Transcript
[00:00:00]
Music: “Oh No, Ross and Carrie! Theme Song” by Brian Keith Dalton. A jaunty, upbeat instrumental.
Ross Blocher: Hello! And welcome to Oh No, Ross and Carrie!, the show where we don’t just report on fringe science, spirituality, claims of the paranormal. No, no, no! We take part ourselves.
Carrie Poppy: Yep, when they make the claims, we show up, so you don’t have to. I’m Ross Blocher.
Ross Blocher: No, you’re not.
Carrie Poppy: (Sighs.) I never get this.
Ross Blocher: “Get this” like you want to be Ross Blocher?
Carrie Poppy: No, I never remember what it is.
Ross Blocher: Oh, I gotcha.
Carrie Poppy: What am I?
Ross Blocher: Why are you?
Carrie Poppy: I’m Carrie Poppy. You’re Ross Blocher.
Ross Blocher: Aaand we’re going to be talking about chiropractic again. Or chiropractice, if you indulge me. Also, many people wrote in to remind us that also chiropracty is used as a noun.
Carrie Poppy: I’ve heard that, yeah.
Ross Blocher: And yeah, I totally had that in the back of my head, but it didn’t come to the front of my head. So, that’s just adding a Y at the end, which is very awkward to say as well. I don’t like it.
Carrie Poppy: Mm. Oh, I like chiropracty more than chiropractic.
Ross Blocher: I like chiropractice. Best for flowing off the tongue.
Carrie Poppy: Most. Yeah, it makes sense.
Ross Blocher: But chiropracty sounds more like a noun than chiropractic. So.
Carrie Poppy: But we can agree that, yeah, chiropractic is a disaster.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, but that is the standard form. And if you search for the others, it’ll take you to that one. So, I guess just deal with it. But is it the worst thing about chiropractic?
Carrie Poppy: Yyyyes.
Ross Blocher: Wow. Bold claim!
(They laugh.)
Carrie Poppy: I don’t know. We’ll see. But before we get to chiropractic, can I tell you something else?
Ross Blocher: Yeah.
Carrie Poppy: Do you remember Bob Larson?
Ross Blocher: I remember Bob. He’s your uncle, right? Bob’s your uncle?
Carrie Poppy: Noooo, I have no uncles named Bob. Bob Larson is an exorcist.
Ross Blocher: He sure is.
Carrie Poppy: (Laughing.) I couldn’t think of the word. He is an American exorcist, probably the most famous American exorcist alive right now.
Ross Blocher: I always refer to him as the world’s most prolific exorcist. I’d love to know who’s the runner up.
Carrie Poppy: Jesus Christ. Mmmm!
Ross Blocher: He did a fair amount, but at least what we’ve got recorded—
Carrie Poppy: He does all of them, Ross.
Ross Blocher: Oh, touché!
Carrie Poppy: Thank you!
Ross Blocher: Oh, you flipped that on me. I was thinking of the biblical canon. I was gonna be like, (stubbornly) “Well, he did perform quite a few, but really it’s only about—” But touché. Touche, okay.
Carrie Poppy: One cannot do it without him.
Well, so Bob was on his YouTube the other night.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, what’s he up to?
Carrie Poppy: He was talking about sleep paralysis.
Ross Blocher: Oh, that’s better than what I last saw him talking about, which was the Trump assassination attempt.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, I haven’t seen that one. He’s a big fan of Donald Trump.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, he tries to act like he’s very neutral, but he is very not neutral.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, he’s incredibly obvious.
Ross Blocher: And guess what? Demons were involved in that. But yes. What were you watching about sleep?
Carrie Poppy: Well, it was about sleep paralysis, which is that effect that many people have sometime in their life where you wake up—kind of wake up asleep. Your body doesn’t quite cough to life. You’re awake, but your body doesn’t seem to be. It’s not moving. Very scary.
Ross Blocher: Absolutely. And this is a nice little intersection of multiple interests of ours, Bob Larson and night terrors.
Carrie Poppy: So, sleep paralysis is—yeah, is a specific phenomenon that’s associated with a bunch of different neurological and psychological conditions. But of course, Bob thinks it’s demons. Of course!
Ross Blocher: Okay.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, so he did this YouTube live. Apparently what prompted this was a book called This Is Why You Dream, which I hadn’t heard of but was released kind of recently. And he read a book review of it in the Wall Street Journal and got pissed off!
Ross Blocher: Oh, okay! (Laughs.) He just read someone’s review of it. He did not read the book himself.
Carrie Poppy: I think he did go and buy the book as a result of getting pissed off at the thing. So, he goes, and he gets the book. It’s by Rahul Jandial. Apologies if I’ve got that pronunciation wrong. So, he’s a neurosurgeon. And so, I guess in his book he explains sleep paralysis the way you and I might. Probably better.
(They laugh.)
But he has a scientific, material explanation. And Bob immediately points out that the writer is of Indian descent. And so, Bob’s like, “I can’t find anything on the internet about his religious beliefs, but we can at least be sure that his ancestors were probably Hindu.”
Ross Blocher: Oh nooo. I’m trying to think if we could restrict Bob from the use of one word, what would it be? And ancestors would be a good candidate.
Carrie Poppy: Yes. Yeah. Just like any reference to a person’s heritage would just really cut him off at the pass.
Ross Blocher: Right. Before he can truly go off the rails.
Carrie Poppy: Okay. So, then he’s reading from the book, and he’s like. “So, essentially, this author is saying that people just superimpose their cultural beliefs on top of this neurological experience.” And if you grew up in a society that blames witches or demons, then you know, you might add this interpretation. And he’s like, “I bet some of you are listening to this, and you’re really offended, because you have had the actual experience of being attacked by these spirits.”
Ross Blocher: That you know about from your culture!
(They laugh.)
Carrie Poppy: Right. “And this neurosurgeon is trying to put it in a totally material context, and I can just hear your blood boiling right now.” And so, he goes on just kind of paging through the book being like—
[00:05:00]
“And then he says this! And then he says this! And can you believe this?”
And then finally he gets to his main point. He says, “The point I’m trying to make is that the neurological experience itself is frightening enough. But if the devil is inducing it or is taking advantage of it, and then there are evil spirits there—which you may or may not see, but which are attacking you—then they might penetrate you sexually,” the spirits.
Ross Blocher: (Gasps.) Oh my goodness! Bob.
Carrie Poppy: And then you end up, you know, a victim of sex assault as a result of this. He feels that this interpretation is the more palatable one.
Ross Blocher: Oh my god. I mean, after having the night terror, then you go back to normal. Once you’re done with it, your life is back to normal, and the material explanation allows you just to move on and go, “Isn’t that curious? Aren’t our bodies weird?”
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. “That was scary.”
Ross Blocher: And then Bob’s now has you upset that you’ve been violated. (Disappointedly.) Bob.
Carrie Poppy: Yes. And the original author’s advice for if you go through one of these events is to stay calm, don’t try to move; as best you can just remind yourself about what’s going on and that it’s temporary. Bob is very offended by this. He has a different solution.
Ross Blocher: I’m team Rahul on this one.
Carrie Poppy: (Laughs.) You don’t know what Bob’s solution is yet!
Ross Blocher: Oh, what’s his solution?
Carrie Poppy: Do you want to guess?
Ross Blocher: Reaching out to a deliverance ministry?
Carrie Poppy: Oh my god. Ross, you’re so smart.
(Ross laughs.)
Clip:
Bob Larson: Again, that’s why we’re here. And likely within less than a day’s drive, there’s one of our highly trained deliverance prayer teams who have gone through Bob Larson University, who are prepared to reach out with understanding to bind the evil spirits—the mirrors of the night—who come to attack you, to instill terror, to question your faith in God and to destroy your relationship with Christ. Don’t let that happen.
Ross Blocher: Well, we are both certified under Bob Larson’s, back when he called it the International School of Exorcism. Now it’s got a new title. You can bring your concerns to us.
Carrie Poppy: Yes. (Laughs.) Sure.
Ross Blocher: We’ll do as much or more than Bob can.
Carrie Poppy: Okay, yeah.
Ross Blocher: Wow! That Bob. Everything’s a nail to him.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah.
Ross Blocher: He’s got that hammer.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. Well, that’s it. Just wanted to tell ya.
Ross Blocher: Amazing.
Carrie Poppy: That’s what he did this week.
Ross Blocher: Alright, well, I’m gonna add This Is Why You Dream to my want to read list.
Carrie Poppy: Okay, cool.
Ross Blocher: Take that, Bob.
So, chiropracty!
Carrie Poppy: Chiropractice!
Ross Blocher: Chiropractic.
(They chuckle.)
Whatever you call it. Yeah, let’s go back for my second visit to another doctor of chiropractic. And (Borat impersonation) my wife—Cara—she knew that I was looking for someone maybe a little more extreme on the spectrum of chiropractors. And so, she suggested to me this place called Halo Chiropractic. And she said, “I think this might be what you’re looking for. This woman looks very entertaining. I think she’s a Trump supporter.”
And I never quite got to the bottom of what gave that away. Definitely this person looked fascinating. And I’ll show you—just a scrub through here. I’ll show you the Google Maps results.
Carrie Poppy: Gosh, she looks familiar. Weird. This is the doctor?
Ross Blocher: Yeah. She’s posted various videos of her snapping people’s necks.
(Carrie recoils.)
Oh, Carrie just jolted in her seat watching that happen.
Carrie Poppy: God. It’s so bad. Yeah. Okay.
Ross Blocher: So, I was all excited about this doctor. She’s been doing this since 2009. She still looks quite young in the photos.
Carrie Poppy: She totally does!
Ross Blocher: So, she started when she was 19 and had back pains.
Carrie Poppy: Oh wow. 19.
Ross Blocher: She has a little dog that works alongside her, and everyone calls him Dr. Sanchez.
Carrie Poppy: Aw. (Laughs.) Cute.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, see, that would win Carrie over. And on their Yelp page for Halo Chiropractic, they say, “We set ourselves apart by offering the highest quality of individualized care. We specialize in the detection and correction of vertebral subluxation complex. Our doctors have a combined total of 12 different techniques in order to tailor-make each care plan.”
So, we get a few of the themes here that we’ve talked about, which is doing something highly tailored to you as an individual. That’s a value-added feature. And also the incorporation of a variety of other modalities. And so, she mentioned that she not only uses chiropractic, but also massage, acupuncture, cupping, reflexology, sound bath. And she went into more detail on some of these things. Like, “We use solfeggioed frequencies.” And like, oh my goodness.
