Hello and welcome to The Brentwood Buzz, a podcast
celebrating all that's good about the people and places of
Brentwood, Essex. I'm Kay Bellwood.
This week we're in Pilgrim's Hatch where Doctor of
Chiropractic Grayson Nolan has one of his two the chiropractic
centres. The other is in Billericay.
Grayson is a passionate advocate of chiropractic.
If you're aching and wincing, he and his team can adjust you so
everything is aligned properly and then give you advice on how
to keep it. So the Brentwood bus has been to
meet Grayson at the chiropractic centre to find out what he's
doing in Brentwood. So originally I started my
journey in New Zealand. People might pick up from my
accent. I came from a whole family of
chiropractors. I think at the moment we've got
10 in my family. Many of them graduated.
In fact, all of them, I think at the time I graduated from the
United States, from a place called Palmer College of
Chiropractic. And some of them actually
actually not thinking about it, graduated from the New Zealand
school, which is actually where I went originally.
I think it was in the third year of that class.
It's been five years and I had a few.
Well, I had a degree in pharmacology, Physiology, a
double major that I'd done at the university and we were
studying chiropractic simultaneously.
But I wanted the best school in the world.
So I applied to a number of schools and I proceeded to spend
4 years of my life travelling the world, living in America,
going through colleges, going through schools.
And of all those schools in the world, I ended up in England.
The funny thing was when I was 16 years old, I applied to all
these schools in the world and I thought that's the last place
I'm going to go. And it was actually the place I
ended up. So I went to Bournemouth, I
completed my degree there. I ended up spending four years
in university studying a Doctor of Chiropractic degree and then
I graduated in 2007. So having done all that in life,
I ended up coming through a friend into Brentwood and
Brentwood I went to a clinic and I was just really impressed on
how many people they were helping.
It was just as phenomenal. It just stood out like I saw
some how amazing it was and it was and it started to grow in
time to be one of the busiest clinics in Essex, in fact
probably one of the busiest in the country.
And then we ended up with 28 people in time.
We had ships going from 7:00 in the morning to 8:00 at night
split three ways with half hour gaps.
But one of the things that I came away from, it was for me, I
wanted to have that connection with the patients, a deeper
connection. I, I'm not a person who's an
ivory tower Dr. As we say, I want to connect with people and
it's taking care of patients to me is more than, you know,
pushing on someone's back, so to speak.
It does sound like although you come from a family of
chiropractors, it does sound like it's a real calling.
It's not like you've gone, Oh yeah, my dad did it, my mum did
it, my aunts and uncles and whatever did it, so I might as
well. It's it sounds like you have a
passion there that you just want to be the best.
Yeah, that's what a lot of my patients say too.
And they and my friends actually with chiropractors, they get a
little bit annoyed because all I've ever talked about is
chiropractic on my holidays. I talk about chiropractic when I
go on a holiday. I actually go and visit
chiropractic clinics. But but what I like to do is I
like to take the good and the bad and I like to see how people
can improve. And one of the things that I've
learned, my father did a little bit of it, but I learned
probably through my predecessors and my peers, was making
people's lives better. It's not just chiropractic, it's
digging deeper. You know, what can you do to
improve someone's life and be a better person in the process?
Yeah, so. So when do people come to you?
Is it, is it that, oh, I've got a bit of an ache, I'll go and
see a chiropractor or would they see an osteopath?
Would they see a physiotherapist?
How do you know when we need you?
Yeah, I'd say chiropractors, physios, osteopaths.
They're in the same frame of health, they work very similar
but through different processes. You know, I wouldn't want to
give an opinion on an osteopath, would be best to ask them the
same with the physio. But from a training perspective,
chiropractors and osteopaths probably most similar.
The thing that chiropractors can do is we can take X-rays.
We can actually write those X-rays up and some chiropractors
have X-ray machines and are registered to take X-rays.
In addition to that, we can refer out for MRI's.
