Listen or Read Dr. Michael McClung’s Monthly Podcast Interview!
Topic – Chiropractic Equipment
Below you will find an easy to read transcript of Dr. Michael McClung’s interview on the razorcast™ monthly podcast. You can either watch the video to listen to the podcast or simply read the easy to follow transcripts below. Enjoy!
Podcast Interview:
RC: Hello everyone, this is Liz Harvey coming to you from our razorcast™ studios in New York City where we are dedicated to bringing you cutting edge interviews from many of the leading industry professionals across the United States.
In today’s episode, we are speaking with Dr. Michael McClung. Dr. McClung is the founder of Creating Wellness Chiropractic in Austin, Texas where he is committed to improving the health and vitality of his community through chiropractic and wellness care. Dr. McClung was one of the first chiropractors in America to become board certified by the American Academy of Pain Management. He also has advanced certifications in Whiplash and Brain Traumatology from the Spine Research Institute of San Diego and Motor Vehicle Crash Forensic Risk Analysis. During his career, Dr. McClung has served as the President of the Central Texas Region of the Texas Chiropractic Association, as well as, the President of the Travis County Chiropractic Society.
Dr. Michael McClung is widely considered to be one of the top Chiropractors specializing in holistic and alternative health in the country and he is also a contributing member of our national network of industry professionals.
Today we are going to talk about a very important topic: Chiropractic Equipment: How it works. Cold Laser and Spinal Decompression Machines
RC: Hi Dr. McClung. How are you today?
Dr. Michael McClung: Great, Liz. Down here in Austin, we’re seeing the sun shine for the first time in seven days so it’s gotten my mood lifted up quite a bit.
RC: Oh that’s fantastic. Yes, summer is officially here so we’re all excited about that too.
Question 1: Cold Laser – Please explain what that is and how it works.
RC: Let’s talk about how some of the chiropractic equipment works and what you use it for, starting with cold laser. Could you please explain what that is and how it works?
Dr. Michael McClung: Sure, Liz. Cold laser is one of my favorite therapies and in preparation for this talk, I sat down and started listing the cases that we’ve treated with it and I ended up with eleven or twelve different things. So I’m just going to go through some of the main things that we treated. Of course, the most common things are bulging discs or what they call slipped disc – very successful in treating that area. We treat carpal tunnel, we treat tennis elbow, TMJ or jaw pains, arthritic conditions. That’s one of the ways I got started in cold laser. I was a runner and I had to quit running because I had arthritic knees and once we got our laser, I lasered my knees and that year I ran 500 miles without any pain and I ran 500 miles the next year. So a personal testimonial there! It’s really a magical therapy.
RC: Wow, that’s amazing.
Dr. Michael McClung: Yeah it’s pretty amazing. Actually I’ve treated my dog with it too. It’s a very common procedure with veterinarians. Another common thing is what they call planter fasciitis, it’s inflammation in the bottom of your heel and every time you walk it’s just super painful.
Frozen shoulder, we see a lot of those. So the laser, I would say, I use this on about 80% of my patients. They refer in a lot of people for this thing. So as you can tell, I’m pretty excited about it.
RC: Good, so you kind of touched on this a little bit. Describe the conditions or patients that can be treated and helped with the cold laser equipment and is it suitable for all ages. And you already also mentioned that it’s suitable for pets as well.
Question 2: Describe the conditions or patients that can be treated and helped with the Cold Laser equipment. Is it suitable for all ages?
Dr. Michael McClung: I don’t treat pets but the veterinarians do and I’ve had many referrals from the veterinarian’s offices about their staff. But I’ve treated a lot of young athletes, soccer players, basketball players… those kinds of things. So the conditions pretty much cover the gamut of all the things you can think about that involve pain and inflammation. Also have done a number of post-surgical cases and I’ve also treated a number of what they call failed surgery low back conditions. This is where a patient has the procedure and it didn’t work out very well and I see them later and do the cold laser and it’s been very successful.
Question 3: Please explain what Spinal Decompression is and how it works.
RC: Okay now please explain what spinal decompression is and how that works.
Dr. Michael McClung: It’s a fancy word for essentially a sophisticated traction machine. We put patients on this machine and it has a computer head and the computer determines how much pull it pulls on their spine. So, one end pulls and the other end you’re strapped into a table and so the pulling motion becomes a pumping motion, it pulls and it kind of backs off, it pulls then backs off. I like to describe it as similar to having a dried up sponge around your kitchen sink. When you first grab that sponge, it’s brittle, it’s thin, it’s stiff, it’s rigid. But you put a little fluid around that and you begin to pump it and work it and it gets soft. Same thing happens to a disc. We can take an old degenerated disc, pump it with a decompression, suck in some of the fluids around the spinal column and soften that disc and then as we decompress it, it literally pulls it away from the spinal cord. So we have had this thing probably a little over six years and we have never ever had a spine surgery. So now the spine surgeons send their marketing reps over with boxes of cookies and they say “Why don’t you refer to us anymore?” And we say that we don’t have any surgical cases. So it has truly changed our practice. I had patients come in that were scheduled for surgery the very next day and I told them to postpone their surgery and within two or three weeks, they would go back to the orthopedic and the orthopedic just couldn’t believe the case. So we see a lot of patients that are kind of at the end of the road and we still haven’t had any of them have surgery. So it’s pretty exciting stuff.
Question 4: Describe the conditions or patients that can be treated and helped with Spinal Decompression.
RC: That is exciting and as far as the typical patients, describe some of the other conditions that can be treated and helped with the spinal decompression machine.
Dr. Michael McClung: Here again, I sat down and made a list. First thing I knew, I had a half a dozen conditions. One of the other things we treat is called spinal stenosis. It’s where your spinal cord actually gets so much pressure on it, it squeezes it down and it’s a horribly painful condition. Of course most people know what sciatica is and that’s one of the more common ones that we treat. It’s actually pain down the buttocks or pain down the leg. It comes from a bulging disc. So once we get the pressure off the disc, the sciatica goes away. Then we actually also put some cold laser on there to get the swelling down. I think I’ve mentioned this earlier that we treat what they call ‘failed low back surgeries’ very successfully. We can treat those unless they’ve got hardware or screws, then we can’t do that. So if you’re going to have back surgery, don’t get hardware and screws.
Question 5: Can some patients expect to be treated with more than one piece of equipment during a chiropractic visit? Are there manual adjustments as well or does the equipment take the place of manual adjustments?
RC: Okay and can some patients expect to be treated with more than one piece of equipment during a chiropractic visit? And also, are there manual adjustments as well or does the equipment now take the place of manual adjustments?
Dr. Michael McClung: I’ve been in practice thirty years and I still do old school chiropractic. Its super, super effective and we’ve gotten thousands and thousands and thousands of people well over the decades. We now have the ability to go a little bit beyond that and use some of these technical devices but most of my patients respond well to just traditional chiropractic and the ones that are a challenge, then we begin to put them on these more sophisticated kinds of things.
RC: Okay great. Well thank you so much Dr. McClung for being here! We know you are extremely busy so we just want to say thank you for your time and your help today.
Dr. Michael McClung: Great! I enjoyed it.
RC: For our listeners across the country, if you are interested in speaking with Dr. Michael McClung, you can either go online at www.northwestaustinchiropractor.com or call (512) 250-2225 to schedule an appointment.
On behalf of our entire team at razorcast™, we want to thank you for listening and we look forward to bringing you more top quality content from our country’s leading industry professionals.
