Chiropractor has New Age approach to the busines
By Jeannie O’Sullivan Times Staff Writer
To call Paul Teich a chiropractor would be remiss. A more accurate, if lengthy, title would read acupressurist, physical therapist, reiki master, yoga instructor, photographer and "healer," a phrase his clients have used. The most unusual thing about Teich’s "many hats" is that he wears most of them at the same time. "My life is filled with unbelievable stories," said Teich, 41, a Bustleton native. One of them rooted his conviction that the power of alternative healing can reach mystic proportions. About 16 years ago, when Teich was attending Community College of Philadelphia, a SEPTA bus hit him as he was crossing a Center City street to go to class. A classmate carried him to the nurses office, but Teich’s real savior was an aikido master he’d studied under for six years. Under his direction, Teich had learned how to fall correctly. "My friends call me HTK — hard to kill," Teich noted proudly, but added that "everything hurt" for years. After the experience, Teich dismissed the skepticism surrounding osteopathic medicine and pushed alternative healing methods to the forefront of the home-based practice in Huntingdon Valley. His basement office might surprise first-time patients who wonder how a room with a bouncing ball, several mattresses and a menagerie of photographs, mystical poems and martial-arts memorabilia will cure carpal tunnel syndrome or herniated discs. Teich embellishes a typical chiropractic regimen of adjustments and vitamins with the basic movements of martial arts of aikido, reiki and yoga. Teich said the process helps correct mistakes people make when they stand, walk, run, eat, work and just move in general. "The way we sit in America is wrong," said Teich. Most of his methods are rooted in the tenets of harmony, serenity and spiritual energy — the respective mainstays of aikido, yoga and reiki — which Teich said profoundly affect a bevy of conditions, including lower back pain, fibromyalgia and aluminum toxicity, a malady Teich said debilitated him for years. Teich also uses acupressure and gives private yoga lessons. With such a variety of offerings, his practice eventually amassed a diverse clientele that includes two Philadelphia police officers, a retired teacher, a jazz musician, a world power-lifting federation champion, a window salesman and a black-belt ninja instructor. Reiki — pronounced ray-kee — is Teich’s favorite. According to both mystic and medicinal tradition, the 10 major reiki positions align and soothe the chakras, or energy centers, throughout the body. Teich, who studied under his brother David, a Japanese and Tibetan reiki master, finds reiki mutually healing. "When I’m done a treatment, we both feel wonderful," he said. "Just as the seasons change, our energy changes and needs adjustment." It is a healing energy that he insists permeates his home. His wife Valerie is an aquatics instructor and stroke coach, and his three daughters, Chelsea, 13, Jasmine, 11, and Tiffany, 9, have received ninja training. And Olivia, the family’s 10-year-old bulldog, is as spry as ever after Teich nursed her through a stroke with acupressure, vitamins and massages. Lately, Teich is concerned about the underserved deaf population. He is taking classes in American Sign Language and will get his Registered Interpreter for the Deaf (RID) certification in two years. He calls the lack of sign language interpretation resources a "travesty," especially in emergency situations. Though he has shared his knowledge with an eclectic populace — he has lectured at a cosmetology school, a high school classroom, the Jewish Community Centers and even before the Philadelphia Dog Fancier Club — Teich acknowledges that he still has much to learn. The spiritual principles of reiki dictate that the world flourished from a "universal intelligence that creates it and maintains it," rather than any one person. Said Teich, "I’d be one arrogant person to think otherwise. I just stretch it, strengthen it and adjust it." •• Reporter Jeannie O’Sullivan can be reached at 215-354-3038 or [email protected]
