The Importance of a Second Medical Opinion

Raena Morgan: Hi, I’m Raena Morgan of iHealthTube. I am speaking with Lyle Hurd today, who is the publisher and the editor of Total Health Magazine, which is distributed nationally and it gives us an opportunity by reading this magazine to educate ourselves on our own health. I would like to talk with Lyle and age management and how it applies to mobility and your physical activity. And you have a personal story you would like to share with us on that. Don’t you? Lyle Hurd: Certainly. But first of all, one of the single most important things that you can do for your body mass, for your bones, for you heart, obviously is activity – physical activity. Couple of miles a day walking at a brisk rate is a wonderful basis for that. Then certainly weight resistance, whatever it might be. I’ve been into the walking every morning. We live in a wonderful place. I do it with my dog before light most of the time. Raena Morgan: Okay. Lyle Hurd: And about a year ago, I started to have reactivity in an area in my back which is a little bit disabling and finally I got to the place where I had to go and see my doctor about it. So I did and interestingly enough, at my age I thought I had a prostrate problem. Raena Morgan: Okay. Lyle Hurd: And so I said, “Gee, Dan, I think I have a prostrate problem, will you check?” And he said, “No, it’s not your prostrate.” He asked me to show him where it was and he said, “Well, just a minute, I want to take a couple of x-rays.” So he took the x-rays, and he said “Come on back next Wednesday.” So the next Wednesday, I go back in, and he’s ashen. He said, “Oh Lyle, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I’m going to have to show you something.” And he brought out an x-ray and of course, I had no idea what I was looking at. And he said, “See this number 3, whatever it is, and the number 2”—he said, “Just a minute.” And he went over and he got a little statue of a 20-year-old’s spine. And he said, “See this is how your spine is supposed to be.” Well, okay, I’m multiples of 20 and I said, “Well, what would you suggest I do?” He said, “We’re going to put—I’ll give you a prescription when you leave and we’ll put you on the prescription and when it gets bad enough, then we’ll send you to the pain clinic.” And I said, “Well, Dan, that isn’t what I wanted to hear.” I said, “You know, I’m in the health business and you know I’m in the health business.” And he said, “Well, he said, that’s what we need to do.” Raena Morgan: Don’t you think that would have frightened the ordinary person who was not in the health business? Or intimidated them? Lyle Hurd: I think that’s exactly what people would expect someone to do. Give them a prescription. What I did is I went back and I called Jacob Teitelbaum, who I think we talked about before. Raena Morgan: He’s a medical doctor, right? Lyle Hurd: That’s right. He’s a great guy and I said, “Jacob, I have this problem” and he said “What are you taking” and I told him a couple of things that I was taking, that we had been doing some articles on. And he said, “Lyle, you’re not taking glucosamine, chondroitin, or m.s.m.” And I said, “Well, that’s right.” And he said, “That is the foundation for anything that looks like what you’re talking about.” And so basically he said you take those. He said “Whoever’s taking celadrin—,” which is a wonderful product for when you have discomfort in your system, and then he said, “Also go see a chiropractor.” So what I did was I got my glucosamine and my conhondroitin, and m.s.m. I went to see a chiropractor our family sees and over the period of three and a half or four months, it came completely where you’d like it to be, had very little problems, if any, and it flared up a couple of times. It had now been about 8 months—we were in the car yesterday for 8 hours and I have a little bit of it. But one other thing that I did do was to see a massage therapist, a deep massage therapist, who our family sees. But all I can say is that, it all boils down the fact that yes, you need a lot of mobility. No, you should never let anything destroy your opportunity for that mobility until you really get to the basis of it. And then, I would add to it, if there’s a natural way to look at conquering the problem, you really need to question that and to look at that being the first, rather than the last thing that you attack. Raena Morgan: So, you’re feeling pretty good these days? Lyle Hurd: I feel great. Raena Morgan: So by a little investigating and not taking the first opinion that came your way, you were able to find some natural supplements that helped you with your pain and with your condition? Lyle Hurd: Absolutely. Raena Morgan: Okay, well, thank you for sharing that Lyle. Lyle Hurd: Thank you.