Dr. Cade and Coach Cason explain how to support your lungs from new exposure to mental, chemical, and physical stress brought on by Hurricane Ian.

Interested in an appointment? We offer a FREE 15-Minute Consult! Call 239-774-5433 to schedule.

Transcript

00;00;00;01 - 00;00;20;23

Dr. Cade

Hey, you guys. My name is Dr. Cade and I'm sitting here with Coach Cason. And, you know, again, our condolences. Our heart goes out to our community here in southwest Florida. But what we want to do is, of course, try to give back. So today we're going to be talking about lung health. And of course, when we talk about lung health in regards to what everybody's going through right now, we're going to look through a lens of stress.

00;00;20;23 - 00;00;41;17

Dr. Cade

Right? And so the way that we looked at at that in the chiropractic world and here at LIFEstrength Health Center stress is broken down into mental, chemical and physical. And so, please, when you're thinking about all this stuff, you got to make sure that we're addressing all avenues there of stress, how your body's responding, how to minimize that and how to get through it and heal the right way so that none of this stuff turns into a bigger thing that chases us through the rest of life.

00;00;41;17 - 00;00;58;12

Dr. Cade

Right? So again, we're going to talk about lung health. And so you want to jump into things a little bit. Be careful because this might cause more stress and why it's good for, you know, mold is a big thing down here. Of course, we live in Florida and it's just kind of not a matter if. It's a matter of when.

00;00;58;12 - 00;01;16;08

Dr. Cade

We're kind of exposed to mold or we have it growing in our house. But of course, due to the hurricane and things being what, you know, it's going to be a bigger thing. So if you want to learn more, there's an awesome documentary by Bulletproof Coffee guy David Asprey. It's called Moldy and it should be available. You know, if you use Dr. Google, you'll find moldy out there.

00;01;16;20 - 00;01;38;29

Dr. Cade

But it's pretty amazing because mold is literally linked to everything out there. It's kind of just like a lime where it can mimic a lot of symptoms and a lot of other diseases like autoimmune, neurological stuff, headaches, aches, pains, skin stuff, gut stuff. I mean, pretty much everything, right? Even even some mental things like depression, anxiety, ADD and insomnia. Link to pretty much everything.

00;01;38;29 - 00;01;58;15

Dr. Cade

So if you want to, you know, just make sure that you're learning a little bit more. The Moldy documentary's a great place and there's also lots of tips in there and how to make sure that you're taking care of mold the right way. If you are potentially experiencing that in your place. So let's jump through what I want to focus on today is the, I guess, more the physical/chemical aspects of stress and how that relates to lung health.

00;01;58;15 - 00;02;22;06

Dr. Cade

So let's just start jumping through. And the biggest one that we want to talk about is minimizing new exposure. Right? And again, whether that's mold, whether that's the drywall particulate, whether it's, you know, stuff from the attic, whether it's the stuff that the water and the storm brought in from the water and from the trees and minimizing your exposure to new issues, new problems.

00;02;22;06 - 00;02;37;25

Dr. Cade

New chemicals. There you go. Is a big one. So inside, do your best to wear a respirator if you can. If you can get your hands on a respirator if you're cutting drywall out in the house. We were just over at grandpa's house this past weekend, my father in law. And we had to cut about two feet of the drywall off.

00;02;37;25 - 00;02;40;14

Dr. Cade

And, I mean, we were following with a…

00;02;41;05 - 00;02;41;14

Coach Cason

With a shop vac.

00;02;41;27 - 00;02;57;22

Dr. Cade

With a shop vac to try to minimize. But I mean, it just gets everywhere and you're breathing it in. And of course, that's a chemical toxic stress that your body has to deal with. So if you can use a ventilator, respirator, I think that would be great, if not a mask, if not, use a ventilator system in your home.

00;02;57;22 - 00;03;14;15

Dr. Cade

And so one of our favorites is the AirDoctor Pro. If you get your hands on the vents, you know, in your air handler or the filters in your air handler, you know, a MERV 8, MERV 10 or MERV 12, 13. The higher that you can go, the smaller of a particulate that it's going to pick up and minimize that from recirculating in the air.

00;03;15;09 - 00;03;17;06

Dr. Cade

Any other ones that are missing there may be ozone.

00;03;17;07 - 00;03;21;19

Coach Cason

Yeah, the ozone. I don't know if you want to tell him. What, MERV 8 and 10 and what that means...