Carrie Poppy: My goodness. That’s just playing a sound.
(They laugh.)
Ross Blocher: Exactly. Yeah. That’s the (singing a scale) do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti— So, I’m thinking, okay, this is the person I have to see. Also, she graduated from somewhere other than the Cleveland chiropractic.
Carrie Poppy: Hey, congrats to her!
Ross Blocher: She’s a graduate of Life University.
Carrie Poppy: (Laughing.) Oh, what’s that? Does that mean she’s dead?! She graduated life, she’s dead?
(They laugh.)
[00:10:00]
Ross Blocher: My first thought was, “Is this like the school of hard knocks?” Like, I went to Life University. Yeah, it’s Life.edu. I see Carrie going for her keyboard.
Carrie Poppy: (Chuckles.) Are they accredited?
Ross Blocher: I think by some chiropractic accreditor.
And their website claims that the median salary for chiropractors—actually they said the median average salary, and I didn’t know quite what to do with that. But the median salary for chiropractors in Atlanta is $162,000.
Carrie Poppy: Oh wow, that’s a lot.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, that’s quite the incentive to get into chiropractic. And then they also said that they are ranked the number one chiropractic program in the US for 2024, according to NursingProcess.org. And it took me a little while to find that on their website, but that checks out. Okay. And Cleveland is number two.
Carrie Poppy: Okay, there you go.
Ross Blocher: And I checked the Life University tuition for the whole program to get your chiropractic degree. You’re going to lay down $141,000.
Carrie Poppy: Wow, okay.
Ross Blocher: I’m not sure if we covered that in part one, but a chiropractic degree I would have expected to be significantly cheaper than a medical degree as a doctor. And really not so much. They’re expensive programs! You put out a lot of money and a lot of time. You’re going to be spending three to four years studying to be a chiropractor. If you’d asked me before, I would have just assumed that it was a far cheaper entry point into calling yourself a doctor or hanging a shingle. And I think on the whole, it probably still is cheaper and less time and less rigorous. But still, it’s quite a cash outlay.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. I feel like the chiropractors are just sort of like the—(sighs) I don’t know. The doctor types who really want to be mavericks, who are like, (aggressively) “Don’t rein me in!”
Ross Blocher: Don’t tell me what I have to do. Okay.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. I don’t know. That’s just my feeling about it is like they’re…
Ross Blocher: I feel like it should at least come at a significant discount.
Carrie Poppy: (Laughs.) Yeah, I feel like it’s your maverick—like, the ones who like watch Northern Exposure and they’re like, “That’s what I’m gonna do! I wanna be the one guy in town. Crack, crack.”
Ross Blocher: Alright. Or they watch House, and they say, “I’m gonna find the obscure things instead of the common thing.”
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, maybe.
Ross Blocher: Okay. So, I was convinced by this. And even though it was down in kind of the Beverly Hills, West Hollywood area, I thought it’s worth driving down from Burbank—this means nothing to all of you who don’t live in the LA area—to see this person.
So, I called Halo Chiropractic.
Carrie Poppy: (In the place of “hello”.) Halo.
Ross Blocher: And a lady at the front desk replied to me. Very helpful, very friendly. But from the very start, I couldn’t quite tell what she said over the line when she was introducing. There was a little moment of confusion. And so, she never officially said, “This is Halo Chiropractic,” but I heard chiropractic, and I made an appointment.
She said, “Alright, so you’re going to come in, and it’s going to be $97 for the first appointment.” Which by the way, is a real sale. Good deal. Usually it’s $169.
Carrie Poppy: Oh shit. Well, they shouldn’t have changed that, but okay.
(They laugh.)
Ross Blocher: Yeah, I should have paid an extra, about 70 more dollars just—
Carrie Poppy: Just to get it.
Ross Blocher: Just for—
Carrie Poppy: Should we call them? Give it back?
Ross Blocher: Don’t worry. They ended up getting a lot more money from me.
Carrie Poppy: Okay, good.
Ross Blocher: And I was giving her a little bit of my history, all of these complaints that I’ve already complained about in the first episode. And she was repeating it back to me, and there were a number of mistaken notes. The phone connection wasn’t the greatest. But I did know that I would get an x-ray consultation in the first go around. And I thought, well, that’s great. ‘Cause the first chiropractor just wanted me to go spend extra on x-rays. This gets included in that first visit. And then you get a free insurance verification check. Why would that ever cost money?
(Carrie cackles.)
Why would you pay for them to check to see if they take your insurance?
Carrie Poppy: Or they call Blue Cross and are like, “Does Carrie really have Blue Cross?”
Ross Blocher: It just worries me.
Carrie Poppy: That’s so insane!
Ross Blocher: It really worries me that you feel the need to say that. Like, what else are you mislabeling? Anyways, I said, okay. Well, let’s do this. And I had an appointment for a Monday at 9AM.
Carrie Poppy: Okay.
Ross Blocher: And you showed up as well.
Carrie Poppy: Yes, I did. I drove to West Hollywood. The worst place.
Ross Blocher: Is it the worst place?
Carrie Poppy: Oh, I just hate it.
Ross Blocher: Like, to get there or just the people and places?
Carrie Poppy: Oh, yeah. To get there sucks. Yeah, the stuff sucks. The people suck.
(They laugh.)
I mean, some of the people are okay, but it’s like where all the like richest douches live in LA.
Ross Blocher: Okay. I just associate West Hollywood with well-to-do gay people.
Carrie Poppy: Oh sure, them too.
Ross Blocher: And they’re very friendly, and they say hi to you on the street.
Carrie Poppy: Sure, but it’s still so rich over there. Everyone’s driving awful cars.
Ross Blocher: West Hollywood residents, please direct your spite and your emails to Carrie.
Carrie Poppy: (Giggles.) Okay, perfect.
Ross Blocher: Oh yeah, they $49 over the phone just to like have a deposit in place. But yeah, we got there. And actually it was located just around the corner from where we did our cryotherapy.
Carrie Poppy: Yes. Oh, it must’ve been. ‘Cause that was LaCienega.
Ross Blocher: They should call it cryopractic.
Carrie Poppy: Nice. If you had both, you could.
Ross Blocher: Or they could call chiropractic, chirotherapy.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah?! Yeah, you want to get him in here?
Ross Blocher: You have strong feelings about this?
Carrie Poppy: No, I have weak feelings about it.
(They laugh.)
I have no preference at all.
[00:15:00]
Ross Blocher: Fair enough.
So, I get to the front of the building. Now, you’re already in there. You’re upstairs.
Carrie Poppy: Yes. Went to go try to find you. We passed each other in the night. I had to go back up the elevator. You went up the elevator. I went down the elevator. Etc.
Ross Blocher: It was very confusing. ‘Cause they had a callbox with a code. It wasn’t working. It was terrible. But—
Carrie Poppy: And there was a lady walking around the halls in a crazy contraption.
Ross Blocher: (Laughs.) Yes! That was my first sight. So, I’m going up an elevator as you’re going down the other elevator to look for me. Then I come out into this hallway, and there’s a woman with like a chair. She’s strapped into a chair on her back and walking around with it.
Carrie Poppy: Yep. Pretty much.
Ross Blocher: Okay. I assume we’re heading to the same place, chair lady.
Carrie Poppy: Well, I saw her and I really, really had to pee. So, I was like, do you happen to know—
Ross Blocher: Because you saw her?
Carrie Poppy: Yes. The second I saw her, I was like I gotta go! No. I had to pee the whole time. And then when I saw her, I said, “Do you happen to know where the bathroom is?”
And she was like, “Right there. I just used it.” And then I went in, and she had not flushed.
(They laugh.)
And I was like one should not announce that they just used the bathroom if one has not flushed the toilet.
Ross Blocher: I know who dealt it. It was chair lady.
Carrie Poppy: Let me tell you, it wasn’t just pee. It wasn’t just pee, Ross. Okay. Alright.
Ross Blocher: Oh no! Well, to her credit, she had a chair on her back. Made it hard.
Carrie Poppy: That probably hard. She probably stood up, and she was like, “Fuck it.”
Ross Blocher: “I can’t rotate to reach back to the knob.”
Carrie Poppy: She saw me, and she was like, “Oh good, you need to go there? Good. You can flush for me. I did not.”
Ross Blocher: That’s hilarious.
Carrie Poppy: Okay.
Ross Blocher: But what really shook me up was that I looked at the business registry again that shows you all the things in this building, and the chiropractic’s up on the fifth floor, and it’s called Bass Chiropractic?
Carrie Poppy: Oh yeah, I think I looked in the window first and was like am I in the wrong place? I see a chiropractic. But—
Ross Blocher: They this to us again! I signed up for Halo Chiropractic! Who’s Bass Chiropractic?
Carrie Poppy: And do I trust them?! I wanted the lady with the dog! What if it turned out to be LA mayor, Karen Bass?
Ross Blocher: I’d be a little disappointed in Karen Bass.
So, we did have one listener who wrote to kind of confirm my suspicions about name changes being very constant in chiropractic offices. And this person wishes to remain anonymous, but they used to work in payment technologies, providing gateways for merchants to get paid for things with digital connections to banks and whatnot, and said that all the time they would see a chiropractor who had their own personal LLC, but then they’d also have a doing-business-as name. And then they would work with another chiropractic provider, or they would change their name. And they said that chiropractic offices were considered moderately high risk because of their rates of business closures and likelihood of chargebacks.
In their office they had people dedicated to doing nothing but onboarding chiropractic offices, the same way that they did for firearms dealers. I just thought that was fascinating that they’re constantly trying to shift names, maybe just to stay one step ahead of negative reviews.
Carrie Poppy: Or maybe insurance burdens as incidents happen or something. I see. Interesting. Okay.
Ross Blocher: Yeah. Potentially something to that. So, now we’re at Bass Chiropractic. So, once you’re up there in the correct room with the lady strapped to a chair, there’s a little table and a little couch. So, you sit down there, and they’ve got refreshments for you. They had—not any old water. They had Beyond O2 Premium Alkaline Oxygen Water.
Carrie Poppy: Okay.
Ross Blocher: The Tiffany of alkaline water.
Carrie Poppy: Oxygen water? Oxygen’s already in water. (Laughs.) It’s right there in the O.
Ross Blocher: Just like looking up your insurance should cost nothing. You shouldn’t need to say that there is oxygen in your water.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, that’s very weird. What was the other thing about it?
