Dr. Troy was interviewed on The Physician Spotlight Radio Show in January 2018 to discuss the benefits of spinal decompression and other topics. Listen using the link below and follow along with the transcription.
Transcription
Announcer: Welcome to the Physician Spotlight Radio Show featuring some of America’s top physicians who have dedicated themselves to a lifetime of learning and in specializing in the alleviation of pain by staying on top of the latest scientific breakthroughs and research providing the highest levels of technology and results. The Physician Spotlight Radio Show is hosted by Dr. Eric Kaplan and Dr. Perry Bard. Dr. Kaplan is the number one best-selling author of Lifestyles of the Fit and Famous as well as The 5 Minute Motivator. He’s been featured on NBC, ABC, CBS, and FOX having served as a special adviser to the president’s council on physical fitness working alongside the United States surgeon general. Get ready cause now it’s time. Here are your hosts, Dr. Eric Kaplan and Dr. Perry Bard.
Bard: Away we go everyone. Welcome back to the latest edition of the Physician Spotlight Radio show. We are coming to you live today from our studios here in beautiful, sunny, tropical, Palm Beach Florida. My name is Dr. Perry Bard. I’m your co-host for today’s live broadcast. On behalf of my co-host, Dr. Eric Kaplan, who is on assignment today, we want to welcome everyone to this electric show today. I’ve never said that before but we have an electric guest here today. I’m really, really excited. I don’t know if you can hear it in my voice. We hope you’re definitely as pumped as I am right now and our listening audience to have with us today, one of the country’s leading physicians and really one of the true elite doctors from the great state of Washington. We want to welcome as our very, very special guest today, Dr. Troy Dreiling from Vancouver, Washington. Welcome Dr. Dreiling.
Dreiling: Hey, Dr. Bard. Thanks for having me on the show today. I’m excited to share some stories with you today.
Bard: It is a real treat. It’s a real honor to have you with us today on the show. For so many of you who are first-timers to our national broadcast here which has really become an international broadcast. One of the things that our audience happens to love about our show is not only do they get a chance to learn about some of the ground-breaking medical technology utilized here today by our Spotlighted Physician, Dr. Troy Dreiling from Vancouver, Washington. More importantly, during our show they really, really get a very up-close and really a personal look at, from almost as you would say behind-the-curtains as to why you, Dr. Dreiling have been so incredibly successful in your treatment protocols. Your treatment options for a host of patients who unfortunately are suffering from back pain, suffering from neck pain, joint pain, suffering from arm and leg pain often caused by the stress of injuries immediately. Many of these are what we would call chronic conditions and they suffer from these chronic pain syndromes and you have been known for a special technology.
There’s a host of different things that you’re known for, but one of the things we’re going to do is I want to jump right into the deep end of the pool here. One of the things that you are known for is a technology known as non-surgical spinal decompression. Dr. Dreiling, can you share with our audience what is non-surgical spinal decompression?
Dreiling: I think Dr. Bard one of the big things I want to tell listeners is what got me into this profession. I think what really goes into my enthusiasm and excitement for health and people is I had personal experience when I was younger. Actually, when I was 12 years old, I had a weight-lifting injury and hurt my low back and I actually couldn’t stand up. My grandma’s neighbor actually took me to a chiropractor. He did the traditional chiropractic, the adjustments and all that then I was good. When I was 16, I injured my shoulder and I was looking at surgery and cortisone shots and a friend of mine said, “Hey, you should go to chiropractor.” so I went to this guy’s chiropractor. About a month or so, he fixed up my shoulder.
I never really thought about chiropractic until my grandfather said, “Hey, what are you going to do when you grow up?” I said, “Well, I don’t know. What should I do?” He told me, “You should be a pharmacist,” he said, “because that’s where the money is.” so I went to Oregon State University, checked out pharmacy school. I always say “Thank God for out of state tuition.” I didn’t enroll in Oregon State University. Instead, I said, “You know, I’m going to go to Eastern Washington University. They have a physical therapy time.” I was 18 years old, I thought physical therapy was chiropractic and it helped me so well I thought, “I could do that.”
