Vijay Vad, BACK RX
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[0:34]Okay, now back to this amazing podcast.
[0:37]Dr. Vijay Vad is the author of Back RX, a proven integrative program for staying pain-free.
[0:45]Dr. Vad is also my orthopedist, and everyone in my family's.
[0:50]Vijay Vad MD is a sports medicine specialist at the hospital for special surgery,
[0:55]and on faculty at the Wild Cornell Medical College.
[0:58]His research focus is back pain and arthritis.
[1:01]He is the author of Wall Street Journal's favorite health book of the year, Back RX.
[1:06]Welcome, Dr. Vad. Thank you so much for coming on Momstone Have Time to Read Books,
[1:11]to discuss Back RX, a proven integration program for staying pain-free.
[1:17]Thanks for having me, Zivi, and that trillion-dollar smile that can probably cure most back pain.
[1:22]Oh, that'd be nice.
[1:25]Well, I have to say that your book was an unexpected benefit when I brought Kyle in for a recent
[1:31]appointment with you for his ankle. Next thing you know, we're chatting about your book,
[1:35]and here it is, and it's been amazing, so I don't know. We couldn't live without you,
[1:39]so I'm delighted that I can repay all of the pain-free help you've given my whole family by
[1:45]a little podcast. That's sweet. I'm happy to be here.
[1:50]This book was great because I wasn't expecting you to be talking about your life too.
[1:55]I thought this was going to be completely, I thought it would be more clinical with just advice and
[2:00]self-help, but you brought in so much of your own background and you talked about your grandparents
[2:04]in India and how they've cured pain and things like that. So tell me a little bit about writing
[2:10]this book and when on earth you found time to do it. So I thought those are very good questions,
[2:15]and you know, I think every time you write a book, you have to have a message that is important
[2:21]and sort of compelling for your readers, right? I mean, it can't just be a bunch of scientific
[2:27]information thrown on paper. So when originally I started my clinical practice and
[2:34]couple of my patients from Penguin 1 and we'd write a book on back pain, I was like,
[2:37]I don't really want to write a book on back pain because I'm new in my practice and I'm too
[2:42]busy, but lo and behold, a few years went by and I was in California visiting my aunt
[2:48]and she was doing these exercises. That was the ancient wisdom of the West, sorry, ancient wisdom
[2:54]of the East and scientific principles of the West. And I was like, wow, that's like a combination
[2:59]of rehabilitation and yoga. So what did you learn that? She goes, well, you know, when I had your
[3:05]cousin 40 years ago and somebody wanted to fuse my back, a yoga told me, do these exercises,
[3:12]15 minutes every day and you'll never have back pain. She was it. And last 40 years, I've never
[3:16]missed a day, cold, sick, and I've never had back pain. And so I put this program together,
[3:23]gave it a more scientific name back RX, but it's really yoga, Pilates, and medical rehabilitation,
[3:30]and the clinical trial results were astonishing. I couldn't even, till this day, I get letters
[3:35]from patients saying the breath part of that book saved my life, you know, and made a huge difference.
[3:42]The clinical trials showed reduction in pain, reduction in recurrence of back pain because,
[3:46]you know, we don't want to fix you. You come back a year later and big decrease in opiates,
[3:51]by the way, we proved this once and then we did a beta app clinical trial with the same exact
[3:57]and that app is going to be hopefully by me. It's exciting. So the main principles of your plan,
[4:04]well, first of all, you also include psychological elements to back pain, which I thought was
[4:10]fascinating. So not only do you prescribe antidepressants for back pain, occasionally, but you
[4:16]delve into what could be going on with the private life of your patients that might be causing
[4:20]the stress that could cause the back pain. So part of the solution is figuring out this whole mind
[4:26]piece of back pain. Tell me a little more about about that part of the back rx.
[4:31]So, you know, I call back pain the laboratory, the ideal situation that exemplifies the mind-body
[4:39]connection. So you know, I mentioned in the book, after 9, 11, I saw a huge spike in people,
[4:44]either it was just in their mind, that's only 10%, the John Starnoff phenomenon, but 90%,
[4:50]they blew their disk up because they were so stressed out. And by the way, now in this pandemic,
[4:56]you know, I'm seeing the same kind of thing, what I call the pandemic within the pandemic.