Ross Blocher: Premium alkaline water.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, alkaline.
Ross Blocher: The Tiffany of alkaline water.
Carrie Poppy: Okay.
Ross Blocher: And you said you like alkaline water.
Carrie Poppy: I sense a difference in the taste that I like.
Ross Blocher: Apparently it’s supposed to be like a little smoother or something.
Carrie Poppy: I don’t know how to describe it. But it tastes—
Ross Blocher: But if the pH gets too high, then I think it starts to get bitter. Anyways.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, interesting. Yeah, I like how it tastes. I don’t know anything about it. But when it’s been handed to me, I’ve been like, “This is good water.”
Ross Blocher: Okay. But you’re just in the corner of this much larger space. It’s, I don’t know, something—
Carrie Poppy: It’s like a gym, kind of.
Ross Blocher: Yeah. Okay. That’s what I was just thinking. Yeah. It kind of looks like you’re at a gym, and there is equipment for various things, things that look vaguely treadmill-ish. But then if you look closer at them, you’re like that’s not a treadmill. What is that? And then there’s, you know, various tables for massage, for acupuncture, for chiropractic. But yeah, it’s a large, open floor plan, white walls, various things hanging off the walls. Little inspirational signs like this neon “Align and Shine”.
Carrie Poppy: Yes!
Ross Blocher: That seems to be like their catchphrase.
Carrie Poppy: That’s cute.
Ross Blocher: Which makes me think of, (singing; Carrie joins in.) “Rise and shine and give God the glory, glory.”
So, (in the same tune) “Align and shine.”
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. I do that Drew sometimes.
Ross Blocher: Oh, to wake him up? Oh, he must love that.
Carrie Poppy: You gotta, you gotta. He’s a real good waker-upper, actually. He’s always like, “My sweetie! Ahh!”
[00:20:00]
Ross Blocher: Aw, good attitude.
They also had coffee that you could make, and they offer tea.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, I didn’t notice those Orgone Pyramids ‘til now!
Ross Blocher: Yeah, all kinds of little implements. They also had Purium for sale there.
Carrie Poppy: No way.
Ross Blocher: So, someone in the office must be like part of the pyramid scheme selling Purium.
Carrie Poppy: Wow. Purium-id (pyramid) scheme. Did we do this last time? Purium-id scheme? How did we miss this?!
Ross Blocher: I’m not sure we did, but we do have episodes about that exact topic. And we’ve also met people who sell Orgone Energy Protectors, and that’s what this is. This like kind of acrylic thing with shiny rocks inside and kind of gold texture on the top. And you know, cute, but doesn’t do anything.
Carrie Poppy: A fantastic racket. They’re always so expensive, and it’s just like plastic molding.
Ross Blocher: Oh yeah. I bet those two little triangles probably cost like—
Carrie Poppy: $150 each?
Ross Blocher: Okay. Yeah. I was going to say like $40 apiece. But yeah, maybe even higher.
Carrie Poppy: So, then you’re also watching this video as you sit there.
Ross Blocher: Yeah. A loop of patient feedback and x-ray view of what happens to your neck as they improve you. And then, yeah, all these cut scenes of people’s necks getting snapped to the side. And Carrie is convulsing over it.
Carrie Poppy: Oh my god. Awful. Doesn’t that give you the willies?
Ross Blocher: I mean, yes. But not physically.
Carrie Poppy: Wow. God, it’s so startling every time. So, yeah, this video’s like a minute fifty. I sat there, and I got the whole thing.
Ross Blocher: Well done.
Carrie Poppy: Thank you.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, you can join the massage club to add massage therapy to your healing process.
Carrie Poppy: Decompression therapy, a non-surgical, comfortable traction therapy for relief of back and leg pain.
Ross Blocher: I’ll get to test this!
Carrie Poppy: And then acupuncture is 125 bucks.
Ross Blocher: As a new patient special.
Carrie Poppy: It’ll help you heal at the systemic level.
Ross Blocher: Laser therapy, cold lasers. I’ll get to experience this a little bit too.
Carrie Poppy: Okay. They sell supplements special (inaudible).
Ross Blocher: Yeah, they sell supplements for like sleep. Okay. And then they have three doctors. The first one that I was talking about that I saw for Halo Chiropractic, and then a Dr. Bass that this practice is named after, and then a Dr. Nick, who I will be assigned to.
Carrie Poppy: Dr. Nick!
Ross Blocher: Yeah, Dr. Nick! We’ll just use his first name, because it’s fun to say. Hi, everybody! Oh, there’s Dr. Rico Sanchez, the dog.
Carrie Poppy: Okay, got it. Great Canva video, whoever did that.
Ross Blocher: They do sound baths. And yeah, they’ve got their dedicated practitioner for acupuncture. Yeah, quite a bit of stuff going on there. So, Lisa, we’ll call her—as the receptionist, she comes over. Oh, “Hey, nice to see you in person after talking to you on the phone.” She gets my license and my insurance card, so she can go do that free check to see if they take my insurance. And of course, they’ve got paperwork for me to fill out. They want to know if I’ve seen a chiropractor before. Yes, last week! And they wanted me to check this long list of checkboxes of anything I’ve ever had. Like, at any point, which is—
Carrie Poppy: And then it’s like a sore throat, a headache.
Ross Blocher: Exactly. I was like, okay, I’ve had that once, so sure. There we go. I’ve had headaches, dizziness, fatigue, sleeping problems, diarrhea, cold sweats, pins and needles in legs, stiff neck, constipation, back pain, irritability, cold hands, fever, neck pain, upset stomach, and heartburn at least once in my life.
Carrie Poppy: Okay. But never cold feet. Got married right away.
Ross Blocher: (Laughs.) I was just gonna make a joke about getting married at 18.
Carrie Poppy: but I see you haven’t had any ooliers, so that’s good.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, no ooliers, indeed. (Chuckles.) Those sound terrible though.
Carrie Poppy: I think that’s probably supposed to be ulcers. Okay.
Ross Blocher: Then this was maybe more useful. They had a functional rating index for various metrics, and they wanted me to kind of rate these like pain intensity for the thing that I am here for.
Carrie Poppy: So, right now in this moment. Not ever.
Ross Blocher: Yeah. So, I said, okay, well, mild pain. I’m getting—I don’t know why I said perfect sleep, but I guess I’d had really good sleep the night before. I don’t know. They want to know about the difficulty in personal care, in travel or driving, for work, for recreation, for frequency of pain, for lifting, for walking, and for standing.
So, they had these little scales. And I—you know, mostly I was on the lower end of things, like this isn’t horrible. Don’t send me to the ER. Yes. And Carrie’s noticing…!
Carrie Poppy: I’m pointing!
Ross Blocher: Where this came from. This form was from?
Carrie Poppy: 2001, the Institute of Evidence-Based Chiropractic. Interesting. Yeah, I want to look them up. I will.
Ross Blocher: I like evidence-based practices. Okay, Carrie’s on the job. She’s gonna look them up. Privacy policy. Sure, that all sounds good. And then, of course, the informed consent. And here’s the business end.
“I have been advised that chiropractic care, like all forms of health care, holds certain risks. While the risks are most often very minimal, in rare cases complications such as sprains, strain, injuries, irritation of a disc condition, and—although rare, minor fractures and possible stroke—
[00:25:00]
“Which occurs at a rate between 1 instance per 1,000,000 to 1 per 2,000,000—have been associated with chiropractic adjustments. And this has been explained to me to my satisfaction.”
Carrie Poppy: “And I have conveyed my understanding of both to the doctor,” a person I have not met.
Ross Blocher: Correct. Yet again, same issue as before. So, I signed that. Signing my life away.
Carrie Poppy: Real quick. I want to give a shout out to my BFF, Claire, who listened to our last episode and was like, “I also go back up to the receptionist and say I cannot sign this. I haven’t met the doctor.”
Ross Blocher: Okay.
Carrie Poppy: There you go. Bosom buddies. (Laughs.)
Ross Blocher: You’re making me lie on this form. So, we get introduced to Dr. Nick. And this is where I’m thinking, damn it, I need to start requesting specific physicians. Like, if I have someone in mind, I need to make sure when I’m scheduling, I get that person. I don’t know. I just never want to make an issue out of that. And then I get whoever I get. In this case, I got Dr. Nick.
Carrie Poppy: You wanted the lady with the dog! I’d be disappointed too.
Ross Blocher: Tall guy, friendly guy. Had kind of like a surfer vibe or snowboarder vibe. This guy gets recreation on boards. I know that.
Carrie Poppy: (Laughs.) Okay, nice.
Ross Blocher: Turns out, later on he tells me he is a surfer, so.
Carrie Poppy: Okay, there you go! You knew he could balance. You knew it.
Ross Blocher: (Chuckles.) So, he takes us right over to his little office. So, most of this is a very open, brightly lit place. But there are two little rooms. I guess one of them is the bathroom. I never actually used their bathroom.
Carrie Poppy: I think I did.
Ross Blocher: Right, because you found the poop.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, that’s right. I think I also used the one inside. I had drunk coffee.
Ross Blocher: That’ll do it. So, we went to the little room to the left. Very cramped, small room.
(Carrie confirms.)
We just kind of barely fit in there with the x-ray machine that was taking up half the room.
Carrie Poppy: And we’re learning that these people are just—they’re just gonna let me in. They’re like, “You’re friends here? Alright.” That’s nice!
Ross Blocher: Yeah. Each time I called and said, “Hey, is it okay if I bring a friend with me?” for all three of my chiropractors. And all of them were like okay. I was like ready for the grilling. And I even offered this time like, “You can share whatever you want in front of her. It’s okay. I have no medical secrets from Carrie.” They’re like, yeah, okay.
Carrie Poppy: Okay, cool.
Ross Blocher: They cared less than I did. The room smelled very strongly of essential oils. And we started talking to him. We asked how long he’d been working here at Bass Chiropractic and why is it called Bass Chiropractic and not Halo? And it turns out that Halo belonged just to one of the practitioners. And now, she’s part of this larger cooperative. But he’s only been here for seven months out of the 12 years he’s been practicing chiropractic.
Carrie Poppy: Because he had been at some chain. I want to say The Joint.
Ross Blocher: You got it, The Joint!
Carrie Poppy: Okay, The Joint.
Ross Blocher: He’d been at The Joint, and he said, “It was a real whack ‘em, crack ‘em kind of operation—”
(Carrie lets out a “yikes”.)