When I was taking my prerequisites for physical therapy at Eastern Washington University up in Spokane, I was actually competitive body building at the time and I was training for my third contest and I was doing really heavy deadlifts with four plates on each side which is 405 pounds. We’re doing repetitive deadlifts. There I injured my low back again, my injury that I had when I was 12. Flared the thing up, I couldn’t walk so I said, “I tried a chiropractor and let me try a chiropractor again.” so I went to this chiropractor in town. He laid me down on the table. He put me on these blocks, they’re called SOT blocks, shut the timer for 20 minutes, and he started talking to me. He said, “What do you study at Eastern?” I said, “I’m studying physical therapy.” He got rather upset with me and he told me why I should be a chiropractor and why I shouldn’t do physical therapy. It made so much sense to me, I shifted gears and started my prerequisites for chiropractic school. That’s how I got started in this but I’d get adjusted all the time. I take care of myself.
It wasn’t until about 10 years ago that I really flared up my low back again. I tried everything. I tried chiropractic [unintelligible 00:06:11] I did acupuncture. I was doing all kinds of different things. A friend of mine said, “Hey, you should come over to my office and try this non-surgical spinal decompression.” I was willing to do anything because I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t get out of bed. It literally took an hour to get into my truck to drive to the office to see patients. I said, “As a chiropractor, that’s not good. I got to be able to function.” This guy put me on his table and I laid there for about 30 minutes. It didn’t hurt at all. The session wasn’t painful. When he elevated the table to get me off, he’s like, “Now just be careful when you get off.” When I took my first step off, I went, “Oh my gosh.” I had relief for the first time in a long time. I was so excited about decompression, I started studying it, I found some mentors. That’s really what got me into this non-surgical spinal decompression.
Bard: Who are the best candidates for non-surgical spinal decompression?
Dreiling: Well, there’s a lot of great candidates for non-surgical spinal decompression. Some of the ones that we’ve seen in our office are people who have been told, “Hey, you need surgery.” This straight out of the gate “You need surgery” or people who’ve had failed back surgery. We’ve seen a lot of success in that area. People with leg pain, numbness in their leg, people who have been told they’ve had herniated or bulged or torn discs. They’ve got shooting hip pain, muscle spasms, low back pain, people with degenerative disc disease. If somebody has been told they have degenerative disc disease, arthritis, those are great candidates. Even people with neck pain, arm pain. Not only do we do low back decompression non-surgically, we do neck as well. These are some of the people who are good candidates. Also, people who’ve had cortisone shots, they’ve tried the shots, they’re on pain meds, opioids. It’s a huge problem nowadays. Even the people who are going to pain clinics and they’re just told, “Hey, you got to live with this.” and maybe they’re doing some work hardening so they have to retool because they can’t do their normal job. They have to find a different job because the back pain is so debilitating. Those are all great candidates for this non-surgical spinal decompression technology.
Bard: What a large gamut of individuals across the board who may qualify as a patient within your nationally known facilities. I think what’s very interesting is obviously that in a perfect world, you would be able to accept all the patients that present for treatment but one of the things that you’re known for is your screening process, in other words, making the determination as to who qualifies for acceptance into the program and as a patient. One of the things that you’re known for is the utilization of diagnostic tools specifically something known as an MRI study. Dr. Dreiling, would you be kind enough to share with our listening audience the importance, the need for an MRI?
Dreiling: Yes, absolutely. I recently completed a certification program on the interpretation of MRIs. It was a pretty intense course so I’m well-versed in looking at MRIs and seeing what’s going on with MRIs. One thing I’ll tell you is, a lot of patients who may have back pain, they go to their general practitioner and that might be outside their scope, so they’ll refer them off for an MRI they might find some abnormal findings comes back from the radiologist and then off to the neurosurgeon or the orthopedist. Then those guys will typically recommend surgery in many cases but the cool thing about an MRI is you get to see. You know just as well as I do, not to see is to guess, and to see is to know and we don’t want to guess with people’s health.
We can pinpoint exactly where the problem is. If they’ve got a herniated disc or a bulged disc or maybe an annular tear where the outside of the disc has been torn it’s swollen, we can see what’s going on with the first set that we can see if there’s degeneration of the sets which could be compromising the neural structures. We can see what’s happening to the spinal cord, we can also see what’s happening to the nerve roots.
If there’s ligament hypertrophy which could create a scenario where somebody might get stenosis. We’ve seen great success with stenosis patients as well. The MRIs really help us see what’s going on and then we can focus our treatment protocol to specifically address those areas. I can’t tell you how many times people will say after we review their MRI with them, “Hey Doc thank you so much for showing me the MRI, the other doctors didn’t even show it to me they didn’t explain what was going on and this makes so much sense.”