To call Paul Teich a chiropractor would be remiss. A more accurate, if lengthy, title would read acupressurist, physical therapist, reiki master, yoga instructor, photographer and "healer," a phrase his clients have used. The most unusual thing about Teich’s "many hats" is that he wears most of them at the same time. "My life is filled with unbelievable stories," said Teich, 41, a Bustleton native. One of them rooted his conviction that the power of alternative healing can reach mystic proportions. About 16 years ago, when Teich was attending Community College of Philadelphia, a SEPTA bus hit him as he was crossing a Center City street to go to class. A classmate carried him to the nurses office, but Teich’s real savior was an aikido master he’d studied under for six years. Under his direction, Teich had learned how to fall correctly. "My friends call me HTK — hard to kill," Teich noted proudly, but added that "everything hurt" for years. After the experience, Teich dismissed the skepticism surrounding osteopathic medicine and pushed alternative healing methods to the forefront of the home-based practice in Huntingdon Valley. His basement office might surprise first-time patients who wonder how a room with a bouncing ball, several mattresses and a menagerie of photographs, mystical poems and martial-arts memorabilia will cure carpal tunnel syndrome or herniated discs. Teich embellishes a typical chiropractic regimen of adjustments and vitamins with the basic movements of martial arts of aikido, reiki and yoga. Teich said the process helps correct mistakes people make when they stand, walk, run, eat, work and just move in general. "The way we sit in America is wrong," said Teich. Most of his methods are rooted in the tenets of harmony, serenity and spiritual energy — the respective mainstays of aikido, yoga and reiki — which Teich said profoundly affect a bevy of conditions, including lower back pain, fibromyalgia and aluminum toxicity, a malady Teich said debilitated him for years. Teich also uses acupressure and gives private yoga lessons. With such a variety of offerings, his practice eventually amassed a diverse clientele that includes two Philadelphia police officers, a retired teacher, a jazz musician, a world power-lifting federation champion, a window salesman and a black-belt ninja instructor. Reiki — pronounced ray-kee — is Teich’s favorite. According to both mystic and medicinal tradition, the 10 major reiki positions align and soothe the chakras, or energy centers, throughout the body. Teich, who studied under his brother David, a Japanese and Tibetan reiki master, finds reiki mutually healing. "When I’m done a treatment, we both feel wonderful," he said. "Just as the seasons change, our energy changes and needs adjustment." It is a healing energy that he insists permeates his home. His wife Valerie is an aquatics instructor and stroke coach, and his three daughters, Chelsea, 13, Jasmine, 11, and Tiffany, 9, have received ninja training. And Olivia, the family’s 10-year-old bulldog, is as spry as ever after Teich nursed her through a stroke with acupressure, vitamins and massages. Lately, Teich is concerned about the underserved deaf population. He is taking classes in American Sign Language and will get his Registered Interpreter for the Deaf (RID) certification in two years. He calls the lack of sign language interpretation resources a "travesty," especially in emergency situations. Though he has shared his knowledge with an eclectic populace — he has lectured at a cosmetology school, a high school classroom, the Jewish Community Centers and even before the Philadelphia Dog Fancier Club — Teich acknowledges that he still has much to learn. The spiritual principles of reiki dictate that the world flourished from a "universal intelligence that creates it and maintains it," rather than any one person. Said Teich, "I’d be one arrogant person to think otherwise. I just stretch it, strengthen it and adjust it." •• Reporter Jeannie O’Sullivan can be reached at 215-354-3038 or [email protected]
My Aim Is True
Chiropractic Physician, Sports Physician, Physiological Therapeutist, Fellow of the American Academy of Clinical Acupuncture, Dr. Paul and the chiropractor in the lime green car are just a few of the things that people call me. When people talk about me that have seen me in my Huntingdon valley office they often remark on one of my pet peeves. That would namely be the fact that no one told my patients previously to meeting me that they are even supposed to have a curve in the back of their neck, why it might be important and that theirs are by and large deficient. Why might this be important? Should you do anything about it? Why should doctors think this is important? Is there a difference in how therapists might deal with this problem? If you don’t have a curve in your neck and someone fixes it for you how is that going to help you. Did you even know there was supposed to be one?