00;03;21;26 - 00;03;23;02

Dr. Cade

Go ahead. Go ahead.

00;03;23;02 - 00;03;25;24

Coach Cason

I actually don't know. I'm I'm wanting to know.

00;03;25;24 - 00;03;45;04

Dr. Cade

So I believe that's the rating, right? Of what's captured in those filters. And again, the higher the rating on that, MERV, the smaller, if you will, like of a mesh that the particulate can get through. So we've all seen some of those big they're almost like plastic spaghetti looking things. And those are going to maybe stop leaves from getting through, you know, into your vents and into your air handler.

00;03;45;04 - 00;04;04;24

Dr. Cade

But again, like a MERV, I believe MERV 13 can pick up things as small as like a virus. And so that might put a bigger, you know, toll on your air handler system. Again, I'm no expert on this, but again, the smaller that you can get, the better. And so in our house, we typically shoot for 8 at the minimum, ideally like an 11 or a 13.

00;04;04;24 - 00;04;06;19

Coach Cason

So you're just picking out more matter....

00;04;06;19 - 00;04;14;03

Dr. Cade

You're picking up more matter. So again, that should keep your air handler a little bit cleaner. That should prevent recirculation and you continue to breathe that stuff in.

00;04;14;03 - 00;04;15;19

Coach Cason

So that’s what the AirDoctor does too?

00;04;15;19 - 00;04;42;08

Dr. Cade

The AirDoctor does that, too. Now, the AirDoctor is pretty interesting. Most of you have probably heard of a HEPA filter. The AirDoctor Pro is one of the only ones out there that uses an ultra HEPA. And so that is when we're talking about decimal points and a small particulate, it's even smaller. So I believe it's like a thousand times more smaller of a particulate than a regular HEPA filter, which is typically the gold standard on the market, a regular HEPA filter, you know, vacuum cleaners and air filtration systems out there.

00;04;42;08 - 00;05;05;14

Dr. Cade

But the AirDoctor Pro has an ultra and so please go take a peek at that, especially if, you know, you're predisposed to lung issues like asthma or allergies or congestion and chronic sinusitis and bronchitis, pneumonia, those kind of things. Right? Because we really are opening up the door right now, being exposed to things. So we talked about the proper protection inside and I think it bears repeating.

00;05;05;14 - 00;05;26;25

Dr. Cade

You know, research continues to show that even even when we're not cutting out drywall, even, we're not exposed to what we're being exposed to right now. Indoor air quality is typically 100x more polluted than outdoor air quality. Right? And that's from the detergents that we use. Right, are cleaning products, you know, stains and woods and flame retardants in mattresses and furniture.

00;05;27;01 - 00;05;30;13

Dr. Cade

And those types of things create a toxic toll, a chemical stress on the body.

00;05;30;18 - 00;05;42;22

Coach Cason

Right? And in Florida, too, like if we have water in our house, you know, if our A/C is leaking and there's water that's in the walls in, you know, an A/C closet, then there's a chance for mold.

00;05;42;22 - 00;05;43;20

Dr. Cade

100%.

00;05;43;20 - 00;05;45;23

Coach Cason

So, yeah, it's a big deal.

00;05;46;10 - 00;06;00;22

Dr. Cade

Yeah. And so if you are experiencing that, make sure that you - you're more than welcome to reach out to the contacts that we have here. We're happy to share that with you. But there's a lot of wonderful people working really hard right now in southwest Florida to make sure, again, that these types of things don't turn into a bigger issue for you and for your health down the road.

00;06;00;28 - 00;06;19;06

Dr. Cade

And again, we just want to make sure reiterating mold exposure can mimic so many other things. And so it's easy to chase down those symptoms and forget what's really causing those symptoms. We always want to get to the root cause, and this is a really big chemical stress that acts as a root cause. So other things, why don't we continue to try to provide some more answers and solutions...

00;06;19;06 - 00;06;35;12

Dr. Cade

So one of the big things that you work on here at LIFEstrength Health Center with your physical therapy practice is posture and how important that is. Not just how somebody looks and how it feels, but how organs function. And one of the biggest ones is lungs, right? Right. And getting enough oxygen into the lungs. So that we can saturate the body with oxygen.

00;06;35;12 - 00;06;39;12

Dr. Cade

So why don't you show them what poor posture looks like and we take them through that exercise you're talking about?