“—where we just take people in, we kind of make them feel better for the day, but then they just keep coming back. But here, I feel like I’m in a higher echelon with people who are providing long term solutions.” Oh, great. That sounds great. And he had also tried running his own practice for a while and found that, you know what? I’m just not the business guy. That’s not my specialty. Let’s have someone else do it.
Originally from Seattle and also a graduate of Cleveland Chiropractic. So, we’re like, ding, ding, ding, number two.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, number two, which I had just seen earlier.
Ross Blocher: (Laughs.) Indeed. And he also let us know, “Yeah, I went to the LA one, which got closed down, but the one in Kansas City is still in operation.”
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, but then—and I was like, “Oh!” And then I think he said something like, “Not because of anything… nothing weird.”
Ross Blocher: “But I was in the last class.”
Carrie Poppy: Yeah!
Ross Blocher: Which, wow, okay, so you admit that to us. What happened after you went there that they folded?
Carrie Poppy: They were like, “We can’t top this. This is a gold medal class.”
Ross Blocher: Yeah, it’ll only be downhill from here.
Carrie Poppy: You’re familiar with The Music Man.
Ross Blocher: Oh yes.
Carrie Poppy: This is one of my favorite details about his—
Ross Blocher: Professor Harold Hill?
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, his silly bona fides is that he’s from (laughing) the gold medal class of aught six.
Ross Blocher: (Overlapping.) Aught five?
Carrie Poppy: Oh, aught five, you’re right, aught five. But yeah, I just think that’s so funny that you give an entire class a gold medal.
(They cackle.)
Even if it’s just like 30 students to be like, “They’re just all so good!”
Ross Blocher: I love that film especially. I mean, I love the play, but the film is such a great film. And Robert Preston is perfect in that role. I was just watching a video that I came across recently of Meredith Wilson, who wrote the music, talking about how he wrote “You Got Trouble”.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, sure. Right there in River City.
Ross Blocher: And how it doesn’t rhyme. And how, you know, he just found that you could build a conversation, a natural language conversation, that it would flow so quickly to a beat that it would sound like it rhymed. And I was like I don’t know if I ever noticed that before! But it doesn’t rhyme.
Carrie Poppy: I had to sing it in choir, so I remember that fact, but yes.
Ross Blocher: (Rhythmically.) “Help you develop hoarse sense and a cool head and a keen eye.” Anyways.
Carrie Poppy: It just feels like tumbling downhill towards something, and then no rhymes.
Ross Blocher: Now I’m just distracted by that film, but I feel like Music Man is in that rare category with like “The Rainbow Connection”—the Muppet song, where when you listen to the lyrics or when you evaluate the plot of The Music Man—
[00:30:00]
We should totally be against this guy! He’s a swindler. He’s a cheat. And he embodies many of the things that we talk about on this podcast. But you like him. He’s the protagonist.
Carrie Poppy: Oh yeah. Well, I mean, that’s kind of the joke of the play, but yeah.
Ross Blocher: Yeah. Anyways, I watched it from such a young age that it took me many years to realize like, “Wait a second! He’s a bad person!”
Carrie Poppy: Oh, I see. (Laughs.) Aw, that’s awfully cute. I remember when I went to see Oklahoma. The guy who played Jed, the villain, came out at the end, and I was very into standing outside the—you know, the actor’s door and being like, “Hi, I really liked your play.”
So, when he came out, I was like, “Hi, I thought you were really good.”
And he said, “Did you like me? My character?”
And I was like, “Yes?” And all the adults laughed at me. And I was like, “Oh, I meant because of how he acted… Oh, okay.”
Ross Blocher: “But you did a good job of being bad.”
Carrie Poppy: “Okay, bye.”
Ross Blocher: Just ‘cause you’re a bad guy, doesn’t mean you’re a—”
Ross & Carrie: (In unison.) “Bad guy.”
Carrie Poppy: Yeah.
Ross Blocher: That’s a lesson I learned from Wreck It Ralph. A very great film. I know you love it.
Carrie Poppy: Yes. My favorite film.
Ross Blocher: Alright. So, we’re in this cramped little office in front of a computer with Dr. Nick. And so, he’s telling us about his schooling. And he’s getting my rundown of what’s wrong with my body. So, I’m explaining all the same things that I’ve already told all of you.
And he asked me what time of the day I’m feeling those pains. I was like, “That’s a really good question! And I have no idea.”
Carrie Poppy: Oh, interesting. Yeah.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, so something to think about.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, definitely.
Ross Blocher: Also asked me if I sit a lot for work. Yep. I do that and definitely catch myself with bad posture all the time with like my lower back kind of jetting forward and this horrible posture.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, interesting. Your lower—oh, interesting! Okay.
Ross Blocher: I’m forming like a C with my spine as I kind of lean my upper body forward and my—
Carrie Poppy: Your upper back way back.
Ross Blocher: Or lean my butt forward too.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. Interesting. You kind of do the reverse of what I do then, ’cause I’m more one of these. (Off mic.) I’m always back here.
Ross Blocher: Okay, Carrie’s leaning forward like you’re using your computer like you’re fighting a headwind.
Carrie Poppy: (Laughs.) Yeah, and my butt’s all the way back in the crease. It’s like that’s where I’m rooted!
Ross Blocher: Whereas I’m just loungin’.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, you’re like the sloth at the DMV. Yeah!
Ross Blocher: Oh yeah!
(They laugh.)
We’ve got the film references here. So, I told him, you know, every time I think about that or realize I’m doing it, then I of course pop up and have perfect posture for all of five minutes. And then I completely forget. So, he asked the last time I saw a chiropractor. I say last week, now he’s curious about that.
(They laugh.)
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, fair.
Ross Blocher: And I say, you know, I had nothing against him, but he recommended I get x-rays, and then when I looked up this place, I saw that you do x-rays. So, I had a nice little excuse there.
And so, he had me stand up, and he starts putting hands on me and says, “Oh, your right hip is way higher than your left.”
Carrie Poppy: Oh, yes.
Ross Blocher: Oh, okay. “And your left one is rotating downward.” Oh, wow, you can tell that, okay. And he said that I’ve been walking around like a pirate with a peg leg.
Carrie Poppy: Shit!
Ross Blocher: He also noticed that I had my shoulders kind of going the opposite direction. Clearly, I had problems. Already, he could tell.
Carrie Poppy: And he’s just eyeballing this, right?
Ross Blocher: Yeah, finger-tipping this. Sure. So, already he feels like, okay, well, if you’re feeling like kind of a pinch feeling in your leg or a hollowness, I feel like this already kind of explains it, what I’m seeing with your hips. And he expects some sort of imbalance with the pelvis, but we’ll see. We’ll see on the x-ray. Then he starts asking me about all of these other issues. “So, do you have issues with your prostate? IBS, irritable bowel syndrome?” I said, no, not that I know of. “How about a skipping heart?” Uh, no. “Asthma?” Kind of? You know, I have like coughing issues. Told him about that. Usually related to acid reflux.
He asked about my sleeping. And I said, you know, I fall asleep easily, but I don’t sleep for long. He asked about headaches. I said, I don’t get them frequently. Every now and then they’re bad enough that I’m like is this what you call a migraine? Still not 100% sure on that. He asked if I ever get brain fog. And I said, “Ummmm…” we all had a good laugh at that.
Anyway. So, these are the kind of—
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, there’s no good answer to that. Like, (excessively rushed and defensive) “NO! Never!” Immediate.
(They laugh.)
Ross Blocher: Yeah. Yeah. You have to shut that down fast.
Carrie Poppy: “I’ve never had that!”
Ross Blocher: So, he has me then look up to the sky and—oh, this was something I was able to do in the moment. Because I said, “You know, I didn’t write this down last time or this time, but sometimes when I do correct my posture, I’ll hear a snap in my neck.” And I did that right then and there. And both of you were like (gasps).
Carrie Poppy: Oh, okay. Yeah. Yes, yes, that’s right.
Ross Blocher: Definitely heard it. So, he has me look up to the left and right, look around, rotate all of these little like extensions, just to see my range of flexibility.
Carrie Poppy: This seems so uncontrolled.
Ross Blocher: Does it?
Carrie Poppy: Yeah?
Ross Blocher: I don’t know if those particular questions about irritable bowel syndrome or something were all just because he had evaluated my pelvis and found something misaligned. What I thought was interesting about that was that he was going beyond back issues already in what he was asking for. Now does that mean he’s going to try to solve it, address it? I don’t know.
Carrie Poppy: I mean, maybe the—maybe I’m jumping ahead, and the x-rays will answer this question, but I’m just thinking in terms of like him using his hands and his eyes. Like, the human body, I’m picturing like, you know, a boat on the waves.
[00:35:00]
It’s—you know, the human body just like bobs on the environment it’s on. And like, how are you going to look at someone head-on and just be like, “Yyyep, right hip is higher than the other”? It just—I don’t know. I mean, maybe it’s possible, but it seems… mm, vague.
Ross Blocher: Certainly, he was touching me while he was saying about like the hip displacement. But yeah, I guess maybe that’s the sort of thing one would chalk up to 12 years of experience. “I just know by now, ‘cause I’ve seen so many people. When this issue is affected, these other ones are affected as well.”
I just noticed your Dylan shirt. That’s nice.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, thank you. (Laughs.) I am wearing a Bob Dylan shirt.
Ross Blocher: As you should be. There’s a new movie coming.
Carrie Poppy: I know, with Timmy! Timmy C. Timmy Ceee!
Ross Blocher: Yeah, Timmy Chalamet. The perfect actor to play him.
Carrie Poppy: Totally. I like Timmy C. Who doesn’t? What are we talking about?
Ross Blocher: So, we’re talking about x-rays.
(Carrie confirms.)
Because now he boots you out of the room, I think. Because, you know, why have more people—
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. X-rays. Yeah, sure.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, why have more people than you need in an x-ray room? But that’s where a little consultation is happening. So, I stand up against the wall, and he takes a lot of x-rays.
Carrie Poppy: I remember feeling like I’m out here a while! What’s happening?!
Ross Blocher: A lot of x-rays. What’s happening? I ended up seeing four of the x-rays that he took, so I don’t know what happened to the other like 12. But it was a lot of x-rays. And yeah, and I’m not like hypersensitive to, oh, what’s my radiation exposure? But—
Carrie Poppy: Sure. 12?!
Ross Blocher: You know, you want to minimize x-rays. And maybe I’m exaggerating there, but it was a lot.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, no, when I broke my toe, they were like, “Do you want x-rays? We can do it. We can not.”
