's probably 20 to 30 plus years of
37:14
Speaker 1: you going through all this, starting as a kid through now.
37:17
Speaker 1: And I just admire your strength and your passion to
37:20
Speaker 1: really find the root cause of the problem and not
37:23
Speaker 1: accept when doctors said, well, you're just going to be
37:27
Speaker 1: laying around the rest of your life. You're not going
37:29
Speaker 1: to live life to the fullest. And you just took
37:32
Speaker 1: that and said, no, that's not what I'm going to do.
37:34
Speaker 1: And you went after it. You decided, hey, I'm going
37:37
Speaker 1: to find a way to fix this. I'm going to
37:39
Speaker 1: find a way to be productive. to be happy, to
37:43
Speaker 1: be able to do the things I wanted to do
37:45
Speaker 1: and find a way to overcome these issues and live
37:49
Speaker 1: a normal life now as somebody where they told you
37:52
Speaker 1: that you probably wouldn't. I mean, it's just a testament
37:54
Speaker 1: to you of the work you've put in and just
37:58
Speaker 1: the belief that you could heal. And I think that's
38:00
Speaker 1: part of it too, is that no matter what the age,
38:03
Speaker 1: I feel like people don't always think their body can heal,
38:06
Speaker 1: but it really can. And the fact that you stayed
38:09
Speaker 1: after it all these years and you were so passionate
38:12
Speaker 1: about healing that your body followed because your mind as
38:16
Speaker 1: well knew that you could do it. And you willed
38:18
Speaker 1: yourself through a lot of this, but you also found
38:22
Speaker 1: the right combination of things to get you there. And
38:25
Speaker 1: you going after the cause of the problem, finding the
38:28
Speaker 1: right integrative approach and working with chiropractors and nutritionists and massage, acupuncture,
38:33
Speaker 1: all those things that you've done over the years and PT.
38:36
Speaker 1: I really think that you've done the max that you
38:39
Speaker 1: could have done to get you to the point you are.
38:42
Speaker 1: to fix something like that, 70, 80% of where it
38:45
Speaker 1: was is incredible because some people just never even progressed
38:50
Speaker 1: past that point that you were at at eight years old.
38:52
Speaker 1: So it's really a testament to you of how far
38:55
Speaker 1: you've come and the passion that you've had to get there.
38:58
Speaker 3: Thank you. I appreciate that so much. And I mean,
39:01
Speaker 3: I truly, I could not, and I say this with
39:04
Speaker 3: my whole heart, I could not have done it without
39:06
Speaker 3: you guys. There's a mentality that comes with the chiropractic industry,
39:12
Speaker 3: that you can do something about it. And truly, you
39:15
Speaker 3: guys were the ones that instilled, oh my gosh, I'm
39:18
Speaker 3: going to get emotional. The thanks is to you. You
39:21
Speaker 3: guys did the hard work to learn it and care.
39:26
Speaker 3: Thank you.
39:27
Speaker 1: Thank you. That's how me and I know so many
39:31
Speaker 1: other chiropractors approach our day-to-day activities with our patients is
39:35
Speaker 1: that we really want the best for them. We want
39:37
Speaker 1: everyone to live life to the fullest. I always tell patients,
39:40
Speaker 1: my grandma lived to be 104 years old and didn't
39:44
Speaker 1: take drugs. And, and, you know, her mind was there
39:47
Speaker 1: at an older age and, she was walking and she
39:49
Speaker 1: was keeping her mind active. She always read. So I
39:52
Speaker 1: feel like if more people did those basic things and keep,
39:57
Speaker 1: you know, she said, always keep your legs moving and
39:59
Speaker 1: everything in moderation was the key to living a long life.
40:02
Speaker 1: And she was very holistic in her approach too. So
40:05
Speaker 1: I do think that plays a big role in, in longevity.
40:09
Speaker 1: And I think people always think, Oh, it's my genetics. Well,
40:13
Speaker 1: really 80% of your lifestyle is what dictates how well
40:17
Speaker 1: you're going to be healthy. it's only about 20% is
40:20
Speaker 1: related to genetics. So you do have a lot of
40:22
Speaker 1: control of what your life will be at an.
40:25
Speaker 4: Older age and how you can age. You can either
40:28
Speaker 4: age gracefully or not. You really do have a lot
40:31
Speaker 4: of control of how that's going to happen. And 80%
40:34
Speaker 4: of it really is your lifestyle.
40:37
Speaker 1: 100%. Well, Amanda, again, thank you for sharing all this
40:41
Speaker 1: history of your life and all the things you've been through.
40:44
Speaker 1: And it's very emotional to For me as well to
40:47
Speaker 1: hear you going through all this and to think about
40:50
Speaker 1: where you started at and where you've come to. My
40:53
Speaker 1: dad always says, it's not how you start, it's how
40:54
Speaker 1: you finish. It's really a testament to you of where
40:58
Speaker 1: you're at now because of your resilience.
41:01
Speaker 3: Well, thank you. And I do mean exactly what I said.
41:03
Speaker 3: Like if I didn't have hope from the chiropractic industry,
41:07
Speaker 3: if I just listened to the other and didn't go, no,
41:10
Speaker 3: I don't agree with that and find you guys, I
41:13
Speaker 3: would have been a vegetable. I would have. Bye guys.