[5:01]So there's the psychological stress of being in a pandemic and you combine that with really
[5:08]bad ergonomics. You know, you're sitting at a kitchen table for 10 hours, you're sitting in your
[5:13]bed doing your work. And to me, in that stress of the pandemic and bad ergonomics, there's a
[5:21]gigantic spike I've seen in people wearing their disks and back pain.
[5:25]Wow. Can you literally, I was so struck by that. I'm glad you brought it up. Can you just
[5:30]spontaneously like rupture a disk, not even doing anything to make that happen? Like, I always
[5:36]said you'd have to lift something wrong or something would have to precipitate it that it couldn't
[5:41]just be stressed, but it can. I mean, you know, we, we say, you know, you bend down and pick
[5:47]100 pounds and you blew your disk up. Now that can happen, but more commonly your disk comes out
[5:53]just spontaneously, you're putting on socks, you're getting up out of bed. You went to grab a towel
[5:59]or something and boom, it was a straw that broke the camera's back. You know, it could be
[6:04]that you got let go of, you know, my favorite example, I say the third year medical students,
[6:08]you know, the Dean wants to talk to me about academic performance. The loans are due,
[6:13]my girlfriend dumped me and my disk blew up. So, you know, that's the mind-body connection.
[6:20]Got it. And when you're so funny in your book talking about one patient on his honeymoon who says
[6:25]you couldn't get out of bed and you're like, wasn't that the whole point?
[6:30]It's so funny. You don't understand what's going on here. I'm bedridden.
[6:35]Yeah. And you're like, great. I'm jealous. So you have the stressful part of like our whole
[6:43]psyche, right, affecting our bodies, but you also bring in all this stuff that I hear about
[6:48]night and day with self care and how this is really the crux of the whole thing that we should
[6:54]be eating with a Mediterranean diet and we should be getting regular exercise and sitting better
[7:00]at our desks and doing these exercises and sleeping and just all of these things will affect
[7:06]our back in addition to the rest of our health. So how important is all of that stuff relative to
[7:14]like, is that is that really just the secret that we have to just live healthy and like then
[7:18]everything will be okay? Well, good genes help but you know, but I believe in simple solutions to stay
[7:25]active. I think health care should only be there in extreme circumstances, but it's your lifestyle.
[7:30]So, you know, one of my favorites and my whole mission has been, you know, last 23 years now,
[7:38]I've been in practice whose counting is inventing simple solutions to stay active that are
[7:44]cheap, simple and effective because we can't keep doing business as usual. Health care costs will
[7:49]be astronomical. So, you know, I say to patients, do you want to avoid recurrence of back pain?
[7:55]I call it 30 on 30. Every 30 minutes you get up and you put arms back and do five or 10 deep
[8:02]breaths and then sit back down. Something as simple as that could avoid so much back pain.
[8:06]Wow, but you might not maybe you have to do this in private though.
[8:11]I was even like reading your book like standing up at the kitchen, I love like, okay,
[8:17]maybe I shouldn't do that. You know, you could get up at a little board meeting and set a new trend,
[8:21]the ZBOM's 30 on 30. I'll see, I'll see how if that catches on.
[8:27]Mom's gonna have time to sit down, I don't know. And tell me more about the importance of the
[8:32]anti-inflammatory diet because I know this and I've tried it and yet it's so easy to slip into like
[8:38]eating bad stuff again. Just remind me why it's like so critical.