When I perform an exam in my Chiropractic/Physical Therapy office as part of our posture exam I evaluate the three curves in the spine. Yes there should be three. I grew up with an extra big curve in my lower back but at the time the doctors that told me that failed to tell me that I had a decreased curve in my neck and that might be the reason for that increased curve in my low back. Over 70% of Americans suffer from hypolordosis or a decreased curvature in the neck. Years ago orthopedists taught us that this decreased curvature in the neck is from sleeping on squishy pillows that do not support the curve in our neck. They rightly so would then sell us hundred dollar cervical pillows, specially made that would support the curve in our neck. However although the pillows were better they did not give any bodies the curve back in their necks. That would just be passive rehabilitation and you need to make people stronger to change their structure. I might find a deficient curve in a new patients neck as I have found in all but about two in my career and I kind of go on a rant because I am so serious about this particular issue. I hope you like it, it goes like this. Now, before I get started the posterior c-5 adjustment helps support the curve.
You are supposed to have 4 curves in your back going from front to back and none going sideways. A sideways curve is abnormal and is termed a scoliosis. I grew up with one of those too. Anyway, the curve in your neck is deficient I always say because it is almost always true and I proceed to teach the patient why that might be important to them. The disks are like jelly doughnuts and they have the tough tire like part on the outside and the soft jelly like part on the inside and we have 23 of them. They used to be thought of as the main shock absorbers of the spine to absorb axial compressive forces. These are the type of forces that would be transferred up our spine to our brain by a heal strike like from walking or running, jumping and playing. In my opinion if our spine were straight, which might be termed a military spine, and we took a step our spine would just crumble, or our disks would just pop. In any case a straight spine devoid of anterior and posterior curves would make normal life much more challenging and would make us prone to sideways curves or scoliosis which is bad, trust me I’m a doctor. If you took a stick you could break it over your leg. But if you turned the stick into a bow like a bow and arrow (thus the name of the article) it would then be able to absorb ten times the amount of up and down or axial compressive forces. If you look in architecture you will invariably find arches or curves like god put in the spine. It makes you think there is a universal intelligence that has created and maintains the world in existence. These arches you will find above doors for the arch is one of the strongest structures that we have found for distributing force. Suspension bridges of course are built on the same principle of arches. Have you ever been hit by a wave in the ocean? So we have 4 curves in our spine but let’s just talk about 3 of them, the lumbar, thoracic and cervical. This article is mostly about a decreased cervical curve and why that would be important. The 23 intervertebral spinal discs do in part act as shock absorbers but each of those curves allows for ten times the amount of shock absorbing capacity. A straight spine and your discs might pop. The low back curve that gives you ten times the axial compressive shock absorbing capacity. The mid back curve that gives you ten times more or one hundred times the shock absorbing capacity. The curve in your neck gives you ten times more shock absorbing capacity. If normal that would be one thousand times the shock absorbing capacity than a straight spine would give you due to the principles of physics and that is how I came to the opinion that these curves should be maintained and talked about for their shock absorbing capacity.
Over seventy percent of Americans as reported by orthopedists and taught to me suffer from a decreased curve in the neck. Why is this important? If the three curves we are talking about here give you one thousand times the shock absorbing capacity for every heal strike during life then a fifty percent decrease in the cervical lordosis (curve) would decrease that shock absorbing capacity from one thousand times to five hundred times. Now that is significant. The soft tissues like the discs and muscles have to pick up the slack. This is ridiculously common and nobody tells anyone about this. Have you been told by your doctor or therapist? Chances are no. Ever wonder why your neck and shoulders are always tight? Maybe you are like almost everyone else and have a cervical hypolordosis and have never been told. That my friends is why that is one of my pet peeves and I will tell you it really burns my biscuits. This leads to worse posture than you probably already have forward shoulders and even Dowager’s hump in women.
