Back Talk Doc

If you’re listening to Back Talk Doc, you or someone you know is probably dealing with some type of pain. 

Chronic pain can be very hard to handle, but many times when we create a mental image of our suffering, we tend to aggravate this pain, thus increasing it. This mental image leads to negativity on a conscious and subconscious level associated with your pain.

Today, give your body a safe place to deal with pain. Join us on a guided meditation that will teach techniques to change the mental image that has been created from this pain, and transform it to a peaceful association with pleasant visualizations that create a warmer bonding between you and your body’s sensations. 

Name:  Dr. Sanjiv Lakhia

What he does:  In addition to hosting Back Talk Doc, Dr. Sanjiv Lakhia is a board-certified physiatrist who cares for patients at the Ballantyne and Rock Hill offices of Carolina Neurosurgery & Spine Associates. As a physiatrist, he specializes in non-surgical approaches to spine and orthopedic conditions and offers a diverse range of innovative treatments for back pain, including acupuncture, spinal injections, and prescriptive exercise.

Company: Carolina Neurosurgery & Spine Associates

Connect: Website |  LinkedIn 

👉 If you enjoyed this episode of Back Talk Doc, check out our recent episode Reduce Your Back Pain Frequency with Dr. Carol McMakin.

🔎 For more information on Dr. Sanjiv Lakhia and the podcast visit BackTalkDoc.com.

🎧 Subscribe in your favorite podcast app.

Back Talk Doc is brought to you by Carolina Neurosurgery & Spine Associates, with offices in North and South Carolina. To learn more about Dr. Lakhia and treatment options for back and spine issues, go to backtalkdoc.com. To schedule an appointment with Carolina Neurosurgery & Spine Associates, you can call us at 1-800-344-6716 or visit our website at CNSA.com.

It is never too late to chase after a dream or make a difference in other people’s lives. Dr. Carolyn McMakin, DC is a testament to that. After deciding to pursue her lifelong goal at the age of 40, Dr. McMakin enrolled in pre-med courses and the University of Western States Chiropractic College. Upon graduation, Dr. McMakin opened her own practice and by 1996 began treating patients with a list of frequencies first documented in the 1920s. 

This work led her to present her results at the American Back Society National Meeting and subsequently publish the first 50 cases of neck pain treatment in 1998. To say her work has been monumental and influential in the medical world is an understatement. 

Dr. McMakin is the leading expert on frequency specific microcurrent (FSM). In fact, she discovered a specific treatment that could eradicate a patient’s pain caused by fibromyalgia as a result of spinal trauma. Not only did she discover a reproducible treatment, but one that could help a patient feel relief within just an hour. 

On this episode of Back Talk Doc, host Dr. Sanjiv Lakhia talks with Dr. McMakin about FSM and her work introducing it to physicians, chiropractors, physical therapists, and practitioners all over the world.  

Name: Carolyn McMakin, DC

What she does: Dr. Carolyn McMakin is the leading expert in FSM. She is a published author, teacher, and practicing chiropractor. 

Company: The FSM Clinic and Training Center

Words of wisdom: “Do what you love and love what you do and everything else you need will follow. That’s it: Follow your passion.” 

Connect: Website |  LinkedIn 

👉 If you enjoyed this episode of Back Talk Doc, check out our recent episode Neuropathy and Its Many Facets with Dr. Ki Jung.

🔎 For more information on Dr. Sanjiv Lakhia and the podcast visit BackTalkDoc.com. 

🎧 Subscribe in your favorite podcast app.

Back Talk Doc is brought to you by Carolina Neurosurgery & Spine Associates, with offices in North and South Carolina. To learn more about Dr. Lakhia and treatment options for back and spine issues, go to backtalkdoc.com. To schedule an appointment with Carolina Neurosurgery & Spine Associates, you can call us at 1-800-344-6716 or visit our website at CNSA.com.

Have you ever sat in one position too long and had your foot fall asleep? And when you stood up, you felt a prickling or tingling that was almost painful? Or have you ever rolled over in the middle of the night and found your hand was numb? Each of these occurrences are considered positive symptoms of neuropathy — they are the presence of an abnormal sensation.

