[00:00:00] Dr. Stan Pierce: The nervous system controls everything in your body. Organs. All muscles are nerve controlled, and so if you have misalignments of the spine that are interfering with the nerve supply, it can manifest as different functional problems. And yet people don't know they're out of alignment. They don't know that the nervous system's working wrong, and therefore they keep chasing the symptoms and dysfunction, trying to minimize 'em, trying to slow their speed to the grave.

[00:00:18] Trying to just tolerate life and get through the day by medicines or supplements or stretches or all the other things, and they often don't know it's an alignment issue.

[00:00:28] Jenn Trepeck: Welcome to Salad with a side of Fries. I'm your host, Jen Tpic, talking wellness and weight loss for real life. We're here to clear up the myths, misinformation, bad signs, and marketing to teach you how to eat and how to cheat.

[00:00:41] Are you ready? I'm having salad with a side of Friess. Hey friend. Welcome back to Salad for the side of Fries. I'm Chen Trebeck, your host and health coach here with you every week for wellness without the weirdness. Now friends, this is potentially a landmark episode as we have a special guest who is [00:01:00] someone I have been learning from for over a decade, I think.

[00:01:04] No pressure and full disclosure. We are colleagues in a way and work with many of the same products in our practices today, though I am honored to have him here with all of you. He's a fourth generation chiropractor with a Bachelor's of Science in nutrition, while his active practice is in Florida. He's licensed around the world.

[00:01:22] Since 2015, he's been president, CEO and lead instructor for the evolutionary percussive instrument correction technique. Currently, a faculty member at the Sherman College of Chiropractic and Life University. His work has been published. Orthopedic and Rheumatology Open access journal, the American Journal of Biomedical Science and Research, and the Scientific Neurology Research Journal, just to name a few.

[00:01:43] He's truly an educator and communicator, which makes his lectures and even everyday conversations truly transformational. He's taught all over the world and across the us. Now he's here with our salad with the side of Fries community. Without further ado, I give you Dr. Stan Pierce. [00:02:00]

[00:02:00] Dr. Stan Pierce: Oh my gosh. What a great introduction.

[00:02:01] Thank you so much. You're fantastic.

[00:02:03] Jenn Trepeck: Yeah. Well, I am so appreciative that you're here and I also want to publicly say thank you for being one of the early readers of my book, uncomplicating Wellness that comes out this fall. So thank you.

[00:02:15] Dr. Stan Pierce: Yeah, it's a great book. Hope everybody reads it. They need to

[00:02:18] Jenn Trepeck: Thank you.

[00:02:18] Yeah, so, so Stan, we'll start with more of your background and then go from there quickly though. One more piece of housekeeping. So friends. Are you in the happy, healthy Hub? Being a member of the Hub is the next best thing to working with me. As your health coach, you get a recipe every week delivered to your inbox.

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[00:04:03] Alright, Dr. Stan, as we heard, your fourth generation chiropractor, you went to Life University to play soccer.

[00:04:12] Dr. Stan Pierce: Correct.

[00:04:12] Jenn Trepeck: Will you share your story of how you came to, or maybe came back to chiropractic?

[00:04:17] Dr. Stan Pierce: Sure. So I didn't wanna be a chiropractor. Everybody in my family was chiropractors. I don't follow in people's footsteps or ride people's coattails.

[00:04:24] So I appreciated the profession and I grew up, you know, never having vaccines, never having a pediatrician. My father was a doctor of chiropractic and he just kept me healthy. So I really didn't know the medical paradigm too much. And so I appreciated it, but I also wanted to do my own thing. Something cool.

[00:04:41] Pilot FB, I don't know. Something fun, exciting. But then I had loved soccer. I played soccer since I was four and a half years old, and I went to, uh, try out for the college soccer team and made it as a walk-on athlete. But I had a collision in the soccer field, uh, about six months prior to trying out, and my knee was just killing me.

[00:04:57] My right knee was just totally killing me [00:05:00] and nothing was resolving it. And I was in good shape, but nothing was resolving my knee issue. The team chiropractor at the, uh, chiropractic school at Life University's soccer team, the team chiropractor, I saw him adjusting ankles and stuff and I was like, Hey, what do you know about knees?

[00:05:12] So he checked my knee and he realigned it. And within two days, six months of ago, acne was totally gone. I was so excited 'cause I had made the team as a left footed player, but now my right leg was back and I'm right dominant. So I was so excited. Ended up having a good career. Played in a lot of men's leagues afterwards, a lot of success, a lot of victories, but I had my own miracle and so I wanted to go into chiropractic to be able to do that for other people.

[00:05:31] So I actually went into chiropractic 'cause of a knee adjustment that helped me get better

[00:05:35] Jenn Trepeck: and amazing. It wasn't one of the chiropractors in your family. You know? No, not at all. 'cause we never wanna listen to those closest to us.

[00:05:41] Dr. Stan Pierce: Right, exactly.

[00:05:43] Jenn Trepeck: Yeah. So in the beginning of this podcast, we had a few episodes introducing people to different types of care, and we did one on chiropractic, but that was like five or six years ago now.

[00:05:55] So before we get too far in, let's make sure everyone's with us. Right? So will you [00:06:00] just talk a little bit about what chiropractic is and isn't for that matter?