I really think the MRI tool that we use and we have many facilities we have some great radiologists who read MRIs as well, that really, we can really pinpoint where the problem is and we can lay out a treatment plan and get the best results to get their function and their life back.
Bard: I love that. We are coming to you live on the national broadcaster of the physician’s spotlight radio show with our very, very special guest Dr Troy Dreiling from the great state of Washington, specifically Vancouver Washington. Dr. Dreiling would you be kind enough to share with our listening audience a little bit of your contact information as far as your web site and your phone number?
Dreiling: We are in Vancouver Washington which is just north of Portland Oregon, everybody thinks it’s Vancouver Canada. We’re just across the river the great Columbia River by Mount St. Helens, Portland airport. We’re literally ten minutes away from Portland airport. We have people fly into the airport and come see us and then catch a plane and take off but we’re in the southernmost part of Washington.
The name of our clinic is Zenaptic Chiropractic or Zenaptic health center. People can track us down, they can call us at 360 260 6903 that’s our phone number. We also have a website it’s vancouverdisccenter.com, that’s vancouverdisccenter.com. You can check our web site and see what we’ve got going on, we’ve got events we’ve got different things that we do.
Those are a couple different ways people can reach out to us. They can also reach me at doctortroy@zenaptic.com that Z-E-N-A-P-T-I-C, doctortroy@zenaptic.com that’s how they can get a hold of me.
Bard: Very easy to remember you are a disc specialist you are a disc doctor you do– I’m going to brag on you a little bit because you actually have the highest level of training that’s available in terms of certification on the national stage as far as being nationally certified in non-surgical spinal decompression.
One of the questions that I wanted to ask you because I know our listening audience is very curious about this is, you could have practiced anywhere in the country and as we all know patients travel from far and wide to come see you. My question to you Doc is why Vancouver Washington? How did you decide to open your initial practice there?
Dreiling: Well, I grew up in Portland, I was actually born in Portland and when I was about six I moved to Vancouver and that’s pretty much where I want to hang my hat. My family’s here, a lot of people, was active in sports, a lot of activities in the community. I said, “I want to come back to my hometown and serve my patients.” I’ve been in practice almost 25 years taking care of people locally with all types to help conditions. It’s my hometown.
Bard: Think it’s fantastic. I think one of the things that you’re known for is your ability to utilize technology in conjunction with your tools, your expertise, your background and your experience to treat really some of the toughest conditions around. One of the things that you also able to utilize is something known as a laser light therapy in conjunction with your treatment. Can you explain a little bit as to how laser light therapy works and its utilization?
Dreiling: Laser actually helps the body heal, it’s an assistant. It helps reduce inflammation, speed up the healing process. People can’t feel it, it doesn’t hurt, doesn’t burn, it’s very safe and it’s very effective. The research shows when you combine laser with non-surgical spinal decompression the results are even greater. We’ve been doing a little research. One of the things we do, we do some active rehab with patients who do non-surgical decompression. I find that some of the studies out there showing if you do active exercise, one of the studies I read was for the shoulder if you combine exercise at the same time you use laser, the results are even that much further.
That’s one thing we’ve been experimenting with to see what protocol and outcome we can get by using laser. I always say especially if somebody has a disc issue, is it helps to seal and heal that disc. Laser is really a cool tool. Literally, it’s cool, that’s why they call it a cold laser. It really helps people speed up the healing process, helps reduce swelling, get them out of pain faster and that’s really what it’s all about.
It’s helping people get back on track, get their life back, get them out of pain, get the quality of life back, get them back to work and make it more enjoyable for them. That’s what keeps me going is the results It’s all focused on results and getting people what they’re looking for without the dangerous medications that are out there and sometimes the early surgeries that people experience.
Bard: Fantastic. You can hear the enthusiasm in your voice Dr. Dreiling. I think one of the great things about you is the simple fact that you have a policy in your office to be able to allow patients specifically who’ve been traumatized to be able to have early access. When say traumatized we’re talking about the after effects primarily of automobile accidents. As a trauma specialist as an automobile accident specialist, can you share with our audience Doc about the importance and the need to be seen as soon as possible? Why is it important to be seen immediately after an automobile accident?