What exactly is neuropathy and what causes it? On this episode of Back Talk Doc, host Dr. Sanjiv Lakhia is joined by one of the newer partners at Carolina NeuroSurgery & Spine Associates, neurologist Ki S. Jung, MD to discuss neuropathy. Dr. Jung is newer to the practice, but not new to neurology as he offers over 18 years of expertise and is well-established in the community as a subject matter expert in his field. 

Dr. Jung walks listeners through a few examples of the various symptoms that bring patients to his office, as well as how to rule out the most common causes of neuropathy and test for sensory modalities to potential medications. He also discusses alternative technologies for pain management and relief.

Name: Ki S. Jung, MD

What he does: As a board-certified and fellowship-trained neurologist, Dr. Jung performs on-site neuro-diagnostic testing and has over 18 years experience diagnosing and treating disorders of the brain, spinal cord, peripheral nerves, muscles, and other issues of the nervous system.

Company: Carolina NeuroSurgery & Spine Associates

Words of wisdom: “Our bodies, we have to treat them right. And you need fuel. That's what food does, but make sure that fuel is super unleaded. Make sure you get rid of all the bad stuff and just supply your body with the good stuff. So good nutrition, adequate hydration, get some exercise in, and rest.” 

Connect: Website 

👉 If you enjoyed this episode of Back Talk Doc, check out our recent episode Botanicals and Back Pain with John Slattery

🔎 For more information on Dr. Sanjiv Lakhia and the podcast visit BackTalkDoc.com. 

🎧 Subscribe in your favorite podcast app.

Back Talk Doc is brought to you by Carolina Neurosurgery & Spine Associates, with offices in North and South Carolina. To learn more about Dr. Lakhia and treatment options for back and spine issues, go to backtalkdoc.com. To schedule an appointment with Carolina Neurosurgery & Spine Associates, you can call us at 1-800-344-6716 or visit our website at CNSA.com.

Could a couple of drops of an herb tincture enable someone who underwent open heart surgery to feel her chest for the first time in four years? Could it help you mitigate and prevent back pain?

In our society, it’s easy to think that the most complex, advanced medicine is the best cure for any and all pain. And yet, a powerful tool for pain treatment could be an overlooked plant growing in your backyard. In this episode, Dr. Sanjiv Lakhia and his guest John Slattery of Desert Tortoise Botanicals dive into herbalism and its potential. 

Botanical medicine has held a key role in medicine since ancient times. Herbalists and indigenous people have preserved wisdom on medicinal plants and how to use them, and they are reviving awareness about botanical medicine.

“In the way that the nature of a plant resonates with the nature of an individual, it can allow for opening and release in their physical tissue as the consequence of where that resonance meets, such that a healing experience can be facilitated within their physical body,” says John. “That may sound a little bit metaphysical, and it is, but it's also observable.”

Listen to this episode of Back Talk Doc to learn all about botanical medicine and how it can help you treat back pain and other ailments. 

Name: John Slattery 

What he does: John is a bioregional herbalist, forager, and author. Inspired by his desire to improve the accessibility of botanical medicine, he founded Desert Tortoise Botanicals, a company that sells products made from sustainably foraged herbs. 

Company: Desert Tortoise Botanicals

Discount Code: Back Talk Doc listeners are eligible to receive 10% off their first purchase from Desert Tortoise Botanicals. 

Words of wisdom: “Because the body and the mind are inextricably linked, the so-called placebo effect is actually extremely powerful, meaning that how we hold our mind in wave form within our body consolidates into particle form into the tissue.” 

Connect: Website | Instagram | YouTube

👉 If you enjoyed this episode of Back Talk Doc, check out our recent episode The Vagus-Trigeminal-Pain Connection with Sharik Peck, PT.

🔎 For more information on Dr. Sanjiv Lakhia and the podcast visit BackTalkDoc.com.

🎧 Subscribe in your favorite podcast app.