And Drew was there, and he was like, “Get them!”
And I was like mmm, no.
Ross Blocher: Like, I have to put my foot down—
(Carrie chuckles at the pun.)
—at my dentist, because they want to x-ray me every three months. And I’m like that’s too much. Stop it.
(Carrie agrees.)
I looked it up. You’re asking too much.
I need a new dentist. Anyways.
Carrie Poppy: Well, we ended up X-raying my foot anyway. So, there you go.
Ross Blocher: Oh, good. And every now and then is fine, but I’m starting to think like how many international flights equivalents is this now? You know, radiation exposure.
(Carrie agrees.)
So, while he’s taking all these x-rays, we’re just chit chatting. He wants to know about my work. And you know, he’s very interested in that. And so, he starts humming—(hums the tune to “Bella Notte”.)
Carrie Poppy: Excuse me?!
(Begins humming along with Ross.)
(Deeply.) “Bella notteee.”
Okay! That’s Lady and the Tramp‘s “Bella Notte”. Beautiful.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, and so I bella-noted that. At some point I said like, “Are you humming ‘Bella Notte’?”
And he’s like, “Oh yeah, I guess I am.”
And I had it stuck in my head for the rest of the day. That’s how effective that is.
Carrie Poppy: Someday we should make a mixed CD of just like songs that showed up in the wrong place in investigations.
Ross Blocher: (Laughing.) Like The Lion King?
Carrie Poppy: The Lion King. “Raise Your Flag.” Yeah. “Bella Notte”.
Ross Blocher: Oh, yeah. Yeah. We’ve got quite a—I still love that Ellie Goulding song. “The Lights”.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, about the UFOs maybe? Yes.
Ross Blocher: And still makes me think of UFOs, even though she’s denied that it has anything to do with UFOs. Yeah, we probably have a lot of those. Anyway, so. That was just a funny note.
But when he’s finally done taking the x-rays, he says, “Okay, so I’m gonna mark them up. I’m gonna go over them, and next time we meet tell you all about it.”
And so, we get out. You come grab your stuff, I grab my stuff. And you said that you even zoned out for a bit.
Carrie Poppy: I believe it. I remember being like, “How long is this?!”
Ross Blocher: Crazy. But really it was a fast visit. That was just like a 45-minute visit, that first one. So, I paid the rest of the $97. They scheduled me for that Thursday, also at 9AM. And guess what? They don’t take my insurance.
Carrie Poppy: Can you believe this? Do they charge you for calling them?
Ross Blocher: (Laughs.) No, thankfully.
Carrie Poppy: Wow. What a service! Boy, this is really something, Ross.
(ADVERTISEMENT)
[00:40:00]
Promo:
Music: Gentle, quiet acoustic guitar.
John Moe: (Softly.) Hello, sleepy heads. Sleeping with Celebrities is your podcast pillow pal. We talk to remarkable people about unremarkable topics, all to help you slow down your brain and drift off to sleep. For instance, we have the remarkable Alan Tudyk.
Alan Tudyk: You hand somebody a yardstick after they’ve shopped at your general store; the store’s name is constantly in your heart, because yardsticks become part of the family.
John Moe: Sleeping With Celebrities, hosted by me—John Moe—on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts. Night, night.
(Music fades out.)
Ross Blocher: Okay, so let me tell you about my second visit.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, okay, I wasn’t there.
Ross Blocher: Alright, so I came back to the same place. Now I know how to get in there. And the first thing that Lisa asked me was, “No friend today?”
(Carrie “aw”s.)
And I said, “No, she’s got a final in one of her classes.”
And she said, “What kind of class?” I said psychology. And she said, “Smart gal.”
(Carrie “aw”s.)
And I said, “Yeah, she is.”
Carrie Poppy: Aw, thank you. Thank you.
Ross Blocher: So, I ate another banana. She brought me tea, which was great. With honey in it.
Carrie Poppy: Wait, so they just keep giving you bananas. That’s nice.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, I’m into it. I mean, I guess I’m paying for it. But you know, it still felt very generous. They were taking good care of me. They were very friendly.
Carrie Poppy: Keeping you from being too sore.
Ross Blocher: This time there was—the whole visit, there was just loud pop music going on in this laaarge area with all the different beds and sections. Like, this is big. The full room is a good 1,800 square feet or so. So, this is a large open space.
(Carrie agrees.)
Yeah, they’re taking up a good chunk of that fifth floor.
Carrie Poppy: And you see people like getting acupuncture and stuff right next to you.
Ross Blocher: Yeah. And actually in the forms, that was one of the things that they kind of warned me about is that we have this open-door environment. But if you ever find yourself needing to talk in private, we can make that happen. Which yeah, nice. Okay.
So, Dr. Nick takes me back into that little room. And before we look at my x-rays, he wants to show me the three phases of spinal degeneration, which is very similar to that other subluxation degeneration poster that we saw at the previous guy’s office. And—oh, by the way, a lot of people wrote us because they heard us early on mentioning that you’re not likely to hear subluxation outside the practice of chiropractic, but there is an actual medical term, subluxation. We said it at the end of the episode, but I think a lot of people just stopped right then and there to send us the correction. So, yes, subluxation is a dislocation.
And there were a couple people that wrote us with one particular condition that they said you definitely hear about it, because you’re getting all these little dislocations all the time. The doctor will talk about subluxation.
Carrie Poppy: Ehlers-Danlos?
Ross Blocher: Wow, yes. I think that’s the one. You’ve heard of it.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, yes, yes. It very commonly co-occurs with autism.
Ross Blocher: Oh, interesting. Okay. So, yes, there is a legitimate use for the word subluxation. But I still stand by A) that you’re not likely to hear it outside of a chiropractic office, and also B) it’s probably a good bellwether if you meet a chiropractor to ask them, “What are your thoughts on subluxation?”
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. And what does that mean to you? The same way we might ask someone what a toxin means to them and, you know, just evaluate how clear and consistent and scientific the answer is.
Ross Blocher: Yeah. And that’s probably your quickest way that I can think of so far of sussing out what kind of chiropractor you’re dealing with.
Anyway, so we’re looking at the three phases of spinal degeneration. And so, you see the diagram of a woman with her spine exposed showing kind of what a healthy spine is supposed to look like. Got this nice S curve. So, he’s talking me through that. And you’ve got, you know, multiple C shapes that we can look at, like the one at the neck.
[00:45:00]
And specifically, he’s breaking down the normal versus three phases of degeneration for the cervical vertebrae. Very confusing that we have multiple parts of human bodies that kind of use that term cervical. But we’re talking about the upper neck here, and we’re not talking about the cervix.
Anyways. So, yeah, the normal has this nice curvature to it. And then he shows me phase one, which already looks like it’s gone ramrod straight, forward. And yeah, that doesn’t look great. And then phase two. Now, it’s like circling—not only is it straight, but it’s circling how some of the vertebrae have sort of clumped in toward each other.
Carrie Poppy: Yes, there’s some compression, and then there’s also like a big gaping spot between the two vertebrae, bigger than the others.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, and he’s telling me you know, this is kind of the last phase at which we can still do some things for you, like we can fix this. It’s going to take a while, but of course we want to catch you, you know, ideally phase one or maybe even while you’re normal and prevent any of this from happening. But then phase three, that’s where—well, there’s nothing we can do for you. You might have to go get surgery or something. All of these vertebrae have started crushing in on each other, touching each other.
Carrie Poppy: The nerves are atrophying.
Ross Blocher: Let’s see the wording here. “In phase three of spinal degeneration, the joint space is no longer visualized. Bone spurs progress to fuse the involved joint. Nerve tissue atrophy occurs.” Yep, that looks bad. So, he tells me, “I gotta break it to you. Your spine’s in a bad place.”
Carrie Poppy: Uh-oh!
Ross Blocher: I know.
Carrie Poppy: That’s not even why you came here.
Ross Blocher: That’s the bad news. “But the good news is that we can help.”
Carrie Poppy: Okay, good.
Ross Blocher: So, he leads with all this information about the spine. He says this thing, which I feel like I’ve heard is noooot quite right. He says, “Usually it takes 15 to 20 pounds of exertion to keep your head upright. But when your neck is out of its ideal curvature, now it’s like 30 to 50 pounds to hold it up.”
Carrie Poppy: Oh, I see.
Ross Blocher: I’m suspicious of that. I don’t have anything better than that to offer.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, I don’t know how to evaluate that.
Ross Blocher: I feel like for the fairly subtle degree of rotation he was showing me like it wouldn’t be that much of a force multiplier. Now if your head is shooting way forward of your body, yeah, you’re probably putting much undue stress on your neck muscles to hold up your head.
Carrie Poppy: What if you’re the Pope?
Ross Blocher: Uhh, how does that change things? You got a big hat.
Carrie Poppy: There it is.
Ross Blocher: Okay. (Laughs.) Alright, yeah. That was good. That was good.
Carrie Poppy: Then it’s explained. 20 extra pounds. There it is. You gotta take the hat off.
Ross Blocher: So, after he shows me that poster, I say, “Can I take a picture of that?”
And he says, “Heck yeah!”
(Carrie laughs.)
He’s all for it. That’s great. So, now he brings up my x-rays on the computer screen. And—let me show these to Carrie. This’ll probably end up being the image that we use for the episode. So, he starts with this front-on view, and it’s weird to look at bones and think, “Those are my bones.”
Carrie Poppy: Oh, right, this is you.
Ross Blocher: ‘Cause not used to seeing them, right? ‘Cause, yeah, I think my brain instantly goes to “generic skeleton!”
Carrie Poppy: Totally.
Ross Blocher: Then I have to realize, wait, that’s me-skeleton. So, I’m looking straight at us, and I mean, to me, this looks fairly subtle, where you have this green line that’s perfectly straight, and that’s what I should be. And then my red line, I’m—from how we’re looking at this as a mirror image view, but you know, I’m curving a little to the left towards the middle and then coming back down to the origin point.
Carrie Poppy: And did he like stand you up really perfectly against a wall or something?
Ross Blocher: Yeah, he just had me—yep, stand up against the wall and said stand straight.
And then you can see a little shift in the hips. He made it sound a lot more drastic. And I don’t know, looking at the picture, they look fairly even to me, but I’m not a chiropractor.
Carrie Poppy: It’s true. Yeah, I don’t know. This really doesn’t feel precise to me!