[00:06:05] Dr. Stan Pierce: Yeah, sure. And actually this is a lot of fun for me since I'm a fourth generation chiropractor as my father, chiropractor, grandfather, great-grandfather, great aunt, great uncle, great aunt, females in a professional position back in the day, 19 zero, whatever.

[00:06:16] That's a big deal. I have an uncle and two cousins, chiropractors, uh, brother-in-law, chiropractor. So I just have a, a lot of chiropractic in my family, so I love talking chiropractic. But here's the reality is that the public utilization of chiropractic is actually quite low. Very few people actually use my profession.

[00:06:30] I'll, I'll talk about that in a minute. But the profession as a whole has got a great premise to it, A fantastic premise. It's not really arguable because just like the skull protects the brain, the vertebrae, when in good alignment, protect the spinal cord and nerves. And so if you have vertebrae get out of alignment, they can interfere with the spinal cordal nerves and cause problems.

[00:06:48] The nervous system controls everything in your body. Organs. All muscles are nerve controlled, and so if you have misalignments of the spine that are interfering with the nerve supply, it can manifest as different functional problems. And yet people don't know they're out of alignment. They don't know that the [00:07:00] nervous system's working wrong, and therefore they keep chasing the symptoms and dysfunction, trying to minimize 'em, trying to slow their speed to the grave, trying to just tolerate life and get through the day by medicines or supplements or stretches or all the other things, and they often don't know it's an alignment issue.

[00:07:15] The chiropractic profession is the one profession who's supposed to detect and correct these misalignments of the spine called subluxation. And that doesn't, you know, I'm, I'm not gonna, you know, necessarily beat up on my profession, but I would say that, you know, my profession, a lot of them are very committed to duplicating history the way that it's always been done back in the day.

[00:07:32] The word chiropractic actually means practice by hand. And so, so much of the profession is devoted to manual adjusting, and a lot of the public is like, eh, I don't know. You know, maybe I like it, maybe I don't. But nonetheless, innovation is, uh, something that I'm very, a big fan of and trying to lead the profession forward.

[00:07:48] And we can talk about that. But yeah, my profession's about spinal alignment. It's always been that way and always should be that way.

[00:07:54] Jenn Trepeck: Yeah. We'll come to the technology piece in a second. I think if you're willing, I wanna talk about the [00:08:00] potential, like elephant in the room, which is the common comment that I hear is that people are skeptical of chiropractic care.

[00:08:09] Dr. Stan Pierce: Great.

[00:08:10] Jenn Trepeck: So why do you think that is and what do people misunderstand?

[00:08:15] Dr. Stan Pierce: I think being skeptical is a healthy thing. I always encourage people to stay skeptical even when they're under my care and they're, you know, they come in and they're guarded and nervous and I say, Hey, stay skeptical as long as you can.

[00:08:24] That's a good thing. 'cause all Ss are doing, they're gonna ask more questions and they're gonna look for logic and then they're gonna look for results. I would prefer people come in skeptical actually. But my profession, you know, the skepticism of my profession, a lot of it has to do with anytime you're doing anything by hand only.

[00:08:38] There's the vulnerability of human error. There's also the potential for people making false claims or people claiming that it's a cure all, you know, just get aligned and everything will be totally fine. And yet if you're, you know, exposed to mercury fillings all day long and. You're not able to detox the amount of junk out of your GMOs and everything else, then you're not gonna just be healthy anyway.

[00:08:58] So a lot of times, uh, the false claims [00:09:00] of the profession or the kind of elaborated claims make people a little bit skeptical, even though I can tell you like, you know, if you were to ask me about have you ever helped somebody with asthma get better? You're like, yeah, happens all the time. How? Because the vagus nerve that controls the bronchial tubes and the size and diameter of those travels right in front of the top vertebrae, that top vertebrae is rotationally misaligned.

[00:09:17] It can affect the vagal nerve and it can manifest with dysfunction. Open up the alignment, release the vagus nerve. I have never had an asthmatic not get better. Now, am I treating asthma? No, I'm not treating asthma at all. I'm treating the alignment. The side effect is the asthma got better. So the skepticism does come from that.

[00:09:32] It also comes from the fact that most procedures being manually done are difficult to measure, and if you can't measure outcomes, then it's very difficult to publish them in scientific journals. So there's not a lot of scientific publications on it. There's not a lot of quality control behind it.

[00:09:45] There's not a lot of provability with a lot of procedures, you know? 'cause just like you see this generation of people that are just cracking their backs, cracking their necks, and they think they're doing the same thing as the chiropractor was doing. 'cause they feel the pop, they feel the nitrogen gas release out of the synovium and they're like, oh, I [00:10:00] depressurized it.

[00:10:00] It feels so much looser. Yeah, for like a half hour. It's like popping your knuckles, but it doesn't necessarily fix the alignment. And yet people equate, chiropractic is just relieving pressure momentarily, not solving it long term. And so they just get skeptical.

[00:10:14] Jenn Trepeck: That's

[00:10:14] Dr. Stan Pierce: mostly it.

[00:10:15] Jenn Trepeck: Okay, cool. So as long as I've known you, you have always talked in the themes of upgrading our care testing, not guessing.

[00:10:25] And I'm curious to hear, especially because chiropractic, as you describe it, is, you know, manual. How do you see, you know, or what do you see as the pros and cons of technology in those themes and what it means? For overall health.