00;06;39;15 - 00;07;10;23

Coach Cason

Yeah, well, and before I go there, I just want to say, like, it's I think the point here is oxygen and what we're breathing is essential. Right? And so if we can get out of our house, if we're if we do have water damage or mold, and we're working on that with with a company and our family and whoever, if we can get outside more and into real, real open air, I think that's a huge thing because the inside is, you know, encapsulated and can be toxic.

00;07;10;23 - 00;07;27;22

Dr. Cade

So can I ask a question really quick? Yeah. If you were going to have somebody, you know, if they are working in their hands or full at their house trying to clean up the mess or you're donating your time, right? To help somebody else out, would you rather have them outside for 5 minutes? You know, a handful of times throughout the day or a bigger stretch where they're out for an hour and they take a break from those kind of things?

00;07;27;22 - 00;07;55;04

Coach Cason

No, I think 5 minutes, a handful of times. The more you can break, you know, from your job, obviously, you're going to get in fixed. And in working on your house, if it's your house or helping somebody else, you're you're focused on the task at hand. But if you can set a timer or have a, you know, one of the people around remind you, you know, let's go outside, let's take a break, let's have a drink and of water and hydrate and just relax so that we separate ourself from that.

00;07;55;24 - 00;08;06;27

Dr. Cade

Nice little reset. Nice little reset. Yeah. Can I ask you another question? Yeah. What about if somebody is inside the house and they're experiencing symptoms, right? Like a runny nose or congestion or even a cough? Good thing? Bad thing? What should they be expecting?

00;08;06;27 - 00;08;26;17

Coach Cason

Obviously a bad thing. Well, not a bad thing, but your body's telling you, hey, I need a break. So maybe that's the time to get outside. Not maybe get outside, get some fresh air, get under the sun. We're in Florida. It's beautiful now after this storm has passed. So soak that sun up, breathe the fresh air. Then when you go back, that's the time.

00;08;26;17 - 00;08;32;17

Coach Cason

You might you might put on an N95 mask on or a respirator or whatever you have to minimize that exposure.

00;08;32;18 - 00;08;51;06

Dr. Cade

Yeah, we love symptoms, right? It's the way that the body communicates to you what's going on. Right? And one of our favorite quotes is “if you listen to your body when it whispers, you never have hear it scream” Right? So if you are experiencing that cough or that runny nose, right? It's your body's way of trapping that particulate from getting into the body. Your body's creating a barrier, if you will, to trap it in that mucus.

00;08;51;06 - 00;09;05;10

Dr. Cade

So listen, your symptoms. Right? Don't suppress those symptoms. Let your body attract that. Let your body trap it and get it out. Cough it out, blow your nose, get it out of the body. And then again, take protection. Right? So I didn't mean interrupt you once you go into posture...

00;09;05;10 - 00;09;39;20

Coach Cason

Yeah, posture. So oxygen, oxygen, lungs like that's everything. I think oxygen is the most essential nutrient. You know, it's a nutrient. So we need it. If we don't have it, you know what happens? So we need to learn how to breathe properly and breathing properly has everything to do with our posture. And these days, you know, everyone's forward and their head is forward and their shoulders are rounded and the way that our neck is shaped and we can show you this on all sorts of X-rays. Has everything to do with the airways that come into our lungs.

00;09;39;20 - 00;10;09;24

Coach Cason

So posture is essential. But one a couple of things you can do. You know, obviously, sitting up, opening up your airways is one very important thing and obvious thing, but also breathing properly or deeply into our lungs. So in stressful situations, when we're in the fight or flight nervous system, we breathe really, really high and in the upper lobes of our lungs, we're using our neck and our shoulder muscles to help get oxygen in.

00;10;09;24 - 00;10;36;23

Coach Cason

But we're not actually getting as much oxygen in as we can. So this is where stress relieving techniques and taking a break and calming ourselves down and stepping away from these stressful situations that this storm has presented can help because we can relax a little bit and allow oxygen to get into the lower lobes of our lungs. So we reoxygenate more efficiently.

00;10;37;04 - 00;10;39;04

Coach Cason

So, yeah, go ahead, Cade.

00;10;39;04 - 00;10;56;11

Dr. Cade

So, you know, Oxygen's important to maintain a proper pH balance in the body, right? And it's also important to fight off inflammation. And, you know, most diseases are linked with an imbalance of pH in the body and obviously higher amounts of inflammation than what we want. Pretty much all diseases linked to that. Right? Things as bad as cancer. Right?