Back Talk Doc is brought to you by Carolina Neurosurgery & Spine Associates, with offices in North and South Carolina. To learn more about Dr. Lakhia and treatment options for back and spine issues, go to backtalkdoc.com. To schedule an appointment with Carolina Neurosurgery & Spine Associates, you can call us at 1-800-344-6716 or visit our website at CNSA.com.

Imagine relearning how to walk — and learn — in your senior year of high school. For this episode’s guest, Sharik Peck, that was reality. 

Mr. Peck’s battle with chronic pain began when he was only two years old. As a young child, he fractured his second cervical vertebrae. Years later, he crushed multiple spinal vertebrae in his thoracic region. Finally, he experienced a vertebral artery dissection that forced him to relearn how to walk and learn. Instead of allowing his injuries and pain to defeat him, Mr. Peck used them as inspiration. His goal was simple: Help others who experience life-altering events and chronic pain.

With this aim in mind, Mr. Peck became a physical therapist and earned his master’s degree in rehabilitation counseling. Later, he realized that he wanted to increase accessibility to chronic pain treatment by creating a device that anyone could use. This resulted in Rezzimax. 

Rezzimax is a handheld device that helps decrease chronic pain by recalibrating your body’s nervous system using vibration frequencies. 

To understand why this is effective, first, you must understand the relationship between the vagus nerve and trigeminal nerve. The vagus nerve is in charge of keeping your nervous system healthy and happy whereas the trigeminal nerve is integral to your fight or flight response. Mr. Peck likens these two nerves to the two ends of a seesaw. For your body to work well, they need to be balanced. 

By moving Rezzimax to areas of the body where you can reach your trigeminal nerve and changing frequencies, you calm down the trigeminal nerve so that your vagus nerve can better function, thus decreasing pain. 

Access a 20% coupon to purchase Rezzimax today. 

Name: Sharik Peck

What he does: After being a physical therapist for 28 years and receiving his master’s degree in rehabilitation counseling, Mr. Peck invented the Rezzimax to treat chronic pain by targeting the vagus nerve. 

Company: Rezzimax 

Words of wisdom: “The vagus nerve’s entire job is to get the nervous system healthy, happy, sleeping well, in great relationships with others, and creating families. … One of the main nerves that is responsible for the fight or flight response in the nervous system is the trigeminal nerve. ….The relationship between the trigeminal nerve and the vagus nerve is a delicate seesaw. In order to get that vagus tone improved, we've got to get that trigeminal tone to calm itself down.”

Connect: Website |  LinkedIn 

👉 If you enjoyed this episode of Back Talk Doc, check out our recent episode Back to the Basics: Reducing Back Pain Through Healthy Eating

🔎 For more information on Dr. Sanjiv Lakhia and the podcast visit BackTalkDoc.com.

🎧 Subscribe in your favorite podcast app.

Back Talk Doc is brought to you by Carolina Neurosurgery & Spine Associates, with offices in North and South Carolina. To learn more about Dr. Lakhia and treatment options for back and spine issues, go to backtalkdoc.com. To schedule an appointment with Carolina Neurosurgery & Spine Associates, you can call us at 1-800-344-6716 or visit our website at CNSA.com.

Back pain can feel impossible to control. However, there are things that you can do to reduce pain. In this episode, Back Talk Doc host Dr. Sanjiv Lakhia empowers listeners to reduce back pain through mindful eating and nutrition. 

As Dr. Lakhia explains, “It's important that we zoom out and ask ourselves, what's really going on with our food and our diet?” 

By mastering the basics of healthy eating, you can reduce inflammation levels and consequently decrease pain levels. But with the many diets out there, all claiming to be the best, it’s challenging to sort fact from fad. 

That’s why in this episode, Dr. Lakhia teaches you the building blocks of healthy eating rather than talking about a specific diet. Once you understand the necessary components of healthy eating, you can modify your diet to account for any special dietary needs.

Dr. Lakhia provides the listener with five key steps to healthy eating to decrease back pain. These steps may seem simple, but if you can “adopt these basic recommendations, a lot of your health situations will improve. Pain should go down, and you'll feel better,” says Lakhia. Listen to this episode to learn more about each step and the scientific evidence behind them.