[00:10:45] Dr. Stan Pierce: Hmm. Okay, let's start. Cons, technology intimidates people. I was, uh, practicing my father for 14 years.

[00:10:51] We were the first chiropractic clinic in the country to go to digital x-ray analysis to bring digital X-ray in. And he was so intimidated by it. But, you know, [00:11:00] the old school, uh, way of doing it, at least he was still open-minded and still willing to innovate. But technology intimidates people. It's also, people look at it as an unproven.

[00:11:09] They say, well, you know, chiropractic may be done by hand, but it's been done by hand since 1895 and therefore it's tried and true. Proven. I'm like proven to do what? Tried and true, proven and quantified and qualified by what? Like it's kind of, people just throw out their historical as being more dependable.

[00:11:26] That's just 'cause it's what they're used to. And so the technology innovations that are going on today, when you watch with Elon Musk's, Neuralink. Or you look at the nanobots or you look at gene splicing, I mean, there's so many technology innovations that are occurring, especially with AI analytics and da Vinci robots, and you just start to see all these innovations, Luke's arm, the robotic prosthesis for veterans that lose a limb.

[00:11:47] I mean, there's so much technology innovation that's occurring that it's a natural progression of the human species to innovate. So that's why I encourage my profession to be part of innovation rather than staying old school because the nature of [00:12:00] humans is to innovate, is to improve. And so if, if my profession doesn't innovate, I feel like they'll be perceived as outdated.

[00:12:05] Antiquated. Once again, that's the con. It's intimidating some people and they perceive it as an unknown now that the pros of technology. Those are fantastic. So the pro of technology for me, for example, is because we use a, a sound wave alignment instrument on a three axes delivery. It minimizes or almost eliminates the variable of human error because it's a table mount of machine that has a exact calibration within a hundred of a degree of accuracy.

[00:12:29] So I decreased human error, the use of technology to use a sound impulse to deliver the adjustment rather than manual thrust. The sound wave is measurable. I've measured it. We've published this in medical journals. And it's gentle. It's so gentle. So people that are worried about chiropractors, you know, racking 'em too hard, or the risks of injury, we don't have that in Epic.

[00:12:50] So it gives the customers, the public, a peace of mind knowing, Hey, maybe this is safer. It sure feels like it sure seems like it. And then they can actually measure me [00:13:00] on x-ray, and then after the first correction, they can measure me on x-ray again to make sure it worked. Oh my God. Like you're actually quantifying and controlling something.

[00:13:09] Wow. You know, they, they get really excited about it. And so the other element that's such a pro of technology is typically the results increase when the accuracy increases. So the more specific a doctor diagnosis and the more specifically they customize the care to match the need, typically patients are gonna have better outcomes.

[00:13:27] And that's why the biggest catchphrase in healthcare is concierge, customized, I, everyone wants to be special and specific, and I'm unique. Well. In Epic, we measure those uniquenesses, we customize. It's almost like concierge care, but our price point is still reasonable. You know, we don't just charge it out the roof, you know, just because our results are so great.

[00:13:49] But it's, you know, technology should lead us to better outcomes and we were finding that in Epic.

[00:13:53] Jenn Trepeck: Amazing. And not just Epic, which we'll talk more about in a second. But you also like discovered and developed [00:14:00] other x-rays. Right. So speak to some of that and did those sort of discoveries lead you to, you know, epic and what you're doing now, or how does it all fit together?

[00:14:12] Dr. Stan Pierce: Well, EPIC is the acronym for Evolutionary Percussive Instrument Corrections. So we use a percussive instrument to do corrections, not adjustments, but the E is the most important part. It's evolutionary, always evolving and advancing. So being a fourth generation chiropractor, fortunately I'm the beneficiary of generations of innovation.

[00:14:30] So I've been able to learn and be blessed by that. But also now that we are to the technology age where we can measure and quantify things, we've been able to statistically scrutinize what we've been taught over the years. Concepts that we were taught hand me down concepts, and we've been able to statistically validate quite a bit of those.

[00:14:47] We've been able to statistically realize some of the concepts weren't refined, weren't accurate enough to get the best outcomes, and we've been able to change the procedure. So I'm literally running the only procedure in chiropractic that is data driven. Its development [00:15:00] like we scrutinize our protocols and therefore we can also duplicate our protocols.

[00:15:04] So when you go to public skepticism, in my profession, by the way, back to that real quick, is they don't know what they're gonna get. They go into one chiropractor and they're getting. Nutritional consultation. They go to another chiropractor and they're getting exercise programs. They go to another chiropractor and they're gonna counsel the anger out of their liver.

[00:15:20] They go to another chiropractor and they're gonna do a spinal manipulation. They're gonna go to another chiropractor, get disc decompression. They just, there's no continuity. There's no predictability. And a lot of the chiropractors aren't in their states allowed to explain their differentiators because of chiropractic boards not really wanting us to talk about how we specialize in different things.

[00:15:38] And so the public really starts to get the point where just like, I don't know what these guys do. It's a confusion point that leaves us ambiguous in the healthcare market to know where do we fit, where do we not? So the beauty of Epic is you know exactly what you're gonna get when you go to a clinic that practices epic.

[00:15:53] You know, predictably the protocols they're gonna use, the technology they're gonna use, and the outcomes they're gonna generate. And that is a [00:16:00] beautiful thing for the public to start trusting my profession, but more importantly, trusting Epic.