I don’t like the way they usually rehabilitate this traditionally. They do it passively. I do it actively because skinny and weak is no way to go through life. I have seen this decreased curvature in the neck rehabilitated by hanging a patients head over the edge of the table or bench to promote the curve. This is a progressive treatment that is followed by the addition of straps and weights for weighted traction. Sometimes a device is used that while the patient lies there in a supine position it puffs up under their neck and it can be sold to the patient for home use. Does it work? The answer is yes and no. remember skinny and weak is no way to go through life. The passive rehabilitation works as long as you keep going to the office three times a week. Yes, I have seen a deficient and negative (ooooh, ahhhh) curve be rehabilitated into a normal curve in multiple offices I have worked in passively. I did not work passively the rehabilitative technique was passive. Did I mention skinny and weak is no way to go through life? Well no one continues to go to the office three times a week and once that stops the curve goes away again and the problems often come back multiplied by ten (bummer, huh). The patient either says the doctor was a genius and helped me before or the doctor is an idiot my problems came back worse and can I sue him, her, it?
I rehabilitate it differently, actively because skinny and weak is no way to go through life. Did I mention that three times yet (thanks Lee)? Most of the rehabilitation I do is strengthening, stretching, muscle balancing and yes, Yoga based. It has occurred to me that Yoga rehabilitation was over two thousand years old by the time other forms of rehabilitation started applying their names to it. Swimmers, cobra, upward dog are just a few ways you could strengthen your spinal musculature, normalize your cervical lordotic curve and save your freaking life with an effort of responsibility and self sufficiency unrivaled in the rehabilitation world. Just get up and do it, suck it up as my wife says and do what you need to do, period. The definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing or nothing and think you will get different results. You will not. You need to get up, period. You need to let me or someone else train you. It has always been true and medicine by the way will be of no use if diet is not right. And if diet is not right medicine will be of no use. That is a great Ayurvedic quote that I don’t mind mentioning. So, the theme of cervical lordotic rehabilitation is strengthening the muscles that give you the curve in the first place while promoting the curve with therapeutic exercise. Yes, you would have to keep doing the arching exercises forever. The difference would be fixing the posture of the whole body as you cannot just do back bending because you would further imbalance the spine. You see the 23 discs are like jelly doughnuts and every time you bend say, backwards or forwards or to the side the vertebrae form wedges, like a triangle and the squishy part of the disk moves and can eventually buldge to the open wedge side. This is called the Creep Phenomenon. The disc creeps to the open wedge side. This happens every 20 minutes we sit or bend in a certain position. Have you ever sat for a long time and then stretched up and maybe even felt your whole spine crack. That is bad posture and the creep phenomenon in action. So, if I told you to lay on a table and traction your head backwards that would be passive rehabilitation and would leave you skinny and weak and no better off in the long run. If I encourage you to perform swimmers which is a more full body exercise or cobra that will strengthen your neck and give you your curve back, but will leave you strong in only one range and not truly balance you. You are a whole body though and your disc is a whole disc. This is not rocket science either. You need to be told to bend backwards, bend forwards and twist to the side in a meaningful, active way that stretches you, strengthens you and balances your posture, muscles and discs. These are the exercises for fixing the curve in your neck and these are the exercises for fixing your discs.
Yes, fixing the deficient curve in your neck is important. If you have ever gotten a whiplash while on a rollercoaster (I have) then you might realize how important it is to make the neck strong. Fixing spinal problems with one range of motion or exercise is usually never good. Soldiers are told to stand like soldiers, or chest out, shoulders back, exaggerated military posture and low back arched. It is good for you. Our neck holds up our head and it needs to be strong. The normal curve and the soft tissues like muscles, ligaments and tendons support the neck and the discs. They don’t have problems like the discs and the discs will be far less likely to have problems if they are properly supported, and we know how to support them. If you found this interesting see my article on discs, the creep phenomenon and imbibition. Yours in health Dr.Paul L. Teich 2676938406