Name: Dr. Sanjiv Lakhia 

What he does: In addition to hosting Back Talk Doc, Dr. Sanjiv Lakhia is a board-certified physiatrist who cares for patients at the Ballantyne and Rock Hill offices of Carolina Neurosurgery & Spine Associates. As a physiatrist, he specializes in non-surgical approaches to spine and orthopedic conditions and offers a diverse range of innovative treatments for back pain, including acupuncture, spinal injections, and prescriptive exercise. 

Company: Carolina Neurosurgery & Spine Associates

Words of wisdom: “If you're aware of who you are when you come to the table to eat and how you feel, it literally can translate into better health or, conversely, create increased levels of inflammation in your body.”

Connect: Website |  LinkedIn 

👉 If you enjoyed this episode of Back Talk Doc, check out our recent episode Releasing Pain and Trauma with David Berceli, PhD

🔎 For more information on Dr. Sanjiv Lakhia and the podcast visit BackTalkDoc.com.

🎧 Subscribe in your favorite podcast app.

Back Talk Doc is brought to you by Carolina Neurosurgery & Spine Associates, with offices in North and South Carolina. To learn more about Dr. Lakhia and treatment options for back and spine issues, go to backtalkdoc.com. To schedule an appointment with Carolina Neurosurgery & Spine Associates, you can call us at 1-800-344-6716 or visit our website at carolinaneurosurgery.com.

In a bomb shelter under attack in the Middle East, Dr. David Berceli, PhD observed what would become the foundation for much of his work. As mortar shells assaulted the shelter’s exterior, David observed as young children shook in terror and adults sat, stoic and unmoving. 

“We train ourselves out of these endogenous rhythmic movements of the human body that actually are designed to help us reduce stress or release trauma,” David observed. “By trembling, those two year olds were actually healthier than the adults who simply froze that mechanism and didn't allow their body to discharge the excited [energy] that was being created by the mortar shells.”

This was the match that lit the flame for David, who then decided to dedicate his life to helping people deal with trauma, specifically in mass quantities. This led to the creation of the Tension & Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE®), a series of exercises that stimulate the body to release deep muscular patterns of stress, tension, and trauma. This system of exercises initiates the body’s natural reflex mechanism of shaking or vibrating to release tension and calm the nervous system. 

In this episode, Dr. Lakhia and Dr. David Berceli discuss all things trauma and how to release that through the body’s natural response to trauma and stress. 

Name: David Berceli, PhD

What he does: As an international author, presenter, and trainer in the area of trauma intervention, stress reduction, and resiliency and recovery training, David specializes in recovery with large populations. He is the creator of a revolutionary set of tension and trauma release exercises and the author of three books about releasing tension through therapeutic body tremors.

Company: TRE® for All, Inc.

Words of wisdom: “The tremor mechanism does not just heal what's going on in you now; it actually goes back in time inside your body to find those patterns that you completely learn to live with, or forgot you even had, or didn't even know you had. And it can undo all those patterns to bring your body to this present moment in its healthiest pulsating state that it can achieve.”

Connect: LinkedIn

👉 If you enjoyed this episode of Back Talk Doc, check out our recent episode, Back Pain Relief with Foundation Training.

🔎 For more information on Dr. Sanjiv Lakhia and the podcast, visit BackTalkDoc.com.

🎧 Subscribe in your favorite podcast app.

Back Talk Doc is brought to you by Carolina Neurosurgery & Spine Associates, with offices in North and South Carolina. To learn more about Dr. Lakhia and treatment options for back and spine issues, go to backtalkdoc.com. To schedule an appointment with Carolina Neurosurgery & Spine Associates, you can call us at 1-800-344-6716 or visit our website at carolinaneurosurgery.com.

Sometimes, the greatest struggles can bring forth the greatest innovations. 

That is certainly true for Dr. Eric Goodman, DC, the founder of Foundation Training. As a young man in chiropractic school, his severe back pain from multiple disc herniations became unbearable.