Ross Blocher: So, he says, “Okay, so you’re the red. We want you to be the green.” So, essentially we want to shift that spine a little bit. And I said, okay, but we’re not talking scoliosis here or something. And he said, “No, you’re at 6.8 millimeters. If it were 11 millimeters or above, then we’d be talking scoliosis.” Okay. Got some numbers there at least. Oh, and, he says that there’s like a lot of effort on my hip trying to counteract this curvature.
And then he shows me the side view of my neck. So, we’re looking at my cervical vertebra there. And so, there’s this ideal green line that starts at the same place at the bottom, essentially, but it curves farther back. And my whole head and the upper vertebra there have started to tilt forward. And so, there’s numbers on this, and I think he said overall it’s that number near the top, the 23%, he said, loss of curvature from the normal. Not sure how that’s calculated, but okay. And he said, “It’s not too bad, but we do want to fix that. ‘Cause you know, the more you can keep this flow going, not only do you have the weight balancing, but you have better nutrient and blood flow.” That all sounds good.
And he’s talking really fast during all of this. Like, he’s just going into this quick mode. It feels a little blinding with science or just like trying to get through this fast, maybe. Charitably.
[00:50:00]
But my overall impression was just like, oh, I can’t keep up with all these numbers and diagrams and things that you’re showing me. All my takeaway is is this isn’t good. You’re the expert. You’re telling me it needs to be better, and I need to fix this. This could be really bad.
Carrie Poppy: And probably most people don’t want more than that.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, absolutely. But definitely the information is coming really fast. He’s not a slow talker to begin with, but this felt like especially fast.
And then we look at my lower spine. And this was the one that I think had him most concerned. These are the lumbar vertebrae, like where they intersect with the sacral ones. And none of this rolls off my tongue, but I hope I’m getting this alright. Anyways. So, you’ve got these five, numbered lumbar vertebrae with the lowest being number five. And so, I’m curving back too quickly. And I should like—my spine should be shooting forward a bit before it comes back up again. And so, he’s pointing to this area where those two sections are interacting, and they’re like kind of pinching already. He said, “This is our real problem area.” So.
Carrie Poppy: Believable. I see that. Okay.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, so I’m already kind of seeing, okay, so you have this plan. He wants to have all these subtle ways to kind of start moving these forward, where we get rid of that pinch and sort of free up all of this flow of nerves and blood and whatever. And I ask him, “Sacral, sacrum, are those related to sacred?”
And he’s like, “I wouldn’t be surprised if they were.”
So, I looked it up, and sure enough, it comes from the Latin “os sacrum”. In Greek, sacred bone.
Carrie Poppy: Seat of the soul. The Sacral Chakra.
Ross Blocher: Yeah. That was the belief that the soul resides down there. Interesting.
And I’m asking lots of questions throughout. And he stops to answer my questions and everything, but I do feel a little pressure to like try to keep up with all of this.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, no kidding.
Ross Blocher: And it’s more than I can absorb. And then he also did later on—and I had to ask multiple times to get these x-rays, because that was my main worry. It’s like I want these x-rays!
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, don’t want to take them again.
Ross Blocher: Well, and I don’t want you to just sit on them, and then if I stop showing up, I never get my x-rays.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah.
Ross Blocher: So, they did send them to me. And this one, I don’t recall him actually talking about with me, but this is just kind of showing a longer view of my upper body from the side. And again, the ideal curve is behind where my current curve is, so I feel a little hunched over forward compared to where they want me.
So, he tells me that one of the cool parts of his job is that as we make progress and go through a regimen, he’ll take more x-rays. And then we can look at comparisons directly and see how things are improving. And one of the main concepts is the healing of scar tissue. So, he’s implying that there’s already this scar tissue that’s kind of building up around the bones of the skeleton and that they’re going to employ this variety of procedures to kind of break things up on the inside and sort of coax the body into rebuilding more healthily.
Carrie Poppy: Okay. H-how are they going to break your bones?
Ross Blocher: No, they’re breaking up the scar tissue. Around the bones.
Carrie Poppy: Oh, they’re breaking up the scar tissue. Okay, good. Good, good, good.
Ross Blocher: And I said to him, “Boy, it would be so nice if it was easy to get this kind of information, so you can have sort of a live monitor telling you, hey, you need to straighten up or shift to the left or something like that.”
And he said, “Well, they do have like those devices you put on your back.”
And we did that for the podcast once. I’m like, “Oh yeah, actually I’ve used one of those.”
Carrie Poppy: I forgot about those. That was forever ago.
Ross Blocher: But if you could get a more accurate picture, think how useful that would be. And he’s like, “Oh, this is a good idea for an app.”
And I said, “Just make sure to cut me in on that when you do.”
So, he starts talking about all the various things that he can do for me in—! How many sessions would you imagine? How many times do I have to drive back to Beverly Hills, Carrie, to get taken care of fully?
Carrie Poppy: Fully? 60.
Ross Blocher: Yes.
Carrie Poppy: Really? Wow.
Ross Blocher: Yeah. That’s the number!
Carrie Poppy: Wow! (Laughing.) Damn!
Ross Blocher: The price is right. You just won a car!
Carrie Poppy: Wow! I should have put that on my 2024 predictions.
Ross Blocher: I wasn’t ready for this. I wasn’t ready for you to get that exactly right.
Carrie Poppy: (Laughs.) Yeah, that’s crazy.
Ross Blocher: I don’t know what to do.
Carrie Poppy: Okay, 60. That’s a lot.
Ross Blocher: That’s a lot of visits.
Carrie Poppy: And your problem is that your leg hurts, correct?
Ross Blocher: Yeah.
Carrie Poppy: That’s your main thing, is that your leg hurts. But now we’re x-raying your back?
Ross Blocher: But now he’s taking x-rays, and we need an intervention here.
Carrie Poppy: I mean, not that it’s impossible to gradate from your back. But my goodness, this is a lot of like A to Z. Yeah.
Ross Blocher: Mm-hm. So, he’s saying, “Okay, so this is the full deluxe plan. If we take care of not only the neck, but also the lower back, this will take 60 sessions.” And he said, “Have you seen those like chair things outside?” Yes, I have. And he said, “It’s not the ones they strapped to your back. There’s also these little wobble chairs, they call them.” It’s like an office chair, but there’s no back to it. There’s just this very flexible seat, small seat that you kind of perch yourself on top of—more of a bicycle seat than anything. And then you’ve got something to hold on to with your hands and you’re going to swivel around, and I’ll get to try it in just a little bit.
He said, “So, we’ve got those outside to help, you know, rock back and forth and break up scar tissue. Also, we’ve got a decompression table.” I think he called it a Lombardi decompression table. And so, that’s to kind of stretch you out like a—you know, like a gentler version of the old torture rack.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. We stop before you scream.
[00:55:00]
Ross Blocher: We have a cold laser. And here’s where it really felt blind you with science-y. He said, “It’s photochemical, not photothermal. And it goes down to the disc at a cellular level to speed up the healing process. I’m told it works on lots of things.” He’s read that it works on plantar fasciitis, vertigo, and apparently seizures. He even seems impressed that it does something for seizures.
And I said, “I want to learn more about that.”
(Carrie laughs.)
‘Cause that one already sounds— But the other ones have—like, I can understand the mechanism that they might work with.
Carrie Poppy: This is—what is it?
Ross Blocher: A cold laser.
Carrie Poppy: A cold laser. Okay.
Ross Blocher: Okay. He’s just kind of laying out in the same little office like, “Here’s all the things that we’re going to provide to you for the 60-day plan. You get a cervical traction pillow.”
Carrie Poppy: Oh, okay. I’ve had one of those. Yep.
Ross Blocher: Oh, okay. “That we’ll give to you, because we want to make sure you’re doing all the healthy things at home.”
Carrie Poppy: It’s a neck pillow. Yeah.
Ross Blocher: You’re going to come here. We’ve got a vibration plate. We’ve got a head weight to reinforce the decompression that we’re doing to center you.
Carrie Poppy: Massage guns?
Ross Blocher: Well, they’ve got like a whole massage specialist there. And you can join the massage club and get those as well.
(Carrie affirms.)
And he mentions one guy that he just did an x-ray on for his 17th visit. And he said, “That guy was further off than you, but he’s made great progress.” He didn’t say what kind of progress. Is he now just as bad as me or—? Who knows?
He’s telling me a little bit about the schedule, what’s going to happen at which week and when I’ll be able to take home like my little stretchy noodle thing that I attached to my back.
Carrie Poppy: Is it once a week for 60 weeks or—?
Ross Blocher: So, he says ideally it would be three times a week, but he understands I’m coming a long way. I have a tighter work schedule. “We could do it twice a week. Don’t worry. If that works better, no problem.”
Carrie Poppy: Three times a week for—what is that, five months?
(Ross confirms.)
(Strangled noise.) Ugh. God.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, this is a long time that you’re going to be with them. So, there’s all these things that we do. And finally then we get to the point where I’m close enough that he can start doing chiropractic adjustments.
So, he starts talking about that. And he says that they’re done by hand. So, chiro-practice. Good. Though, he says, if you prefer tools—‘cause I asked about the hand thing. He says, “If you prefer tools, we can use tools. I just think the hands are better.” Oh, okay. No, the hands are fine.
So, this is where I asked him about subluxation. I said, “I’ve heard that term. What is that?”
And he said, “So, anytime that one of these move,” and he’s motioning to a vertebra. ‘Cause you know, anywhere you are in a chiropractic office, within hand’s reach, there is a model of the vertebra. He says, “Yeah, anytime we move one of these, that’s a subluxation.”
Which reminds me, I saw like a good explainer—oh! It was in Trick or Treatment—that I thought was helpful for understanding some of the basics of chiropractic. So, this is from Trick or Treatment by Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst. We talked about before, great reference book from the early 2000s. Okay, so talking about the range of adjustments in spinal manipulation.
So, “The first level of flexibility is that which is possible with only voluntary movement.” So, if you think of like trying to hold your hand up, palm up in the air like you’re carrying a pizza tray or something. If I said, “Hey Carrie, bend that hand down as far as you can.” There we go, we’re both doing it. That’s level one. But the second level of flexibility would be if you applied an external force. There you go, like your other hand, and you push that down. Now that’s the second level of flexibility. And then the third level of flexibility is what corresponds to spinal manipulation. And that involves a thrusting force that pushes a joint even further. And it’s a technique called high velocity, low amplitude thrust.
Carrie Poppy: (Strained.) I don’t want it!
Ross Blocher: Carrie’s getting—turning red and she’s squirming.