[00:16:04] Jenn Trepeck: Amazing, and I wanna dig deeper into some of the case studies and other things that you're able to do with this technology.

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[00:17:31] Okay, Dr. Stan, back to you. So speaking of technology, you've talked about this evolutionary percussive instrument corrections, and you mentioned three axis. Like what does that mean to the lay person? And even the idea of using like sound wave. What does that mean to us as a potential client or patient?

[00:17:52] Dr. Stan Pierce: Great question. So imagine that you are on a boat out on the water and your engine's gone bad and you were [00:18:00] way out in the water. You couldn't see the land and you did the uh, S-O-S-S-O-S on the walkie-talkie, cb, whatever, and they say, well, where are you located? You're like, I'm on the water. Like, okay, great, but where?

[00:18:08] Well, I'm in my boat on the water, and they're like, okay, you're not helping me. Okay, so where in the water are you? Like, I'm off the coast. I can't really see the beach. Okay. What do they look for? They're looking for latitude and longitude. So they can find where you are in order to be able to come get you.

[00:18:21] If you're in an airplane, you use latitude, longitude, and altitude 'cause you're in a three-dimensional space. And so what it means for the public when you hear three axes delivery inside Epic is we are measuring structural misalignment on multiple planes of reference in order to be able to control the alignment.

[00:18:36] And if we can degree specifically measure your misalignments, then we can degree specifically correct those misalignments. The instrument we have was that one of our patented features on it is the third axis of delivery that never existed before, and that gave us maximum accuracy for it.

[00:18:52] Jenn Trepeck: So in a lot of chiropractic, as you talked about before, it's focusing on the spine and there's often [00:19:00] different pieces of the spine.

[00:19:00] You mentioned the vagus nerve and the top, you know, two vertebrae. Why is it so those two? With the vagus nerve, but why else do we focus on that area specifically?

[00:19:14] Dr. Stan Pierce: Yeah, that's a great question and I also need to get back to answering your sound bit question that applies. Yes, that too. Yeah. So the upper neck, the upper cervical spine is the most important area of the spine neurologically.

[00:19:22] Functionally, it not only protects the print transition of the brain to the brainstem, to the spinal cord. So it's the brainstem protector, basically. And there's an argument by the way, in the field about where the brainstem actually is. Some people say it's up inside the skull. Some people would say it's all the way down to C two.

[00:19:36] And the reason why there's a discrepancy in that conversation in in the science space is because some people are studying cadavers. Where the tissue is already dehydrated and therefore it's shrunk up higher. Some people are are studying functional MRIs where you can actually see a hydrated patient in a weightbearing environment.

[00:19:51] It's much lower, so it doesn't matter that the point is the upper cervical spine protects the central nervous system neurology of the spinal cord transition. And so if you do have [00:20:00] dislocations up there, full dislocations. Christopher Reeves, Superman was the most famous one, broke his neck, whole body goes paralyzed.

[00:20:06] He did not break his vagus nerve, which is why his organ still function, even though his musculoskeletal system was impaired. But if you have partial dislocation, partial misalignment in the upper neck area, it can impede neurologic function to the entire body. It can cause twisting of the frame scoliosis.

[00:20:21] It can cause unilateral hypertension in one side where people say, oh, I always carry my stress right here. That's dumb. You don't just take your stress and put it right there. But what happens is people are out of alignment so commonly and they don't know it, and it's neurologically overstimulating a certain muscle group, so it's already tight.

[00:20:36] Then you stress out the whole system with more stress. They both get tighter, but the side that's already predisposed to this issue is going to manifest with symptoms more commonly. Then people go get it rubbed, rubbed, rubbed, stretched, heated, injected, whatever, and it, it helps, but then it comes back.

[00:20:52] Because the neurology was never fixed by the alignment being fixed. So the, the reason why the C one C two is so important in the upper neck, it's the one area of the spine that's [00:21:00] not secured like the rest of the spine. The rest of the spine has these interlocking facet joints, if you look it up on models, and the rest of the spine has these discs in between the vertebrae in the front, so they're more protected than anything else.

[00:21:12] The upper neck, the C ox, but C one, C two does not have those joints, does not have the discs. It's more highly movable, but means it's less locked, less stable. And you got a fi about. Between a 10 to 12 pound bowling ball sitting on top of it. So everyone knows the vulnerability up here and people get in accidents and they have a seatbelt holding their thoracics in their abdomen, but there's no seatbelt holding their head.

[00:21:31] And so their head gets thrown around these car accidents or they bang their head on the cabinet or they fall out a tree, or they play high school football or people get out of alignment. Up here almost always is the primary, most vulnerable area of the spine to getting out of alignment. And so if they don't have the angled facet joints, it's very hard to just.

[00:21:46] Manipulate that into place or adjust into place. That's why it requires upper cervical specific and the more specific we are and that, that it leads us into, and we'll talk about blood flow in just a second 'cause that's gonna be our real secret sauce for the stock. [00:22:00] Real secret salad dressing, I guess, right?

[00:22:02] Jenn Trepeck: I'm with you.

[00:22:03] Dr. Stan Pierce: Uh, but the, uh, the reason for the sound wave is sound always can move things. We've known that with lithotripsy. They use sound wave to break up kidney stones. They use sound wave as part of physical therapy ultrasound to try to help rehabilitate tissue that's been damaged. They've also, now they can use sound wave to levitate masks to hold objects.