“I had about a year left of chiropractic school when my back got bad to the point that I was like, ‘I don't want to be a chiropractor,’” Dr. Goodman tells Dr. Lakhia. “Driving hurt, standing hurt, sitting hurt, and laying hurt. You're just out of options.” 

It was in experimenting with his own pain in motion that he was able to develop Foundation Training, a combination of exercises and breathing techniques that helps with anything from basic daily movements to athletics.

Josh Brigham became a devotee of Foundation Training from his own spinal issues. Now a trainer and owner of Adapt CLT, he uses Foundation Training to bring others the same relief he’s experienced. 

He says a video about decompression breathing that he saw at his first Foundation Training event changed how he thought about breath. “It was just real easy to make that concept live inside of you,” Josh said. “And that's how it was introduced to me. And it never went away.” 

In this episode, Dr. Lakhia, Dr. Goodman, and Josh discuss all things Foundation Training — how to get started, and why changing how you bend and breathe can change your pain. 

Name: Dr. Eric Goodman, DC

What he does: As a trained (but not practicing) chiropractor, Dr. Goodman used his education as a springboard to understanding how to strengthen the spine. He developed his series of Foundation Training exercises as a way for people to take their spine health into their own hands. 

Company: Foundation Training

Words of wisdom: “The ability to understand what your body is doing, as it's doing it, is probably the most important skill of chronic pain relief through lifetimes.”

Connect: LinkedIn | Foundation Training Streaming | Instagram | YouTube

Name: Josh Brigham

What he does: Josh found Foundation Training following a cervical spine injury that was treated with an artificial disc replacement. He now trains others in restoring their own spinal health at his Charlotte-based Adapt CLT. 

Company: Adapt CLT

Words of wisdom: “We want people to move and to do the things that they enjoy, whatever that movement looks like. But if you're not doing it connected, you're not going to be doing it well.” 

Connect: LinkedIn | Instagram

👉 If you enjoyed this episode of Back Talk Doc, check out our recent episode, Back Pain Relief Through Posture and Movement, With Esther Gokhale. 

🔎 For more information on Dr. Sanjiv Lakhia and the podcast, visit BackTalkDoc.com.

🎧 Subscribe in your favorite podcast app.

Back Talk Doc is brought to you by Carolina Neurosurgery & Spine Associates, with offices in North and South Carolina. To learn more about Dr. Lakhia and treatment options for back and spine issues, go to backtalkdoc.com. To schedule an appointment with Carolina Neurosurgery & Spine Associates, you can call us at 1-800-344-6716 or visit our website at carolinaneurosurgery.com.

Regenerative medicine has great potential. It empowers the body’s own healing mechanisms to cure injuries that would normally require surgery or other invasive measures.

In this episode of Back Talk Doc, Dr. Peter Bailey discusses his work in regenerative spinal care. 

Research on regenerative spinal care is steadily progressing, despite a lack of funding. Most companies fund research into drugs rather than regenerative medicine, so progress has taken time and dedication. In spinal care, regenerative treatments can improve patient pain. For this to be effective, the cause of the pain must be accurately diagnosed to ensure that the proper treatment plan and target area are selected. 

Regenerative spinal care is best at targeting disc pain in ways that physical therapy and surgery cannot. “The disc is the largest structure in the body that does not have its own blood supply,” said Dr. Bailey. “When we injure a disc, it doesn't heal up very well. It creates an environment that, over time, predisposes the disc to further degenerate.” 

Dr. Bailey primarily treats disc pain with platelet-rich plasma. In this method, platelets from the patient’s body are injected into the spine. Platelets are the body’s first responders to injury. By giving the injured area more platelets, the body’s healing responses are increased enough that the spinal injury can be healed well. 

Regenerative medicine on its own is not enough. Dr. Bailey recommends accompanying the treatment with physical therapy and exercise to prevent re-injury of the spine.

Excited to learn more? Tune in to this episode of Back Talk Doc to discover more about regenerative spinal care. 

Read the Full Show Notes on our website BackTalkDoc.com.