Carrie Poppy: I don’t want it! I don’t like it. I don’t like it!
Ross Blocher: Yeah. And then the book also talks about the noises that get caused. And I think everybody knows this. I remember this being a real surprise to me, but—oh, Carrie’s got a—not a visual aid, an auditory aid.
(Crackling, popping sounds.)
Yeah.
Carrie Poppy: That’s Ross’s neck.
(Ross laughs.)
Actually, it’s a fidget toy, but I think it really sounds like the neck cracking sound.
(More cracking.)
Ross Blocher: No, you got it. So, as we probably already know—but I’ll say just in case—the noise is caused by the release and popping of gas bubbles, which are generated when the fluid in the joint space is put under severe stress. And we kind of know that to be the case, because after someone cracks their joints, you can see the bubble show up in soft tissue scan. And it takes a while for them to regenerate. You have to wait for them to suffuse back into the fluid.
Carrie Poppy: I hate that sound.
Ross Blocher: Yeah. I used to be able to crack my knuckles. I can’t anymore.
Carrie Poppy: (Lowly.) Good.
Ross Blocher: Alright. You’re safe.
Carrie Poppy: Ugh, it’s so bad. I hate it when people do that. It’s worse though when people like pull the socket out. You know? They crack by like pulling it out and it’s like (mimics cracking sounds.)
Ross Blocher: Ooooh, okay, now you’ve made me uncomfortable. Well done. Well played, Poppy.
(Carrie makes more popping sounds and then “yuck”s.)
So, at this point I said, “So, it sounds like you’re kind of breaking me up and then putting me back together.”
He said, “That’s a good way to say it.” (Laughs.)
Carrie Poppy: Oh no! How terrible.
[01:00:00]
Ross Blocher: I’m also going to get a brace to walk around with on my neck for just like 10 minutes at a time.
Carrie Poppy: This is for your leg pain?! Okay.
Ross Blocher: Uh-huh. Well, no, we’ve gone past my actual complaint to “this is what we found in the x-rays”.
(Carrie affirms.)
Or this is preventative, I guess. “And then you’re going to have head weights.”
Carrie Poppy: What the fuck’s happening?! Your leg hurts!
Ross Blocher: (Laughs.) There’s going to be more x-rays. There’s going to be more decompression. There’s going to be a sleep pillow. There’s going to be a stabilization phase where you come once in—oh yeah. So, toward the end, then you only come like once or twice a month just to make sure everything we’ve done has taken hold. So.
Carrie Poppy: Yes. Of course. They’re going to lose you as a customer. Ridiculous.
Ross Blocher: Alright, Ms. Oracle of Los Angeles. How much do you think this will all cost? So, already we know that there’s a deductible on my insurance. So, they’re essentially saying like, “Oh, we won’t use your insurance. Cause there’s a $6,200 deductible we’d have to meet. So, let’s just do a cash only plan.”
And I’m thinking, “Well, why not just charge my insurance, have them deny it. I pay, but I reach my deductible eventually.”
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, I want my deductible. Yeah.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, what’s this all about? Took me a while to come up with that, but then he said, “Okay, I think we can do that.” Anyway. So, for the 60 days, the full plan—again, he’s rattling this off super-fast, but that comes to a certain sticker price. But if I pay it all at once in full, in advance, I’ll get a 20% discount. So, you can either guess the full price or the 20% reduction price.
Carrie Poppy: Okay. I’ll just say a number, and you can tell me it’s close to either. $3,200.
Ross Blocher: (Whistles.) More.
Carrie Poppy: More! $6,000.
Ross Blocher: Actually, I was just going to say double it. Yeah.
(Carrie gasps.)
With 20% off, all of this would come for a mere $6,435, paid all at once, in full, up front, before anything has happened.
Carrie Poppy: (Gasps.) Oh my god, just taking an Aleve. I think you have sciatica.
(They laugh.)
Oh my god, that’s so crazy! That’s as much as an autism assessment at UCLA!
Ross Blocher: So, the full amount was $8,043.
(Carrie makes a strangled sound.)
Yeah. So, then he says, “Okay, but there’s another option. If we just focus on the lumbar vertebrae, which is your biggest problem, then we can do this with a shorter amount of time, we’re talking only 45 visits, and it’ll be 12 payments of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But with the 20% discount, we’re looking at $3,987.”
Carrie Poppy: A steal!
Ross Blocher: That’s the cheaper one. Yeah. Yeah, it’s like, look at this $3,000 purse. Isn’t it beautiful? Look at this $300 purse. “Oh, give me the 300 purse! Oh, wow. Such a great deal.”
So, you know, I’m trying to buy myself time. Like, let me think about this for a while. You know, I’ve got a lot of other big expenses in my life coming up. Let me think.
So, he says, “Well, you could always start with this one,”—the 45 visit—“and we could add more decompressions down the line, increase it.” Then he can tell I’m still not ready to make the decision right now and give him a ton of money. And so, he says, “Alright, well, we could add on more time and drop down this number a little bit. Or you know, what if we just start with today and pay for today’s session?”
And I said, “Okay, well, what’s that?”
And he said, “Well, we could either do a month or maybe just 300 for the day.”
And I totally caved and just said, “Alright, let’s do that.”
And he said, “Yeah, we can give you a sample of what this first visit is like. And you know, then you can decide after that.” Okay, 300. I’ve committed to it. Ugh! The pressure. I mean, there’s a lot of pressure there.
Carrie Poppy: There’s so much pressure at the chiropractor.
Ross Blocher: Something akin to a timeshare presentation. Like, the level of pressure. Well, you don’t care about your future? You want to get surgery? Because that’s the other option.
And I even asked what would happen if I went with regular medicine, went to my general practitioner, and I asked about the same problem? What would they try to do to solve this?
And he said, “Oh, well, they would just let the problem keep getting worse. And then they’d give you like some medication, like a shot that would make you not feel it. But then you’d keep doing the bad behaviors. And eventually it would get so bad that you would need surgery.”
Carrie Poppy: Okay. And that’s the only way that could go.
Ross Blocher: That’s the only way that could go.
Carrie Poppy: Okay.
Ross Blocher: “But we want to keep you thriving. We want to improve all of this in advance.”
So, he takes me back to the front desk, tells Lisa what we’ve decided to do. So, she’s working up the paperwork. So, she starts showing me around and like, “Here’s what you’ll do every time you come in now. So, here’s the iPad where you’re going to sign in, and you just give us this info. And don’t worry, I’ve already signed you in for today. And you can put your stuff over here. We’ve got a little, you know, cubby for your personal items.”
And she introduces me to all these little areas that we’ve kind of seen from afar.
Carrie Poppy: It really is like a gym.
Ross Blocher: Totally! These are the dumbbells. This is the leg press. So, she shows the decompression area, the acupressure area, the adjustment area where we do the chiropractic. Here’s where massages are done. They’ve got acupuncture as well as acupressure. And these are all clubs that you can join as extras. And so, she takes me over to the wobble chairs. So, those are those weird kind of—they look like the business Aeron chairs, but they’re missing the backs, and they’ve got this tiny little seat that you perch on. She’s just kind of facing me, and she’s having us rotate together.
(They chuckle.)
[01:05:00]
It was like oddly intimate, because you’re just kind of gyrating in front of somebody else. So, we’re doing that together. And you know, I’m feeling the stretch. It feels nice.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, it sounds nice.
Ross Blocher: Okay. Yeah, definitely. So, this is already breaking up bad scar tissue, I guess. The problem that has been introduced into my head just within the last 20 minutes. So, we do that for like 10 minutes to all the pop music going on. She’s kind of explaining what’s happening with that. So, then Dr. Nick comes back. So, now he takes me to this decompression table. And kind of like the one that we saw in that other office, it’s segmented. There’s ways you can tie people down to it. He puts like this harness on me.
And I’ve got like sort of this one piece pulling my upper body up, and then I’ve got this sort of harness on my lower body. That’s pulling it down, trying to lengthen me out. And while he’s doing that—so, he sets that going, and I’m there for like 10 minutes, but he also has this laser that’s just like on this stalk. And it’s shining a red laser vaguely towards my stomach, you know, and I guess piercing through to affect my spine? So, I say, “Okay, well, what can you tell me about this laser? Like, you know, what’s the intensity of it?”
So he says, “Hold on, hold on.” So, he goes and finds a little manual, and he opens it up, and he says, “Ah, ah, I have it here. It’s 635 nanometers.”
I said, “Okay, well that tells me it’s red.”
(Carrie laughs into a snort.)
“Like, do they give you a wattage?”
He says, “Uh, yeah. Oh, I see it here, 7.5.”
I’m thinking I’ve got lasers more powerful than that. You know, it’s like a laser pointer.
Carrie Poppy: (Laughing.) Yeah, for the kitty. Yeah.
Ross Blocher: And I’m trying to remain open minded about this, but he’s talking about how it’s a cold laser, and it goes deep, and it gets the tissue. And I’m thinking, does it though? I’m highly suspicious of that laser.
He did let me take photos of the book that he was looking at, and I meant to try to go look this up more, and I haven’t yet. So, they also give me this little cover for my eyes, so I can just bliss out for ten minutes while I’m doing this. And of course, I will occasionally lift it up just to examine things. I’m looking around, because I’m curious. But you know, for the most part this is pleasant. And we’ve got the loud pop music going on. And so, as he’s coming to unhook me from that, after the 10 minutes, I tell him a story about my oldest sister once visiting a chiropractor and the chiropractor telling her that she needs to wear golden shoes.
Carrie Poppy: What? He was the Pope.
Ross Blocher: And I don’t know if that was like, “You need to wear golden shoes in life.”
(They laugh.)
The Pope, he keeps coming back! You try to get rid of him, and he comes back. Maybe it was just like in the office, he wanted her to walk around in these gold shoes. Either way, it was important that they were gold. And this is obviously silly. So, I told him that, and I said, “Do you encounter like other chiropractors that you think maybe do things that are a little silly? ‘Cause it seems like you value evidence more than others might.”
And he said, “Yeah, well, you know, it’s like any profession. There’s a spectrum, and definitely there are some people out there who get really into maybe Eastern medicine or think they can do a lot of things with essential oils. But I feel like this office is kind of a higher tier.”
And I’m thinking, your folks do things with essential oils.
Carrie Poppy: It certainly is upstairs.