[8:44]I mean, look, if you have ice cream once a week, it's not anything bad. If you have a steak once a
[8:49]month, I mean, I'm not gonna, but I think, you know, there's this old soundstroke proverb from
[8:55]five thousand, six thousand years ago, you are what you eat and the medical world is finally catching
[9:00]on to, hey, good food as medicine, good food as medicine has impact on your brain, your back,
[9:09]your heart, your mind, your body, you know, so it's important to eat good food daily and a little
[9:16]bit of exercise daily. It doesn't mean you can't sports every once in a while. It does walking count
[9:21]as exercise or nine. For my favorite saying when I did a PBS special on back pain is walking 30
[9:27]minutes a day keeps the doctor away. If somebody had told me you only have one medicine for
[9:32]human health, what would it be? And I would say walking 30 minutes daily. Really? I feel like
[9:37]that doesn't even count. I feel like when I walk the dog for 30 minutes or something, like that
[9:42]would, that shouldn't even be hard. It certainly doesn't feel like a workout. Like what about the
[9:47]workout versus just exercise? And what do you tell me more about that? Well, I mean, you know, it
[9:53]all depends on your fitness level. I'm talking about maintaining basic health, right? I mean, if you
[9:59]you look at it.
[10:00]My personal life example, you know, my mom who is super smart, smartest person in our family, you know, had a heart attack when she was 54, you know, genetics with triglycerides and this and that, and she was not athlete by any means, but as soon as she finished her cardiac rehab, that was back in 1996 from 1996 to 2021.
[10:25]However many years that is, she has not missed one day where she doesn't walk minimum three miles, three to six miles, baby.
[10:32]And she's 78 years old and vigorous and walking has in her life been the key thing that has kept her healthy.
[10:42]Okay, all right, I'll put it back on the list.
[10:46]Well, I mean, you know, you're a young, baby, you could run.
[10:49]Okay, okay, running is an ultimate brain preserver, but you know, just like getting away from my desk is like a victory. I feel like just getting and doing anything is probably better.
[10:59]I think for you, a 20 minute run, you know, with four kids, all these enterprises, Kyle, you got your hands full. So a 20 minute run for your daily would be perfect.
[11:09]Okay, it would be a lot, but okay, I'll try.
[11:13]10 minutes.
[11:14]10 minutes.
[11:15]It's actually easier for me to do a walk because then I could drop my kids and walk back, but yeah, I guess I could run. I don't know. I'm not going.
[11:22]Don't underestimate the importance you have 30 minutes walking, do you?
[11:25]Okay, good. Thank you. I mean, we feel better.
[11:27]So with the other exercises in the book, let's talk about like strengthening your core and I feel like so often with back pain people are told to do physical therapy.
[11:38]And then, you know, they go a couple of times and then they don't do the exercises at home, or they stop the physical therapy and like tell me about the importance of sticking to that or what, what.
[11:50]I mean, you know, physical therapy is formal. You could do it for a month after a cure back pain, but then it's, you know, we call it post rehab. It's really up to you.
[11:59]Like our ex is literally 15 minutes three times a week has a potent impact on reducing back pain and recurrence of back pain. It's just 15 exercises to do three times a week.
[12:09]And soon it'll be an app. So, you know, you could put on your computer and give you all the information about your pain, your medication use, your time awful work.
[12:20]When we did the beta app trial, patients loved it. There's a virtual coach. I didn't know what a virtual coach was for now. People told me.
[12:28]Well, these are messages we sent to humans and they react to them. Zibi, it's time for you to do your exercise. Zibi's like, oh cool. My iPhone just gave me a message. I want to exercise.
[12:38]It works. My kids have fit fits and it'll tell them like it's time to stand up. It's time to walk around and you know, there you go.
[12:45]I mean, these new generations, they love their machines sometimes more than their mom motivating them.
[12:50]Oh, yeah. I mean, I have to like drag them out of the house kicking and screaming. But if the fit buzzes, they're like out of their chair and rocking.
[12:58]All right, whatever.
[13:00]Be like a parenting fit bit of sorts. So what made you become a doctor to begin with?
[13:06]How did you end up a doctor? How did you end up in this specialty? How did you end up? I know you did so much with tennis players for a long time.
[13:12]How did that all happen?
[13:14]So, you know, I was actually interested in politics and diplomacy early on and you know, I grew up in Oklahoma.