Name: Dr. Peter Bailey

What he does: As a physiatrist at Carolina Neurosurgery and Spine Associates, Dr. Bailey is pioneering the field of regenerative spine care.

Company: Carolina Neurosurgery and Spine Associates

Words of wisdom: “If you have a patient who is younger to middle age, who has kind of a bad-looking disc, a surgeon doesn't really want to operate on that. Surgical outcomes for axial back pain are not that great. So it’s a great tool to have for that segment of the population that offers hope for the management of back pain, when it seems like other options aren't available. As far as the future goes, it's definitely going to be critical.”

Connect: Website |  LinkedIn 

👉 If you enjoyed this episode of Back Talk Doc, check out our recent episode Back Pain Relief Through Posture and Movement, With Esther Gokhale.

🔎 For more information on Dr. Sanjiv Lakhia and the podcast visit BackTalkDoc.com.

🎧 Subscribe in your favorite podcast app.

Back Talk Doc is brought to you by Carolina Neurosurgery & Spine Associates, with offices in North and South Carolina. To learn more about Dr. Lakhia and treatment options for back and spine issues, go to backtalkdoc.com. To schedule an appointment with Carolina Neurosurgery & Spine Associates, you can call us at 1-800-344-6716 or visit our website at carolinaneurosurgery.com.

For Dr. Stuart McGill, surgery should be the last resort.

In fact, for many patients who don’t properly address their pain, surgery is, at best, a temporary option. Consider this: following a disc hernia procedure, many patients, including those Dr. McGill sees, usually fall back into old habits and run the risk of re-injuring their damaged spine. “So you are going to have to change the way that you move [and] become more efficient in purposefully stimulating the adaption that you need in your body to become robust again,” he says.

The problem, Dr. McGill says, is that most orthopaedists don’t do a full exam of the whole patient to find the source of the pain. That can take two to three hours. 

“The assessment, if it's thorough enough, will always give you the answer,” says Dr. McGill. And that answer is rarely putting a patient under the knife. Other solutions, which can often include long-term therapies, will get to the source of the pain and lead to long-term healing “95% of the time,” he says.

Dr. McGill knows what he’s talking about: he has literally written the book on the mechanics of back pain, how to assess it, and published award-winning research on spine biomechanics. Also, as a distinguished Professor Emeritus at University of Waterloo, he is considered one of the world’s leading biomechanists.

On this episode of Back Talk Doc, Dr. McGill joined Dr. Lakhia with special guest Dr. John Lesher, MD, MPH, of Carolina Neurosurgery & Spine Associates to talk all about spine biomechanics: from the benefits of a technique experts refer to as “virtual surgery,” to the mechanics of strengthening exercises for back pain. 

Read the Full Show Notes on our website BackTalkDoc.com.



Name: Dr. Stuart McGill, PhD

What he does: Dr. Stuart McGill is one of the world’s most renowned spine biomechanists. He is a distinguished Professor Emeritus of spine biomechanics at the University of Waterloo, where he published over 200 peer-reviewed papers and award-winning research in the field of low back biomechanics. He is also the author of several books, the most recent being Back Mechanic (2015).

Company: BackFitPro 

Words of wisdom: “The way to stay pain-free is, one day a week, rest. Don't do anything. That's the day that your body adapts. So all the stimulation that you've done all week long, let it adapt.”

Connect: Website | Twitter

👉 If you enjoyed this episode of Back Talk Doc, check out our recent episode Back Pain Relief Through Posture and Movement, with Esther Gokhale.

🔎 For more information on Dr. Sanjiv Lakhia and the podcast visit BackTalkDoc.com.

🎧 Subscribe in your favorite podcast app. 

Back Talk Doc is brought to you by Carolina Neurosurgery & Spine Associates, with offices in North and South Carolina. To learn more about Dr. Lakhia and treatment options for back and spine issues, go to backtalkdoc.com. To schedule an appointment with Carolina Neurosurgery & Spine Associates, you can call us at 1-800-344-6716 or visit our website at carolinaneurosurgery.com.