Dreiling: Yes, that’s a really that’s a really good question. I always tell patients I said if you’ve been in a car accident, get in right away this should be the first stop. Obviously if you’re bleeding, it’s a life-threatening situation want to go to the ER but other than get in right away. Over the last 25 years I’ve found that the patients who come in right away, they get evaluated they start treatment if they have injuries, their outcomes are so much better than people who wait.
I’ll just tell you this Dr. Bard the people who I’ve seen that come in that wait six weeks or eight weeks, they went to their doctor and their doctor put them on medications and then maybe they did some physical therapy and then their bodies had a chance to have that injury heal and solidify. So now we’re dealing with scar tissue, we’re dealing with joints that are starting to atrophy that is going to potentially break down. The sooner we can get motion back into the joint, into the disc, into the spine open up the nerves, the faster that person is going to heal.
Many of our patients who come to see us we look back and we say when did this problem start whether it’s in their neck or back or wherever the problem might be. Invariably there is some sort of traumatic event that triggered it and they’ve been dealing with it for months, 5 years, 10 years, sometimes even 20 years. The sooner we can get somebody and evaluated treated from a trauma the better.
The worst case is when you have somebody who’s had a chronic problem for 20 years, it’s just a lot more work, it’s not that we can’t help them it just takes more time and energy. The sooner somebody’s had an event or a trauma the sooner we can get our hands on them, the better off the outcome is going to be.
Bard: If you look in the dictionary under the definition of the word doctor, one of the definitions of the word doctor happens to be teacher. I think that’s probably one of the most incredible things about you doctor Dr Dreiling is that you are an amazing communicator and really, you’re an amazing teacher with respect to empowering your patients. Especially patients who, as we’ve mentioned, unfortunately, have had to deal with the after-effects of an automobile accident. More importantly, a lot of times a part of the, forgive the term, but part of the medical, legal maze that they’re involved with in terms of whether there is a claim, whether they need an attorney, really what to do. I think that’s one of the things you’ve been known for is to be able to guide and direct especially in terms of your relationship and relationships with counsel all throughout Vancouver.
Can you speak a little bit on how that works with regards to the simple fact that, obviously, a lot of patients are referred to your office from counsel, from attorneys throughout Washington? Also, a lot of times they’ll come in to see you and they are not represented and there may be a need and there may not be a need. Can you speak a little bit on that on typically how that could be handled through your office?
Dreiling: Yes, absolutely. A lot of times we see first-time car accident patients and they don’t know the ropes. They don’t know the ins and outs of a claim, what they’re entitled to, what insurance covers. They don’t know some of the tricks insurance companies pay to slow down claims or deny claims. If somebody’s injured and it’s not their fault or even if it is their fault and they’ve got some coverage, I have a great team that we’ve put together that knows the ins and outs of the insurance industry knows how to get claims paid.
Sometimes there’s tricky situations that come up where they’d absolutely need legal representation, especially if it’s a three or four car pileup and they’re in the middle. Everybody’s going to point fingers that, “Hey, it’s not our fault”. A lot of times people can get taken advantage of and therefore, they don’t get proper treatment and they’d turn into these chronic pain patients. I’ve read studies anywhere from 80% to 90% of people involved in motor vehicle collisions have chronic pain 10 years later. That’s usually because they didn’t get proper care or they didn’t get any care so they’re suffering.
If there’s a simple– I don’t want to say that spinal decompression is simple because there’s a commitment on our part and the patient’s part, but relatively simple to correct many of these problems the people are suffering with, from some of the technologies that we use, some of the advanced methods that we’re using in our clinics. We really know how to maneuver people through the sea of injury and claims and insurance and attorneys. I always say we take them from injury to recovery, that’s what our motto is. We walk them through from the time they get injured to the time they’re fully recovered.
We educate them and train them and coach them and support them along the way and empower them to get their life back on track.
Bard: I think that’s really one of the things that’s made you such a leader in your profession with respect to being in a position to empower your patients. Really, for you Dr. Dreiling, to literally be the torch carrier for them and being their advocate, so to speak, for their claims in terms of coordinating orthopedic evaluations. Neurosurgical or neurologist’s opinions, MRI studies, and more importantly, documenting the degree of their injury and more importantly being in a position to communicate how that trauma affected them specifically on a day, date, and time and how that has the potential to affect them in the future.