[00:22:20] You see the videos about it so intriguing. They can bend water flows with sound waves. So they're using sound all the time to move and bend things. We use a sound impulse to slide the vertebrae gently about an eighth of an inch with accuracy into exact position, using exact coordinates, exact degrees from your three dimensional digital films.

[00:22:38] So it's very controlled. And this the, when people say, I still don't get it. How can sound wave move bone? And I go, close your eyes and close their eyes and they go on a count of three, open your eyes, 1, 2, 3. And they open their eyes. I go, how did you know to open your eyes? And they go, you said 1, 2, 3. I go, I know, but you weren't reading my lips.

[00:22:55] How did you They go, I heard you. I go, how'd you hear me? I sent sound. Wave through the [00:23:00] air, down the ear canal to this eardrum, vibrating some bones of the inner ear connected to nerves that told them. That's sound, sound, wave moving bones of the inner ear. Sound moving bone. You've known that since you were a baby.

[00:23:11] You've heard your mama's voice. So everyone knows sound can move bone. They just aren't aware that you can use it to correct the spine gently and accurately.

[00:23:18] Jenn Trepeck: Amazing. So. You tease us with some blood flow, but is that how you end up with such a range of, I guess, symptomology that can be resolved?

[00:23:31] Dr. Stan Pierce: Yeah. In fact, we'll come back to the blood flow in a second, 'cause I can kind of see where you're asking about this.

[00:23:35] This is important. The biggest challenge in healthcare is that most of it is in healthcare. It's almost all sickness care, controlling, minimizing symptoms and diseases with drug shot surgeries, or sometimes even using natural stuff too. But ultimately what ends up happening is people say, oh no, my problem is my disc has gone bad.

[00:23:52] And I'll say, why? I'll say, well, I'm getting older. I'll say, are all of your discs bad? No, just my lowest one. [00:24:00] Then how old are your other desks? And then they're like, you see them be like, huh. Or they'll say, I have one knee degenerating faster than the other. And I'll say, why? And they'll say, ah, it's 'cause I'm getting older.

[00:24:11] I'm like, how old's the other knee? Or they'll say, I have one foot developing plantar fascitis. And I'll say, why? And they say, it's 'cause of running. And I'll say, you must be the weirdest runner I've ever met. The only run on one foot. They just get told the wrong things. Or even sometimes they'll say, well, my right elbow gives me problems because I'm dehydrated.

[00:24:31] All the water went to the other elbow. It's just the funniest things that people just buy. The wrong answers just 'cause a doctor or somebody told them, let's say they drank more water and their elbow felt better. They'd say, see, see? But you can change symptomatology and never fix root cause. So I'm somebody who always chases root cause in people.

[00:24:48] And so when you do have an alignment issue, especially in the upper neck, that can twist the entire frame resulting in scoliosis disc degeneration. When the discs start to get damaged, the body starts to inflame them on [00:25:00] purpose to bring protein, to help strengthen them. The body then starts to concrete the discs by stealing minerals outta the bones, creating osteoporosis osteopenia to transfer that mineral support around the discs to concrete them.

[00:25:12] And then they're told you have osteoporosis osteopenia. But if they look at the same patient in the spinal area, they'll see where the minerals went, and they'll call it bone spurs and arthritis. And it's just fascinating that people don't realize the body is intelligently fighting for survival. This primary job is to adapt to live.

[00:25:26] And so most of the mechanisms people are treating are designed to try to either stop the body from its adaptive process or just feel better through the process. So for example, if you get a viral exposure. Your body gets exposed to a virus, your body produces a substance called interferon that can kill any virus on contact, but it's not the fastest thing in the world.

[00:25:48] So the first thing your body does with viral exposure, you'll get a fever. Why? The heat will slow down the virus so the interferon can catch up to kill it. Once it kills, it takes you to three places to discharge it, the nose to run it out, the lungs to cough or [00:26:00] sneeze it out, kidneys to pee it out. You can also have sweat glands getting out.

[00:26:03] But the three primary with those And what do people do? Oh my God, my kid has a fever. I gotta cool that down. Oh my gosh, I have a, a runny nose. Let me sniff it back up. Or take a nasal spray. Oh my gosh, I have a cough. Lemme get a cough suppressant. They try to block what the body's doing rather than if I have a fever, get in some sweats, heat it up, let's go like help the body out.

[00:26:23] So it's a very interesting. Struggle when the public is trying to age gracefully, but they don't know how to fix the root cause of issues.

[00:26:31] Jenn Trepeck: Yeah. I love what you said, and I say it all the time in a slightly different way, that the body is always doing exactly what it's supposed to do. Mm-hmm. Our job is to figure out why it thinks that that's what it's supposed to do, you know?

[00:26:41] So you have research on the epic technology. Is that the right way to refer to it? Okay. Yeah. Perfect. With kids. Like ear infections. You mentioned the vagus nerve and asthma, a high blood pressure, [00:27:00] headaches, back pain, you know, sleep disorders, you know, a whole host of different things. So what is the connection to all of those?

[00:27:10] Is it just those nerves? Is it, what do people wanna think about? Maybe they're experiencing to say, Dr. Stan and or Epic is what I need.

[00:27:21] Dr. Stan Pierce: Mm-hmm. That's a really good question. When you talked about all those different variety of symptoms and conditions, first thing I would encourage people to do is ask the next question, what's causing that?