Ross Blocher: (Wheezes into a laugh.) Yes, it is located high up in the air relative to the ground plane, for sure. And he again mentions that old place that he used to be at, then says—
Carrie Poppy: (Disgusted.) The Joint? Ugh.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, he says like, “You know, they didn’t care as much about people’s long-term health. And that really wore me out.” But he admits, “Yeah, some chiropractors aren’t the best.” That’s about all he says on that matter, but at least he acknowledges that there’s a range there. So, he flips me over, and he’s got one of those little activator guns that sounds like a stapler. It does these little micro adjustments by going plink.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, I think that’s the thing that was used on me I mentioned in the last episode.
Ross Blocher: And you barely feel them, if at all.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, it really barely hits you.
Ross Blocher: It’s more of a noise, yeah.
Carrie Poppy: It’s kind of like the doctor hitting your knee for a reflex.
Ross Blocher: Okay. Our friend Jessica from The Friendly Atheist, she sent me videos. Because right after she heard our episode, she was visiting these horses that belonged to somebody else and saw a horse chiropractor working on them.
Carrie Poppy: Oh yes, you showed me this video.
Ross Blocher: And had two mallets and kept hitting the horse with the mallets. And yeah, it’s so cringeworthy just watching that hit. And you feel bad for the horse, which isn’t moving, but Jessica mentioned that it was showing some signs of some coping mechanisms like with its mouth.
Carrie Poppy: Chewing, yeah.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, I can only hope that to a horse feels like the little activator gun feels to me. I hope so.
Carrie Poppy: Was minor at least. Yeah, I hope so. Yeah, it’s still potentially superfluous, but who knows?
Ross Blocher: Animal chiropractic is a thing. So, he does that to me for a while, while we keep talking. And then, he hands me back to Lisa, who takes me over to where we thought maybe things look like treadmills. But no, it’s just this like standing pad that vibrates. So, yeah, I take my shoes off, and I just stand on this vibrating foot pad while she also puts this noodle on me, this big black—it’s like a—well, like a small pool noodle, but it’s black. And she kind of has it running behind my neck, over my shoulders, down underneath like a backpack almost.
[01:10:00]
And then she’s sort of tying it off. And she says, “We’ll give you one of these and teach you how to use it in the future.” But right now it’s just applying this pressure to pull my shoulders back and kind of make me more upright.
Carrie Poppy: Squeeze your—what is that? Traps together?
Ross Blocher: Yeah. And then if those two things weren’t enough, she has also heard from Dr. Nick that she needs to apply a weight to the left side of my head. So, you want to see the most embarrassing photo of me that I have?
Carrie Poppy: Really?
Ross Blocher: I don’t know.
Carrie Poppy: Is that—? Oh, okay.
Ross Blocher: It’s not a great photo.
Carrie Poppy: (Cackles.) That’s very fun.
Ross Blocher: So, there’s this little pocket of like metal weights in a black sleeve. And she’s got this big, blue bandage-like thing that’s just adhering it to the left side of my forehead. So, I’ve got this black tube around my shoulders. I’ve got the weights on my forehead, and I’ve got my feet vibrating under me. And she leaves me like I’ve gotten in trouble in kindergarten, just staring at the wall for 10 minutes. And right before she leaves, she says, “Oh, and by the way, we have a no phone policy here. We really recommend that people just focus and keep their eyes straight forward. But every now and then we’ll catch somebody, and we’ll say ‘phone’.”
(Carrie laughs.)
Also, because if you’re kind of looking down, that can totally mess with—that actually made a lot of sense, but I’m just thinking, ugh, I have to like have 10 minutes of no stimulation except for the—well, the vibrating of my feet. So, I did that. I listened to the pop music. I’m also told that the vibration plate helps promote circulation and blood flow. And then afterwards she unhooks all of these things from me, tells me there’s an Instagram if I want to shout them out.
Carrie Poppy: I mean, anything vibrating on your body is going to increase blood flow to that area, right? Because you’re moving it. Okay. Alright. Yeah.
Ross Blocher: Yeah, sure. Yeah, I mean, it makes some sense. Yeah.
So, they followed up with an email. They had already scheduled me for May 20th to come back in a couple of weeks, because I was going to be out of town for something. And I responded to the email and said, “Hey, you know what? I’ve decided at this point, I need to keep enough cash fluid that I just can’t commit to this. It’s too much. So, you know, I’m going to, I’m going to do my best to try to live better, have better posture.”
(They chuckle.)
So, I kind of beg off on that. I also mentioned, “By the way, I got headaches both days I came here. I wonder if it might be—my wife suggested that it could be the essential oils.”
And so, Lisa writes me back and says, “Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry. This is the one that we used.” And she sends me like the name of the product and a little picture of it. “And we will never use it again!”
Carrie Poppy: Oh my lord! That’s a big reaction!
Ross Blocher: I was like, “Oh, oh, geez. I didn’t mean to change your olfactory playlist. Don’t do it on my account! ‘Cause you know what? I don’t think I’m coming back.”
Carrie Poppy: Yeah, really. (Laughs.)
Ross Blocher: They did send me the x-rays, and I’ll have to post those. And now at least I have this image that I can use to imagine what’s going on internally with Ross’s body.
And then I get a text later. ‘Cause they do all their reminders by text. They say, “Hey, we’ll see you on May 20th. Yes or no, if you plan on coming.”
And I said, “No, did you not get the email where I said that thing?”
And they said, “Oh no, we didn’t. Can you please forward it to—?” And then they gave me a different email address. And that was the last I heard from them. So, I feel like I still wanted something that was a little more on the kind of extreme end of the chiropractor range.
Carrie Poppy: And I was right there to help.
Ross Blocher: Yes, so Carrie found a good recommendation for me, mere blocks away from where I live.
Carrie Poppy: Yes, in Burbank.
Ross Blocher: So, the third chiropractor ended up being exactly what I was looking for, even if I didn’t get the Halo Chiropractic I was hoping for on the second visit. So, we’ll come back next time. But I feel like this was a really good example of what people talk about with chiropractic, wanting to sign you up for multiple installments and a high upfront sticker cost that could very easily be seen as just a way to keep a business running. Steady revenue.
Carrie Poppy: Totally. No comparison could be more appropriate than the gym here. Like, (laughs.) you really are just coming in and buying a package and being like, “Yeah, I guess this is my life for the next several months. These are my new friends. Okay.”
Ross Blocher: Totally. And these friends x-ray me every now and then and tell me I’m getting better.
Carrie Poppy: Well, crazy.
Ross Blocher: Okay, well, I hope you learned something and enjoyed this.
Carrie Poppy: I did.
Ross Blocher: Don’t worry, we’re coming back with a lot more chiropractic excitement. I think you’re gonna love this third visit. And we’ll also give you some of the really fun history behind chiropractic. It’s a doozy!
Carrie Poppy: It’s a real back-cracking experience.
(Uses the fidget to make frantic cracking sounds.)
Ross Blocher: Ow! Carrie, don’t do that to my back!
Carrie Poppy: (Titters.) It’s exactly like that. It really is the same sound. Anyway.
Ross Blocher: That’s it for this episode. Our theme music is by Brian Keith Dalton.
Carrie Poppy: This episode was edited by Ross Blocher.
Ross Blocher: Our administrative manager is Ian Kremer.
Carrie Poppy: You can support this and all our investigations by going to MaximumFun.org/join.
Ross Blocher: Yes, please do. Next time, I swear I’ll sign up for all $6,000.
(They chuckle.)
You can also support us by telling a friend, by posting a positive review. Share it around. Let people know you love the show.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. Wow. You can make an ONRAC quilt.
[01:15:00]
Ross Blocher: That sounds lovely! Yeah.
Carrie Poppy: Yeah. It could be your family heirloom.
Ross Blocher: People will see it. They’ll love it. They’ll listen to the show.
Carrie Poppy: Exactly. While going to bed.
Ross & Carrie: And remember!
Carrie Poppy: From Bob Larson—
Clip:
Bob Larson: The medical and psychological establishment insists that sleep paralysis is a neurological phenomenon. I say, not so fast. I read a book review in the Wall Street Journal. This is Why You Dream. And this is what prompted this topic; I ordered this book right away. Rahul Jandial is an MD, PhD. And he’s the author of this book. He’s also a neurosurgeon and a scientist. And this is key, he was born in New Delhi, India. He’s considered to be the foremost expert on sleep paralysis from a medical standpoint.
Now, in all the biographies of him that I’ve read and everything that I’ve looked at online, there is no mention whatsoever of his religious beliefs. But it can be assumed that his family or his ancestors were Hindu, and that’s very important to keep in mind as we discuss what this book says. And it’s causing quite a stir.
“Long believed to be the cause of evil spirits—” That’s where he starts. He admits that right up front. “—the frightening phenomenon is now understood as a disconnect between brain and body. It is so ubiquitous that cultures around the world arrived at different though strikingly similar explanations for it.”
You can almost hear the sneer in his voice as he’s writing this. I’m not putting this man down; he’s obviously very brilliant. And has accomplished incredible things and is highly educated. But when it comes to this, he’s messing with territory that is something more than biological.
Music: “Oh No, Ross and Carrie! Theme Song” by Brian Keith Dalton. A jaunty, upbeat instrumental.
Promo:
Jesse Thorn: The following are real reenactments of pretend emergency calls.
Music: Dramatic, ominous music settles in.
Operator: 911.
Caller 1: My husband! It’s my husband!
Operator: Calm down, please. What about your husband?
Caller 1: (Sobbing in terror.) He—he loads the dishwasher wrong! Please help! Oh, please help me!
(Scene change.)
Operator: Where are you now, ma’am.
Caller 2: At the kitchen table. I was with my dad. He mispronounces words. Intentionally.
(Scene change.)
John Hodgman: There are plenty of podcasts on the hunt for justice, but only one podcast has the courage to take on the silly crimes. Judge John Hodgman, the only true crime podcast that won’t leave you feeling sad and bad and scared for once. Only on MaximumFun.org.
Transition: Cheerful ukulele chord.
Speaker 1: Maximum Fun.
Speaker 2: A worker-owned network.
Speaker 3: Of artist owned shows.
Speaker 4: Supported—
Speaker 5: —directly—
Speaker 6: —by you!
About the show
Welcome to Oh No, Ross and Carrie!, the show where we don’t just report on fringe science, spirituality, and claims of the paranormal, but take part ourselves. Follow us as we join religions, undergo alternative treatments, seek out the paranormal, and always find the humor in life’s biggest mysteries. We show up – so you don’t have to. Every week we share a new investigation, interview, or update.
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@OhNoPodcast
/ONRACPeople
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