00;10;56;12 - 00;11;19;04

Dr. Cade

Dementia, Alzheimer's. To things, again, a little bit calmer, too, more like ADD, ADHD, those kind of things. Maybe that's not calmer, maybe that's the wrong term to use there. But hopefully you understand what I'm trying to say there. So Cason in talking about a potential physical trauma, physical stress, when we lose that posture, but also how that can create a bigger stress down the road mentally, physically, emotionally, right?

00;11;19;04 - 00;11;39;18

Dr. Cade

When we're not getting enough oxygen. And so proof, thing that we can practice, right? you can push your head far, as far forward as you can. Right? Far forward as you can there, and roll those shoulders forward a little bit and do your best to try to take a big breath when you're doing it right? Take a breath and your lungs, you just don't feel your lungs fill up with air versus when you're up nice and tall, you're using your diaphragm shoulders are back a little bit.

00;11;39;18 - 00;11;53;04

Dr. Cade

Head is back over the shoulders. Right? And you can just feel how much easier it is for your body to open up and to breathe and to oxygenate. And I think, again, most of us don't even realize that we're doing those types of things when we're under stress. It's a natural kind of, you know, emotional response.

00;11;53;05 - 00;12;09;15

Coach Cason

Well, we get into habits, too, and then this is our, like, default mode. And so when we go and sit up, we feel weird, you know, it's like, Oh, I'm trying to like, I don't know, open my chest too much, but know it's how we're supposed to be so, yeah, what do we do about it?

00;12;10;08 - 00;12;10;19

Dr. Cade

So...

00;12;10;19 - 00;12;11;08

Coach Cason

So that’s my question....

00;12;11;16 - 00;12;28;24

Dr. Cade

Cason has got some excellent activities and excellent techniques to actually retrain not just the muscles, but the neurology that tells the muscles what to do and restore a new default normal instead of your body continuing to think. We've trained it in this position that this is where we should be. So I love the physical therapy aspect of it and the neurology aspect of it there.

00;12;28;24 - 00;12;45;26

Dr. Cade

But chiropractic is a big part of it too, right? And so even just a regular chiropractic adjustment is a big thing as far as opening up and letting that diaphragm move, open up the ribs, take the pressure off the shoulders and the neck, the neurology that goes to the lungs to tell them what to do and when to do it branches out right at where the neck meets the shoulders.

00;12;45;26 - 00;13;03;25

Dr. Cade

Super important to make sure that there's no stress to that neurologic system in that area. You know, another one, as we continue to be exposed to these chemicals, there's a great study that came out years ago that they did a blood draw out of patients before an adjustment and after an adjustment. And the serum levels that they were measuring and the marker that they were measuring was something called interleukin 2.

00;13;04;02 - 00;13;23;20

Dr. Cade

And what that is, is an immune modulator, right? And pharmaceutical companies have been trying for years to actually reproduce this and patent it. Right? But they've been unsuccessful so far. And what it showed before an adjustment and after an adjustment was a 200% higher blood serum levels of interleukin 2 after the adjustment in the specifically in the thoracic spine.

00;13;24;00 - 00;13;45;07

Dr. Cade

And so again, when you're under a chemical stress like what we're talking about, the adjustment is awesome to help you feel better. But there's so much more going on, like what I'm sharing there. So let's see other things. I think we talked a little bit about vagus nerve tone and how that relates to stress and how that relates to our body's ability to handle more stress, whether it's physical trauma or chemical trauma.

00;13;45;07 - 00;13;49;09

Dr. Cade

So can we talk about some simple vagus nerve tone that they can do and how that relates?

00;13;49;17 - 00;14;11;23

Coach Cason

Well, I think I mean, I just want to go back to chiropractic, because you say all the time, you're not you're not a bone doctor. You know, you're a nervous system doctor. So obviously the adjustment and all the benefits from that is going to help the vagus nerve tone. Yeah. You know, so but some, some simple techniques that we need to keep doing and you know, because we can't just go get adjusted and say, okay, I'm good.

00;14;11;23 - 00;14;12;16

Dr. Cade

Amen. Right?

00;14;12;16 - 00;14;34;15

Coach Cason

We have to do stuff about it. So yeah, humming, you know, singing, singing, using our vocal cords can stimulate the vagus nerve. So expressing our voice, singing, obviously that's going to make us more happier. You know, if you look at little kids, like when they get their food, they start humming like they're happy. They're, you know...