[00:27:32] Press your doctors. Press 'em hard. Remember, the doctors work for you, so don't let 'em skirt your question. When they say what's causing that, if the doctor says, well, nobody knows what they're actually saying is, I dunno. And when you do look for a second opinion, I would recommend that you look for a second opinion on people who look at you differently.

[00:27:48] Sometimes they'll get a second opinion from an A doctor who's exactly like the other doctor who gave them an opinion. I'm like, well, they're gonna look through the same lenses, like find somebody with a different pair of glasses. And also you mentioned about the headaches and [00:28:00] uh, stuff like that. Well, we definitely did dive into blood flow because that's really the, if you wanna know where Epic fits into the healthcare space, that is where we crush it.

[00:28:09] That is where we like, have such an important role. So we need to touch on that first. But mostly I would say in regards to people looking into Epic, one of my favorite things about Epic, I just actually evaluated a gentleman who's in charge. He's the head of a big foundation for, uh, veteran Brain Health.

[00:28:23] And he was just here. And I said to him, because he said something about trying Epic, and I go, you don't try Epic, we'll evaluate you. The facts will show if you're a candidate for this. And if you are, we will fix that. We will fix this. And he, it was so interesting 'cause he was like, huh, so this isn't like a therapy or treatment.

[00:28:42] I'm like, no, that's like ongoing. And it's, it's just not corrective. I'm like, with Epic, there's a bit of a more permanency to it. It's a bit more corrective. And so one of the things about the brain health space we really need to touch on, the most important part of your healthcare is the brain. It's the number one control system for everything in the body.

[00:28:58] And yet it's the thing we talk [00:29:00] least about. We literally talk the least about it. We either do health classes, they'll learn about the systems, and they'll jump away from the nervous system pretty fast. And that's a shame because a nervous system is the most important system to control system of everything else.

[00:29:12] And so brain health requires three primary things in order for your brain to be healthy and age gracefully. If your listeners will learn nothing else from me, this is what they need to know. The brain requires three primary elements to be healthy, one has to have proper arterial blood flow, making it to the brain.

[00:29:27] Carrying the oxygen, nutrients, everything that the brain needs, it needs to have. The second thing, which is the old blood coming out, it drains out through the jugular vein as the primary drainage vein, and in between the artery bring in the blood and the veins. Releasing the old blood is a fluid in your brain that's cleaning the brain of neurotoxins that you routinely produce, and that fluid is called cerebral spinal fluid.

[00:29:48] CSF. When your CSF drains it, it drains it out to a system. You've, you've heard of lymph nodes in the lymphatic system where the brain drains to the G lymphatic system and will drain outta the head unless there is [00:30:00] a back pressure pushing against it. The internal jugular vein sits right on the front of the C one vertebrae, and if the C one C two vertebrae is rotationally misaligned, it can impress upon the jugular vein causing a back pressure gradient that keeps the CSF from not draining, pressurizing the head and making it difficult to have extra space to bring in the new stuff.

[00:30:19] Through the arteries. So when people are saying, well, I do for brain health, I do hyperbaric oxygen, I do IV therapy, I do hormones, I do this and that, my diet, I'm like, yeah, but is it getting to the brain? They're like, wait, what? I go, is it making it to the brain? How do you optimize that? Well, you gotta make sure that the upper neck alignment is okay to release the jugular vein, to release the CSF, to create the room and get the old neurotoxins off.

[00:30:41] And there's no such thing as a head injury that doesn't include a neck injury. So when people are banging their heads in car accidents or football fields, or hockey rinks, or even the military, especially when they're banging their heads and doing different traumas and they knock the upper neck out of alignment, if you don't fix that, you are in a guaranteed force decline during the rest of your [00:31:00] life, including the potential for cognitive decline because of not having proper cranial hemodynamics.

[00:31:04] So when people talk about blood pressure issues, that gets really interesting. In fact, you and I with affiliation with the same company that we get some products through, I was just speaking at one of their conferences one time, and I walked into a conference where the medical doctors were all talking about blood pressure and controlling this, controlling that, and I said to them, I said, you may wanna consider one thing.

[00:31:21] Blood flow to the brain. Two of the primary arteries arteries carrying the blood to the brain are the vertebral arteries that go through the vertebrae. And if you have tally misaligned to the upper neck and you're not getting plenty of blood flow to the brain, the midbrain, your brain will encourage the body to increase its blood pressure to push more blood through the obstruction, which will measure as normal to the brain at that point.

[00:31:39] But it'll measure as high blood pressure way down here at the arm. So when most doctors are telling you have high blood pressure, they're actually saying you have high arm blood pressure. They'll medicate you to bring your arms blood pressure down and the brain says, no, no, no. I need that blood. Ignore the medicine.

[00:31:53] Press it anyway 'cause you still haven't fixed the problem. And if you fix the upper neck alignment and you open up that blood flow system, brain gets [00:32:00] plenty. Brain can calm the body. And if you wanna see a study proving what I'm telling you, just go to webmd.com, type in high blood pressure and Atlas Chiropractic, and you'll find the study showing you can lower high blood pressure point equivalent to the top two medicines combined just by correcting the upper neck alignment.

[00:32:15] Jenn Trepeck: It's amazing. You brought up something in sharing all of that, which is with what you're doing in the correction, it doesn't necessarily require weekly sessions, and so potentially, even if there isn't an Epic clinic near someone, there's the capacity to still take advantage of this technology and travel to do it.

