Please follow this link to listen to the podcast “See a Chiropractor for Pelvis, Hip, Knee, Ankle and Foot Pain”

 
Below you will find an easy to read transcript of Dr. John Vilkelis’ monthly podcast interview.  You can click the video to listen to the podcast or simply read the easy to follow transcript below. Enjoy!
Podcast Interview:
RC: Hello everyone. This is Liz Harvey coming to you from our studios in New York City where we are dedicated to bringing you top quality advice from many of the leading expert professionals across the US. In today’s episode, we are speaking with chiropractor Dr. John Vilkelis of Vilkelis Chiropractic, located on West 57th Street in New York City. Dr. Vilkelis has been in chiropractic practice for over 20 years since graduating from Palmer College of Chiropractic. He has been affiliated with the New York Theater Ballet as well as local and regional rugby all-star teams. He has been awarded for his work treating many emergency care workers and support staff in the rescue and recovery efforts at the World Trade Center in 2001. Dr. Vilkelis is widely considered to be one of the top chiropractors in the US and is also a contributing member of our National Network of Industry Professionals.
RC: Today, we’re going to talk about a very important topic, seeing a chiropractor for pelvis, hip, knee, ankle, and foot pain. Hi, Dr. Vilkelis. How are you today?
Dr. John Vilkelis: I’m doing real well, Liz. Thanks for asking. How are you?
RC: I’m doing great. Thanks so much for joining me today.
RC: Most people do not associate foot pain or ankle pain with chiropractic care. Can a chiropractor help discover the source of the pain?
Dr. John Vilkelis: Absolutely. A lot of people have foot and ankle pain that they live with for years and years because no one has been able to help them sort it out. From a chiropractic perspective, it’s very much about balance and alignment, so you can have an unbalanced bone or joint in your foot and ankle the same way you can in your pelvis or spine.
RC: What are some conditions caused by overuse of the lower extremities? How can chiropractors help?
Dr. John Vilkelis: When people have overuse of something in the lower extremities, typically it’s overuse of a tendon. Tendons attach the muscle to the bone. The way most people develop an overuse syndrome is because the bones aren’t aligned properly and it’s putting too much extra stress on the tendon and then you develop this syndrome where the tendon is inflamed and it seems like it’s an overuse syndrome when really it’s been a misalignment of the bone and the joint all along.
For example with cyclists, the most common problem with them is the patella tendon strain. And most of the time, it’s because their tibia has moved posterior in the joint and it’s putting too much pressure on the patella tendon and really tearing at the insertion into the bone. If we correct that alignment, the overuse syndrome disappears. If you’re under regular care and under maintenance care, well then that usually means that you don’t have those overuse syndromes.
RC: If pain is caused by an accident or trauma, like a strain or a sprain, what can a chiropractor do?
Dr. John Vilkelis: Well, if you’re talking about a sprain, a sprain means that you’ve damaged the ligaments or stretched the ligaments. The ligaments hold bone to bone. There is really no way for you to have a sprain without having the bones move. If you don’t put the bones back into the proper alignment, what happens is the soft tissue doesn’t heal right and now that joint is going to be unstable and predisposed to being injured in the same way again. If you talk around to people and ask them, people that have sprained ankles, most of them will tell you that they have kind of chronically sprained ankles, they re-sprain them all the time. It’s because the alignment is never corrected and so they’re re-spraining the same ligaments over and over. The chiropractor is correcting the alignment and restoring the balance so that the soft tissue can heal correctly. Now, you don’t have to keep having that problem down the road.
RC: How can a chiropractor help increase flexibility and range of motion in the lower extremities?
Dr. John Vilkelis: Well, there’s a lot of factors involved in people’s flexibility. Some people are sort of naturally inflexible and some people are naturally flexible. That has to do more with their body composition than anything else but there are also ways that if things are moving properly and aligned properly, you’re going to have a better flexibility than you would normally have. What I mean by that is, say for hamstrings, that’s not a bad indicator of how flexible people are. Can you bend over at the waist with your knees straight and touch your hands to the floor? Can you put your palms flat on the floor? For some people, one of the reasons that they can never touch the floor when their knees are locked is because their pelvis is misaligned and their hamstrings attached to the upper leg bone, the femur, and to your pelvis. They’re actually flexing your lower leg, okay, but it can also work as a hip flexor, or hip extender rather, where you are pushing the leg back behind the body. If your hamstrings are tight because the attachments are being stretched because your pelvis isn’t in the right spot, you’re never really going to be able to obtain that flexibility.
RC: How does a chiropractor’s holistic approach to healthcare help patients dealing with their pain?
Dr. John Vilkelis: When you get aligned from the chiropractor, what’s really happening is, he’s correcting something in your body called subluxation, which means that the bone has moved out of place and it gets locked. Once it becomes locked, what it’s doing is, it’s putting pressure on the nerves and it’s changing the function of those nerves. Now sometimes it causes pain but only about 10% of the nerve fibers coming out of your spine, or the nerve bundle coming out of your spine, carry the pain impulse. You have to ask yourself, where do the other 9 out of 10 fibers go? They’re going through the musculature and they’re going through the blood vessels. They go inside the joints to tell your body – that’s why you don’t have to look at your feet when you walk. They also go to your internal organs and to create problems in all those spots. Now, as far as managing the pain through chiropractor care, by correcting the balance in your skeletal system and changing the way all the soft tissue function, it allows the nervous tissue to heal and it eliminates the pain.
RC: Well thank you so much, Dr. Vilkelis. We know you’re extremely busy, so I just want to thank you for your time and your help today.
Dr. John Vilkelis: You’re welcome. I was glad to be here and I’m glad I was able to help.
RC: Thank you so much. For our listeners across the country, if you are interested in speaking with Dr. John Vilkelis, visit vilkelischiropractic.com or call 212-582-9704 to schedule an appointment. On behalf of our entire team, we want to thank you for listening and we look forward to bringing you more top quality content from our country’s leading industry experts.