[13:22]I actually worked for my congressman in Washington and who was head of the House Intelligence Committee at the time and very much interested in international relations and diplomacy.
[13:34]And then, you know, the more I looked at it more, I realized it was very political and bureaucratic and you know, come from a long line of physician.
[13:42]So you could almost call it was a profession that was because I couldn't find anything else better to do. You can say that.
[13:50]But had somebody told me how gratifying you'd be practicing it. I probably would have been less grumpy as a medical student.
[13:59]And, you know, sports medicine, I was the athlete was injured, has stressed fracture and, you know, the doctor that took care of me got me back on track. So I want to be in a medical specialty where I restore people's quality of life.
[14:13]I don't see lives going to work every day, but hopefully I see their quality of life. And that's what life is worth living about with some decent amount of quality.
[14:22]I think there's not enough written or talked about athletes who are no longer playing their sport anymore, like the transition from being an athlete, a professional athlete rather.
[14:34]And then, or even just an athlete, but then you can't, when it's such a part of your identity and then you stop doing it.
[14:40]I feel like there aren't a lot of supports for that particular group of people and you must see those people all the time.
[14:46]And it's very, very difficult on them in many ways. By the way, the least of it is financially, too, because they don't save money a lot of them.
[14:55]You know, you may think every professional athlete makes a lot of money, but the top one or two percent do, but the rest of them.
[15:01]And their bodies, depending on what you play, I mean, I take care of some extent I feel and NBA guys, their bodies are wrecked by the time they're 35 fully.
[15:10]So what, and so they've lost their livelihood and their bodies. I mean, there's a lot, I mean, God willing, there's a lot of life left after 35 40 where you have, if your body is, are she had so much pain like, what do you do then is it just, like, should people not even do the sports to begin with.
[15:27]I mean, it's a trade off right that maybe people don't understand so much and they're younger, but I don't know.
[15:33]You're 20, you don't think 40. Yeah.
[15:36]But, you know, NFL and, and be, and even the ATP, the tennis players association has done a lot of work telling players, look, there is life after tennis,
[15:46]I mean, how many professional tennis players are well known and, you know, very few, the rest of them are, you know, they slug it out on the tour or even NFL for that matter.
[15:56]But these player councils have done a great job of telling players, look, this is not going to be forever. You need to figure out a way to have the life after an adjusted life after and some of them have gone on to do incredible things.
[16:09]Yeah. I mean, I know firsthand watching Kyle's transition from when he was, you know, 12 years of on the court every day to suddenly not.
[16:19]Yeah. I was like, so such a blow for who he felt like he was not to be like, you know, airing his dirty laundry. But, and then we realized like it happens.
[16:28]It's just such a, I don't know. I just think if there had been some supports that people talked about it more and might have made it easier.
[16:35]Well, it's the 80 piece much better now than Kyle, you know, when Kyle was 12, 15, 20 or when he sort of transitioned out of.
[16:43]It's a huge change in our identity. You're on a court six hours a day to not doing that and the whole going to tournaments and going city to city all of a sudden.
[16:54]And that's where you look at a guy like Roger Federer who is I think 39 or something. You know, he doesn't want to give it up. He's like, I'm still a pop five player in the world.
[17:02]You know, I'm not winning any grand slams, but I'm having fun doing this. And whatever I'm going to do after this academy and course little kids because I'm not ready for that.
[17:10]Yeah. We were just watching him yesterday. Didn't you just play? We feel like we had him on this week. He was playing back at it. Unbelievable.
[17:18]You know, that's the other thing with gratifying with what I do. I mean, I can help on one spectrum.
[17:24]The 84 year old grandmother who wants to walk a mile with her grandkids, right? And on the other spectrum.
[17:30]We have these athletes that are 35 and plus.
[17:34]And we keep keeping them at the top of their game being top in the world using modern sports medicine principles.
[17:41]That means a very exciting time to be in sports medicine, frankly, because of both ends, we can keep the 84 year old grandmother.
[17:48]And the 35 year old elite athlete, you know, active.
[17:52]Do you have any inside information on what's going on with Tiger Woods, by the way?