[00:32:36] Will you speak to that a little bit?

[00:32:38] Dr. Stan Pierce: Yeah, for sure. Now, in regards to corrective care. If it's something's being corrected, it shouldn't have to be corrected all the time. So people throw the, the idea of correction around and just use it as a catchphrase. But the reality is it's all about the results. So the more accurately you align the spine, the better chance it has of holding and the more gently you do it.

[00:32:56] Not traumatizing the support soft tissue structure like the ligaments and discs, [00:33:00] then you've got a better chance of the body adapting to that, proper alignment better. And then you can also take supplements that encourage strengthening of the ligaments and discs and those that will help too. So in Epic we focus on getting people corrected accurately.

[00:33:12] We do watch them for a few weeks to make sure they're stabilizing. And then I will definitely, if I see any evidence of any ligament or soft tissue weakness, we will definitely address that right away through supplementation. The more accurately we fix it, the better it stays corrected. And so we have people from 38 countries and over 35 states that fly to headquarters in Clearwater for Epic to be done on them.

[00:33:33] We have famous people, we have professional athletes, all kinds of people, and I'm glad that some people are able to do that. But we're also licensing Epic out and we're gonna be opening up clinics nationally to be able to make it more convenient for people. We're gonna be opening up a Dallas location.

[00:33:45] In, uh, probably around November of this year, November, 2025. And so we're gonna start to scale this out even further, we'll open up Chicago. After that, we've got a location in Melbourne, Florida and in Seneca, South Carolina, two colleges that have our equipment there. So we're scaling it out to make [00:34:00] it more convenient, but in the meantime, fly in.

[00:34:03] I'm trying to watch my language, get your stuff fixed. Get your results. I mark '

[00:34:07] Jenn Trepeck: em all as explicit. So say what you wanna say, you know,

[00:34:10] Dr. Stan Pierce: okay, get fixed, get corrected, get stable, and then get back to your life. And then just check it periodically to make sure it's staying on the right track.

[00:34:19] Jenn Trepeck: Love it. So, final thought, anything we missed to wrap this up?

[00:34:25] Dr. Stan Pierce: You know, final thought. That's a great question because the final thought I had was, I wanna emphasize one more thing about the blood flow. Brain health conversation, if you guys hear about dementia, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, Luke Gehrig's disease, the CTE UN resolving T-B-I-P-T-S-D.

[00:34:44] What's causing any of them? What's causing any of 'em? If you ask the neurologist, I'll say, well, nobody knows. It's not that nobody knows. If you were to ask, well, it's probably genomic DNA, well then that means you're screwed. Can't change your DNA. Well, that's probably aging. Well, you're gonna get older because you can't do that too.

[00:34:59] Otherwise [00:35:00] you can't change that either. So what's really fascinating. If people were to ask me, are you saying that correcting the upper neck alignment, nope. Up the blood flow will solve all these brain deterioration problems? I'm gonna say I can't say that, and I wouldn't say that I legally couldn't say that anyway.

[00:35:15] But what I would say is, anybody who's dealing with a family member with cognitive decline, brain challenges, neurologic disease conditions, would they benefit from enhanced blood flow to and from the brain? 100%, yes. So get the upper neck checked. If it's out of alignment, fix it. You solved that part of your healthcare puzzle, and then get on with the rest of managing the hopeful recovery, or at least slowing the process, but of decline.

[00:35:41] But hopefully the upper neck alignment, opening up the blood flow lets the brain start to heal and repair the way that it should. And when you're talking about migraines, dizziness, mysteries, seizures, people are not being told the cause. If you can hear your headache in your ears, if you can hear your pulse, if you can feel the throb, it's a blood flow conversation.

[00:35:59] That's an [00:36:00] alignment issue in the upper neck that needs to be looked into. People trying to prevent strokes, aneurysms, things like that with their brain. Well, you don't wanna have increased blood pressure in the brain from a lack of proper jugular vein drainage. So get your upper neck checked, make sure it's okay.

[00:36:15] Prevention is always worth more than, than, uh, treatment, but people don't know to prevent because they don't know about this issue. And one more quick thing, there was a study that came out in November, 2023, published in a major medical journal. It's showing 79% of people have the upper neck out of alignment, 79% wild.

[00:36:34] Eight outta 10 people are walking around with their necks not right, their head not on straight, and they don't know it. And then it, what worsens that condition is flexing the head down in the tech neck generation. We're accentuating the jugular vein compression. I can show you how and why, and that's what I believe is leading to more and more cognitive issues these days than ever before.

[00:36:51] So you guys need to get your neck checked, get it aligned. If it's out, keep it aligned and your health's gonna be way better off. Much better off.

[00:36:59] Jenn Trepeck: Love it. [00:37:00] All right. Are you ready for our rapid fire off topic questions? Let's go. Alright. What's the best thing you've done for your health this week? What's the naughtiest thing you've done related to your health this week?

[00:37:10] Not that anything's naughty. We call it like the salad and fries of your week, you know?

[00:37:14] Dr. Stan Pierce: Okay. Healthiest thing I did, I was with a friend. I was about 45 minutes from my house. I decided to walk back figuring I would probably bar hop on the way back. I didn't bar hop. I ended up making the 45 minute walk. I was exhausted when I got home, but I was like, wow, that was really great.