00;14;34;15 - 00;14;53;22

Dr. Cade

Or when they're playing with toys and they're different things that they do. And it's so interesting. I think if you stick around long enough in this video, Cason’s going to sing us all a lullaby here at the end. But it's amazing what that will do, right? It changes that mental space and it helps our body get out of that fight or flight stress or state where our immune organs, our digestive organs, our healing organs are shut down, right?

00;14;53;22 - 00;14;58;21

Dr. Cade

Because our body is not worried about thriving. It's worried about survival. So, so humming, singing. What else?

00;14;58;21 - 00;15;21;03

Coach Cason

Well, play some music that you enjoy that you can sing to. Right? And let it out. Gargling, you know, getting your neck back and putting some water in your mouth and just gargling will stimulate the vagus nerve. Dr. Cade’s always talking about stimulation like vibration. He tells people to use the butt end of their toothbrush. Their vibration.

00;15;21;03 - 00;15;24;23

Coach Cason

Toothbrush. Yeah. So where do you put that? What do you what do you do with that?

00;15;24;24 - 00;15;46;02

Dr. Cade

So I think if you're an adult, I think something a little bit stronger would be a smart idea, again, specifically to drive new blood flow to the lungs, to try to clear the lungs out, to improve circulation there, to increase lymphatic circulation, to get rid of the junk that you're breathing in. I think if you're an adult, you know, one of those percussion guns, you know, those massage percussion guns, I mean, they can be found on Amazon for 50, 60 bucks.

00;15;46;02 - 00;16;02;09

Dr. Cade

This is you don't need anything fancy. But when you're using that, you were shaking loose a lot of that junk, increasing new blood flow and increase in lymphatic flow. Right? If you're a child, if you've got a child or you're a family that's going through this again, our hearts go out to you. But the butt-end of an electric toothbrush would be much gentler while still achieving the same thing.

00;16;02;09 - 00;16;18;13

Dr. Cade

Right? So put your child in your arms and use that butt-end of an electric toothbrush. Start low on their diaphragm, a little bit higher than where you burp your baby. But right at that diaphragm level and just slowly work your way up, up to the top of the shoulders, the lobes, up to the low upper lobes of the lungs come right up here underneath the top of the collarbone.

00;16;18;20 - 00;16;33;22

Dr. Cade

And so those things are great. And if you don't have access to those things, my microphone is going to make some noise. But you can certainly pound on your chest ohHhhHHhh, and make some noise like that. And what again, that's going to accomplish all the things that we're talking about here to clear out those lungs and make sure this doesn't turn into a bigger problem.

00;16;34;11 - 00;16;53;25

Coach Cason

Yeah, movement comes to mind, too, now that we're talking about percussion movement, walking, bouncing, jumping, running, playing is, you know, percussion in a way. Our body is moving, it's bouncing. And so that's going to help the lymphatic system and and all these secreting organs to get stuff moving.

00;16;54;09 - 00;17;06;29

Dr. Cade

And, you know, you're going to be out moving. Your head's going to be probably in a little bit different spot than it would be. You know, looking at the damage, looking at the wreckage. And that's also going to help the vagus nerve. So I think we could talk all day about this stuff, but I think we've let people with some good things.

00;17;06;29 - 00;17;21;10

Dr. Cade

Of course, if you ever need a hand or help, whether you're in Naples or Fort Myers or whatever it is, if you can't get here, call us. If you can't call us, text us. If you can't text us, our doors up and what we want to do is help. And so getting this information out to you is our best way of doing that now.

00;17;21;24 - 00;17;31;05

Dr. Cade

But don't hesitate to reach out. We will do everything we can to help. And of course, our rule is if we can't, we promise to tell you that and try to help you get to the right place. So, Coach Cason, anything else you want to say?

00;17;31;17 - 00;17;35;26

Coach Cason

We want to help. We're here. Come. Come see us. Call. Walk in the door.

00;17;36;27 - 00;17;43;25

Dr. Cade

Thanks for joining us, you guys. Next one that we're going to talk about today was lungs. We're going to talk about liver next. So stay tuned. We're doing everything we can to help you through this hurricane.

Interested in an appointment? We offer a FREE 15-Minute Consult! Call 239-774-5433 to schedule.