[17:56]Well, I do, you know, say it by stuff. So I can't say much about it. But, you know, look, one thing I can say about superstars.
[18:03]They got there because of a very different mindset. They're driven to the core.
[18:08]So all I can say is don't count him out that he could make a comeback this final despite all that.
[18:14]Wow. Oh my gosh. Unbelievable.
[18:17]Well, in terms of writing this book.
[18:20]And then I know you rewrote it and 20 years later.
[18:23]And you said you had lots of different things that have come up over time that you wanted to integrate and, and basically did it all again.
[18:29]What was that like? Like how long did it take to write and what's your process like for writing?
[18:35]Well, so from the time we decide, like, let's say, you know, speak to penguin and I'm fortunate enough.
[18:40]I can just call Megan at penguin and I say, Megan, what's time to do a book, don't you think?
[18:45]She's like, great idea. Let's do it. You know, so some lucky in that sense.
[18:49]But from the time we get the contract done and I'm extremely lucky to have a writer, you know, Peter Ocho Grasso who truly.
[18:58]We've done many projects together now who've been bringing my voice out.
[19:02]I mean, there are times like throw six eight pages out and I said, Peter, this sound way too, way too much, you know, like you, the granola kid from Woodstock.
[19:10]I said, this is not me. He's like, we used to all six eight pages out.
[19:13]So we got to start over and write this chapter all over again.
[19:16]It's got to sound like me, but it's a process.
[19:18]It takes about 18 months from start to finish per book.
[19:21]But I'll tell you, it's so gratifying when you see the final product and the people at penguin are just phenomenal and editing job.
[19:29]And I always have my friend Chris Goldak who reads it as a consumer and has a lot of input.
[19:37]Like, you know, this doesn't make any sense.
[19:39]So it's a process that I've been lucky to be doing it for almost 20 years and six books that I've loved every single one of those projects.
[19:48]Well, so what advice would you have for aspiring authors?
[19:53]I think if you see a lot of see a red on your initial manuscript.
[20:00]don't pat it. It just means your book is going to be an amazing book when the final product is done.
[20:06]And I just feel like if you have an idea that you think people want to, that people will listen to
[20:12]and will add to their life, and I'm a big believer in storytelling. That's your book has to have
[20:17]some type of storytelling. You know, I always say these great epics that are so successful over
[20:23]thousands of years, Iliad, Odyssey, or the Bhagavad, Gita, Rama and Mahabharata is their stories,
[20:30]you know, their powerful stories. And so every story in my book is a real life example of real
[20:37]patients and what they did to overcome their back pain in this case. And made it very entertaining,
[20:43]not entertaining, that's the wrong word, engaging to read because you want to see what happens.
[20:48]I love how you bring John, like full circle to the end, and it's great, nice. Yeah, I mean,
[20:53]you know, I'm privileged to have him in my life. I mean, his story of where he started with
[20:58]in Florida, an opiate clinic, you know, 50, 70 pounds overweight and to see where he is today as a
[21:06]thriving security software security expert with the driving business. It's really gratifying that
[21:13]I could make a positive difference in one human's life. It's amazing. All in a day's work.
[21:18]You know, well, thank you. Thanks for coming on to talk about this book, fantastic, excellent
[21:26]life tips. Even if your back is fine, honestly, this is a better way to live than most people are
[21:30]living anyway. So, Ili, relatable and very user friendly and fun to read at the same time. So,
[21:38]so thank you for my copy. My pleasure being on your podcast and you're doing very good stuff,
[21:45]podcasting your idea of mom don't have time to read concept. Thank you. Well, I hope I won't
[21:50]see you in person soon, but I have a feeling I probably won't. But I'm glad Kyle is standing on his
[21:57]two feet. Yes, today's a good day. So, you know, all right, great being with you, okay? Thank you,
[22:05]you too. Bye bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[22:11]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read
[22:16]Books. Also, sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and
[22:21]meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan in fact,
[22:25]texture sound for the sound editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing
[22:30]this fantastic intro and outro music.