[00:37:25] Worst thing I did for my health, I, I bought like these thin mint cookies and I think I downed the whole box of it in one sitting, but they were good.

[00:37:33] Jenn Trepeck: Awesome. If you weren't a chiropractor, CEO of Epic Clinics and educator, what would you do?

[00:37:38] Dr. Stan Pierce: Some type of technology innovation. Somewhere I have to be challenging the status quo in creating change for people.

[00:37:44] It's gonna be something that's helping people for sure. I do love public speaking. I really enjoy public speaking, so probably something along those lines.

[00:37:50] Jenn Trepeck: Favorite book on any topic other than your area of expertise or a fiction book? Hmm.

[00:37:55] Dr. Stan Pierce: Rich Dad, poor Dad was really, really great. Of course, the Bible's what you're supposed to answer when you're a Christian, but [00:38:00] Rich Dad, poor Dad probably gave me a lot of practical financial, uh, advice.

[00:38:03] Thinking Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill was awesome.

[00:38:06] Jenn Trepeck: If you could cure one ailment, disease or sickness, what would it be?

[00:38:10] Dr. Stan Pierce: The upper neck alignment. Easy, easy.

[00:38:13] Jenn Trepeck: If you were a superhero, what would be your superpower?

[00:38:16] Dr. Stan Pierce: Fine or teleportation?

[00:38:17] Jenn Trepeck: Okay. I'm a teleport person. Alright. What's your biggest pet peeve?

[00:38:23] Dr. Stan Pierce: Oh God.

[00:38:24] People would rather be so wrong than be irrelevant. So people arguing a wrong point, as loud as they can when they know they're wrong. That's so annoying. I am wide open. Challenge me any way you want. We're gonna have an intelligent conversation. When people just argue they're ignorantly. That's so annoying.

[00:38:40] Jenn Trepeck: Alright, last one. And your opinion. What's the next frontier in wellness?

[00:38:45] Dr. Stan Pierce: Elon's onto it. It's the scary stuff, but the intriguing stuff, it's where they're putting neural link into the brain. They're memorizing people's synaptic connections. They're gonna transfer conscious into inorganic AI robots. I mean, it's coming, and so I'm the kind of guy who rather [00:39:00] than bitch about it or complain about it or try to stop it, I'm the kind of guy who will be like, okay, how can we guide this for good?

[00:39:06] Because there's still people who break their spinal cords are paralyzed. Could we use neural link to bypass that and give them the ability to walk again? There's veterans that lose limbs. Could we use robotic prosthesis and give them their function back? Like we have to be able to create good in the future, and people who focus on the past, it's like driving forward while staring in the rear view mirror.

[00:39:23] Like you can never create the future while staring in the past. So the future is very, very exciting.

[00:39:28] Jenn Trepeck: I love it. Well, thank you Dr. Stan Pierce for being here, for sharing your expertise, your time and energy. Tell everybody how to connect with you, where to learn more, all the things.

[00:39:39] Dr. Stan Pierce: Okay. Well, I'm Dr. Stan Pierce.

[00:39:40] Epic Clinic headquarters is in Clearwater, Florida. Five minutes from the number one beach in the country. The uh, phone number here is (727) 223-9970. And you can also find us online@epicclinics.com.

[00:39:54] Jenn Trepeck: Perfect. We'll put links to everything, the phone number below, everything for everybody. So thank you again.[00:40:00]

[00:40:00] Dr. Stan Pierce: Fantastic. Thank you for having me.

[00:40:02] Jenn Trepeck: Yeah. Alright, friends on Friday and this week's bite-sized bonus episode, we're talking about clutter. More specifically how clutter connects to our health and for what it's worth, yes, this will go beyond like tripping hazards. So you're probably wondering how else clutter can impact our health.

[00:40:19] Is it physical? Is it mental spoiler? It's all of the above. So we're gonna get into it on Friday and this week's bite-size bonus episode. Be sure wherever you're listening, click the plus sign and the follow button and then your app will alert you when it goes live on Friday morning. As always, everybody, I'm your host, gen Trek.

[00:40:36] Connect with me on Instagram or all social media. I'm at Gen Tre, J-E-N-N-T-R-E-P-E-C-K. Website is a salad with the side of fries.com. Pick your platform, send a message. I truly love hearing from you. It is the highlight of my day, whether you're sharing, you know, an intelligent argument, key takeaways, ideas, questions, all of it.

[00:40:55] I love it. So send a message, Dr. Sam Pierce, one more time. [00:41:00] Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate you so much.

[00:41:02] Dr. Stan Pierce: My pleasure, Jen. You're amazing. This was awesome.

[00:41:04] Jenn Trepeck: Well, the feeling is mutual. And friends, if you are not already become a member of the Happy Healthy Hub, you'll go to a salad with a side of fries.com/membership.

[00:41:14] This shows your support for this podcast, this community, and most importantly, your health. You'll get this week's recipe for the no cook zucchini noodles with pesto. So until next week, remember, technology when paired with humans and heart can translate into tremendous healing. Well friends, that's it for today's episode of Salad with a Side of Fries.

[00:41:37] Congratulations for making yourself and your health a priority. Thanks so much for joining us. Be sure to click subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast platform. Share us with a friend and we'll be back next week. Always remember you deserve it and you are worth it. Happy, [00:42:00] healthy.