41:17
Speaker 1: Bye. Thanks. You know, it's interesting to me how probably
41:21
Speaker 1: the most major takeaway from Amanda's story is an education
41:25
Speaker 1: on injuries people don't know they have. The nature of
41:28
Speaker 1: those injuries or even how to overcome them. It's so
41:31
Speaker 1: easy to shut your life and plans and goals down
41:35
Speaker 1: when faced with these kind of insurmountable barriers and have
41:38
Speaker 1: your life become about them where it was about so
41:41
Speaker 1: much more beforehand. Amanda didn't go into injury fight mode.
41:46
Speaker 1: She was already a fighter and an ass kicker in
41:48
Speaker 1: life with plans and dreams and big goals, and she
41:52
Speaker 1: never lost sight of these throughout all of it. She
41:54
Speaker 1: just looked at her major injuries as part of her goals.
41:57
Speaker 1: I think that's important. So many people let pain and injuries,
42:01
Speaker 1: even the minor ones, take over their life, and their
42:04
Speaker 1: goals and plans become the fighting or living with their
42:07
Speaker 1: health conditions. Just that alone is probably one of the
42:11
Speaker 1: most major takeaways. In looking at her story and condition,
42:16
Speaker 1: even from a doctor's standpoint of expertise, I would say
42:19
Speaker 1: this was the driving factor and might have been the
42:22
Speaker 1: most important element. But you should realize also, and another
42:27
Speaker 1: important takeaway, that these injuries can have such minor or
42:30
Speaker 1: delayed symptoms that you don't even realize you have them
42:33
Speaker 1: until it's years later, or maybe never. And later in
42:37
Speaker 1: life is where I usually catch them. Perhaps the greatest
42:41
Speaker 1: takeaway of all is that medicine has become more isolated
42:44
Speaker 1: and not so integrated. But Amanda chose to integrate her
42:48
Speaker 1: approach to heal her injuries. This is what I believe
42:52
Speaker 1: in for an approach to medicine, that doctors should be
42:55
Speaker 1: working together to treat injuries to improve patients' health. That's
43:00
Speaker 1: really the wave of the future. Now you have the
43:03
Speaker 1: reason I host this show, why I went to school
43:05
Speaker 1: to become a doctor of chiropractic and not pursue athletics.
43:10
Speaker 1: It's all toward getting people to reach their goals and
43:13
Speaker 1: perform at their optimum. My purpose isn't to fight injuries,
43:18
Speaker 1: but to maximize performance and get people to tap their
43:21
Speaker 1: natural potential, one that nature provided for them and they
43:25
Speaker 1: never realized. Treating injuries is only incidental to that. Look,
43:31
Speaker 1: the bottom line is I'm here for you. I brought
43:34
Speaker 1: Amanda here to inspire you. I'm grateful to her because
43:38
Speaker 1: she inspired me. and I had a few realizations about
43:41
Speaker 1: who I am and what I do, or at least
43:44
Speaker 1: reaffirmations of what I set out to do. So many
43:48
Speaker 1: thanks to Amanda for being here to do that for
43:51
Speaker 1: you and me. As for you, what can you do? Well,
43:56
Speaker 1: if you suspect anything about your own condition after hearing this,
44:00
Speaker 1: you may be looking at your back or neck issues
44:03
Speaker 1: a little differently. I suggest you look at your history
44:05
Speaker 1: of injuries or even small bumps, tumbles, or whatever. In
44:10
Speaker 1: all of this, remember one thing. The coach's door is
44:15
Speaker 1: always open. If you have anything you want to ask,
44:18
Speaker 1: reach out to me. DM me on Instagram or Facebook
44:22
Speaker 1: at Ideal Health Wellness Center. Tell me what's going on
44:26
Speaker 1: and I'll tell you what I think. Please do share
44:29
Speaker 1: this episode with anyone you know that needs to hear it.
44:32
Speaker 1: And on behalf of me and my guest Amanda, thank
44:35
Speaker 1: you for listening. This is Coach Frank. I'm sporting good
44:39
Speaker 1: posture and crushing my goals. How about you?
44:43
Speaker 2: The Sporting Good Posture Podcast is a broadcast wellness production
44:47
Speaker 2: powered by Ideal Health Wellness Center. All content copyright 2021.
44:52
Speaker 2: Executive producer, Frank Sardella. Coach Frank appears courtesy of Ideal
44:57
Speaker 2: Health Wellness Center in Franklin. For more information, visit SportingGoodPosture.com
45:02
Speaker 2: and follow Coach on Instagram at Sporting Good Posture.
45:06
Speaker 1: Before the acknowledgement, Amanda, first of all, I want to
45:08
Speaker 1: do this in front of you. Frank, you're fired. Amanda,
45:11
Speaker 1: you're hired.
45:12
Speaker 3: Hey, Frank.
45:15
Speaker 1: Frank, I want to introduce you to the new host
45:17
Speaker 1: of your show.
45:18
Speaker 3: Hiya, Sardegna. Come on now. Hey, guys, I knew this
45:25
Speaker 3: was going to happen. I told you I'd have your
45:27
Speaker 3: backs on this.
45:29
Speaker 1: No, I appreciate that. This has been awesome.