Gosh, you are light years ahead of your peers with respect to being in a position to be able to be so rooted, so well in Vancouver, Washington. I think it’s very interesting because, as I mentioned, I’m going to brag on you a little bit. The reason why is because I’ve been very lucky and very fortunate to know Dr. Dreiling personally. One of the things that you’ll notice when you meet Dr. Dreiling is this is a doctor who clearly practices what he preaches with respect to his own physical health, his own physical wellness.
Especially with a mainstay of patient’s doctor, who comes to see you who are specifically interested maybe shedding some pounds or maybe losing a considerable amount of weight. Can you speak a little bit about your weight loss program and why it’s so personal to you?
Dreiling: You know my whole team and I we just finished up a cleanse. It was a whole food cleanse. We eat as much food as we want but we really eliminated all the toxins in the processed food. Actually, I just got a text this morning from one of my staff members she has ulcerative colitis. She was into drinking Rockstars I would see her drink two or three those a day and I’m like, “You really got to get off those things” and she was like, “Oh, but I need them, my energy” and come to find out she had all these bowel issues.
She just text me this morning she said, “I’m so excited I’m almost done with our 21 day cleanse. I’ve had no stomach issues. I’m amazed that I can tolerate the whole food. It’s been an amazing process I can’t wait to see what happens when I re-introduce other foods into my body”. We’ve always said nutrition plays a huge role especially when we decrease inflammation, we encourage people to get moving, drinking water. There’s some basic nutritional supplements we encourage people to take on a daily basis.
Nutrition’s huge. The father of medicine said let food be your medicine instead of medicine be in your food. That’s the key I think is really in supporting people in their quest to get better especially if they’re in pain they’re going to be inflamed. If we can encourage them to eat a healthier diet and show them some techniques that will help them heal faster and make them feel better overall. I’m excited about it.
Bard: You can hear it in your voice but more importantly you can see it in the results. I think one of the things you touched upon which is really an extension of your practice is your team. How incredible your team is and how everyone on your staff is utilizing these systems, these protocols and really the strategy is to be able to get the most out of life. To be able to have more energy. To be able to lose weight and to really, really, as I mentioned before, this is the life and the lifestyle that you live.
It’s been such a beautiful thing to be a part of. For the patients that are fortunate enough to be a part of your practice who are accepted into your practice, it’s unlike anything that they’ve ever experienced before primarily in terms of results and primarily in terms of experience. I think, Dr. Dreiling, I think that’s one of the things why we’re so excited to have you as a guest on this show. We’re just about almost out of time here. Would you be so kind one more time just to give your contact information here to our listening audience. For individuals who want to see if they qualify for care to be able to get in touch with you.
Dreiling: Yes, absolutely. Our office number in Vancouver, Washington 360-260-6903. We also have a website it’s vancouverdisccenter.com The name of our practice is Zenaptic, Z-E-N-A-P-T-I-C, Zenaptic health center. Those are the ways people can reach out to us.
Bard: Definitely this is maybe a world record show in the sense that it went so fast. There’s so many things I would love to ask you. Would love to have you back on another episode. Would you be kind enough possibly if you find time I know if there’s anyone who tries to squeeze more than 24 hours out of the day it’s you, Dr. Dreiling. Would you be so kind in the future to be able to join us on another broadcast?
Dreiling: It’d be my pleasure to come back on your show.
Bard: What an honor. What an electric, energetic, magnetic doctor Dr. Troy Dreiling. If you’ve been listening to this show for the years that we have been broadcasting in our humongous audience internationally, you know I’ve never used those words before. He is that unique and we were so gosh– today was like a goosebump day in the sense that we had Dr. Dreiling on the show. I want to thank you guys for being such a loyal, dedicated audience. We do read all your emails. We do read all your comments.
We can’t thank you enough for being such loyal followers of our national, which is really our international, broadcast of the Physician Spotlight radio show. I want to thank you on behalf of my co-host on assignment today, Dr. Eric Kaplan. I want to thank all our listeners here today. We hope to see you again. My name is Dr Perry Bard. We hope to see you again on the next broadcast of The Physician Spotlight Radio Show. Make it a great day. Make it a great week. Have a ton of fun. We’ll see you next time.
Announcer: We thank you for joining us on the national broadcast of The Physician Spotlight Radio Show. Recorded live from our studio in Palm Beach, Florida. Featuring some of today’s leading physicians, we invite you to join us again for our next broadcast. On behalf of our hosts, Dr. Eric Kaplan and Dr. Perry Bard, we wish you the best in health and the best in life. See you next time, live at The Physician Spotlight Radio Show.
