Dr. Paul Monitto: Great to see you all.
Bob & Fran: It's an honor to have you here with us
Dr. Paul: Well, it's an honor to be here
Bob & Fran: We really appreciate your time we know you're a busy guy we know that you actually work seven days a week.
Dr. Paul: That's true I'm in the office seven days
Bob & Fran: We appreciate it. I wonder if we could start by maybe you're telling us a little bit about your background where you received some of your training.
Dr. Paul: I went to undergraduate school at St John's University and UNC Asheville. I did my undergraduate and then went to Life Chiropractic College, graduated in
1981 and then went to Detroit, Michigan to do an internship for a year before coming to Asheville to open my practice in 1982. I've been here ever since.
Bob & Fran: That's great, so 40 years so you must be doing something right in that place because II know you have a very large patient group.
Dr. Paul: That's correct
Bob & Fran: What actually prompted you to become a chiropractor?
Dr. Paul: When I was 10 years old, I started developing these headaches and they were diagnosed as cluster headaches or cluster migraine headaches and my mother took me to all these various doctors and nobody could find a solution. We ran out of options and at the request of one of my mother's friends she said why don't you try a chiropractor and we didn't understand why, but we went because we'd run out of options. And it worked! Not only did it help the headaches but it helped with my ADD and attention deficit disorder. The whole family started going and the rest is history.
Bob & Fran: So it sounds like you had aspirations to become a chiropractor at a very early.
Dr. Paul: Very early on, yes.
Bob & Fran: I want to get on to more of what we're going to be talking about today, and that is posture. So I am a patient, for those out there, my personal posture was helped by Dr. Paul and I want to ask you doc, why is posture so important to your health especially as you age?
Dr. Paul: Yes it's so important as you age, primarily one the way you look. If you see somebody that has weak posture they look old and feeble and it makes them look a lot older than they actually are. Second, probably the top thing, is balance as we age our biggest fear is from falling and when you have poor posture it affects your balance and that can lead to falls.
The falling thing is really at the top of the list and that's my main concern with with my with my patients. It can cause other issues like TMJ which is jaw problems. Jaw problems can lead to vertigo, tinnitus which is ringing in the ears, it can aggravate arthritis through disc compression, it affects circulation in the hands and in the feet like neuropathy, bad posture it can alter mood and even affect brain fog. It also affects breathing, it closes in on the lungs and you know if you're not breathing properly you're not oxygenating your blood which means you're starving your brain from oxygen. That's what leads to early onset dementia and brain fog, and things like that
Bob & Fran: What are actually the causes of poor posture, is that like automatic as you age?
Dr. Paul: Well, there's a lot of causes for posture the biggest one that we're dealing with is gravity and the older we get the longer we've had to deal with this and we've been dealing with gravity ever since we started walking so gravity is a negative effect on our on our on our posture and on our spine.
I was reading about the astronaut, Scott Kelly, he has a twin brother and they're the exact same height. When Scott Kelly was up in the space station for two years up for a year, when he came back he was two inches taller than his identical twin so this just shows the negative impact of gravity. Some other causes of weak posture is repetitive motion you know like leaning to the computer or using the mouse repetitive position you know using people using their smartphones or computers, backpacks, things like that.
Bob & Fran: We see people everywhere with their being on their cell phones and they always have this this downward look I would think that that's a that's a big issue these days it is these days.
I mean even with young kids there I can see that they're just that head forward head dropping thing is it's almost they do it every day almost every hour I think. Do you have any advice for people that are on the phone a lot how how can they offset that I guess they could put it on speakerphone?
Dr. Paul: Well, it's the texting and the looking down part they need to really just start holding it up higher I mean it's not cool it's not really cool for kids to do it that way because then you start you start looking like your parents, but but for adults I think it's it's it's wise to be more conscientious of your posture when you're on your cell phone when you're in your car you know a little a little hint in the car is to raise your rear view mirror up a smidge and it forces you to sit up straight to see in the rear and always it's a good idea to keep a lumbar support pillow in the lower back when you're sitting it forces you to sit up straight.
Bob & Fran: I understand that a lot of people as they age do have this problem of balance and sort of walking wobbly as they get up from a sofa or they go out of bed and what what advice would you give to some people that are afflicted with this?
Dr. Paul: It's basically a balance issue well a lot of it is from sitting too long and as Fran has told us numerous times in previous videos sitting is the new smoking and it's true so sitting too long causes the joints to stiffen up especially if there's arthritis in the joints yeah so you shouldn't be sitting for long periods of time you shouldn't be sitting on a sofa you should be sitting in a chair it can be a recliner but it should be a chair or chair an ottoman and try to stay off the sofa. Then when you do get up, do a little stretch first and kind of loosen things up but the main thing reason why people are so stiff when they get up is they've been sitting immobile too long.
Bob & Fran: I know for us when we got early in the morning we do a series of stretches and it like is a perfect way to start our day it's just getting those kinks out and just expanding all parts of ourselves and I don't think you have to have a coach to teach you how to stretch. You can do just about any kind of stretching I think I don't know if you'd agree with that but it's a great way to start the day.
Dr. Paul: Yeah absolutely and we recommend yoga or Qigong or Tai Chi or anything like that.
Bob & Fran: Are there some things that people can do at home that you could maybe give us some tips on to improve posture?
Dr. Paul: Yes, well you know the main things they can do is first thing is to think tall stand tall sit tall and be tall. It's a mindset. You have to get this mindset before you can do everything else so everything you do, whether we're here now or I'm you know in my bed, I have to think these these thoughts, and then everything else follows. Some of the other things that we can do is of course reduce sitting keep moving walking is great you know walking like you do every morning. Staying mobile is is so important to the posture and then as far as specific other things you know raise your computer monitor right now i've got my monitor probably 14 inches off the countertop so that way I'm looking straight on at it right now so just little things like that making sure that your knees are at the proper height when you the knees should be at hip height or slightly higher.
Forward Head Posture exercise videos
Bob & Fran: I'm connecting more and more with the idea of posture and aging I see and too many elderly people that are just leaning way over or have to walk with a walker or a cane and I'm we're all about prevention and I'm just saying to those viewers out there if you feel that your balance isn't really that good if you are starting to lean over if you have to clutch the side of a chair just to walk through the house or something you can really improve your balance by improving your posture so you might want to think about contacting a good chiropractor where wherever you live. Well, I wanted to ask you you see so many
people during the day, so many patients what is the I mean and you work so hard what keeps you going?
Dr. Paul: Well, I just love it. If you love your work you, never work a day in your life. It's that gratification you see you see a patient come in all bent over and then a couple months later they're out there upright and tall that's so great and every day is different you know
I'm just so thrilled to be here because it's looking at you is like me looking in a crystal ball of how I want to be in 20 years because we're 20 years apart.
Bob & Fran: Right, you're catching up.
Dr. Paul: I want to be just like you when I grow up
Bob & Fran: Thank you so much Dr. Paul for sharing your knowledge with us.