Interesting enough, I like to educate my patients as well.
So they, they're really informed.
So they go back to the doctor and they say, well, I understand
this and people say, how do you know that?
Are you in a medical field? Said no, I'm a chiropractor,
told me from their rights, legal rights, medico legal notes.
I inform them about those kind of things.
But for example, the thing I love is that we have connections
with a local chiropractor. We used to have an X-ray.
We don't at the moment, I can refer somebody literally within
a day or two straight in for an X-ray, sometimes the same day
and they've got an X-ray and it's under £100 if they need
that and and that's it. Yeah, we have the option of NHS
which is fantastic. We find, like I said, NHS is
brilliant when it comes to emergency care.
But the challenge that we are seeing now with systems all
being strapped to capacity is times, time frames expanding.
And the thing I always say to people or your chiropractor, and
it doesn't have to be us, you know, this is the thing, you
know, or an osteopath or a physio, we call these people up
and ask them, you know, what's my options?
One of the things that I think is really important in a
practice is giving people the opportunity to talk with you and
without the burden of financial concern.
So one of the things that we introduced years ago was we do a
free 10 minute complimentary check.
Sometimes we can speak to people on the phone and to be honest, I
normally spend more than 10 minutes talking on the phone to
just get their side of things and to give them some general
advice on what can be done. And we don't charge for that.
And then we extrapolate that used to be under sixteens, it's
now extrapolated to everybody. So anybody can give us a call,
we can book them in, we can give them some good general advice,
which, you know, for a person who's, I mean, I've had the
pleasure of doing nine years in university, that's pretty cool.
And people may say, well, you know, why would you do that?
Why not? It's 10 minutes.
It doesn't take long and it empowers people.
I've had some amazing cases over the years.
Amazing. And not people that needed
chiropractor right then. And then I had one particular
chap and he'd come in and he had the experience he had.
He'd come in and he'd attempted to overdose and he'd take in a
lot of medication and he hadn't told anyone, his family.
And I realized that the most important thing this person
needed right then was not me adjusting his pack for a little
bit back pain he may have had. It was him getting the right
care, the right advice. And so we talked to him and, you
know, a few days later, both his sister and his mum came and gave
me a big hug and they were just really appreciative.
And that made my day. And it's one of those things
that are always stay with me. So that's why we do the free
check. So what do people come to you
with most? Is it backs?
Is it knees? Is it?
What is it? It's a lot of that.
The reality is a chiropractor is defined by the World Health
Organization as a neuromusculoskeletal specialist,
I think was the words of that health association.
I prefer not to use the word specialist because under GCC
there's certain regulations, but I do have a special interest in
fields. My personal one is pediatric
chiropractic. So I have some amazing stories
with that. And we put this on our YouTube,
by the way, at the Cairo. I'm putting that plug in at that
Cairo centre. But the most common one people
go to a chiropractor for would be low back pain.
Others there was a called the Bromford report was published a
number of years ago because there was a lot of misleading
information of actually what was happening and what could
chiropractors say. And it's also under the ASA
standards I believe as well on what can be said.
But the Bromford report came out and it created a lot of interest
around things such as cervicogenic headaches.
So headaches can be caused by a number of things.
And one of the other things carburets do is to identify is
it in their realm, can they help?
So is it caused by joints in the neck that are pinching on nerves
that are giving the headache, or is it something maybe more
concerning? And so we identify that and if
we don't think we can help, we also refer out to the
appropriate person. And so you're not waiting
around. So I like to refer people where
possible directly to consultants.
It saves time. If necessary, they go back to
the GP. That is an option, you know.
So, but yeah, we could say Bax is the most common one.
I like to get away from the element there and say
chiropractor really is about making your body function
better. When you take pressure off
nerves, nerves go everywhere throughout your body and it
changes the function of what those nerves do.
And so we have some amazing results, but the most common
research back to what we call evidence based medicine comes
from mechanical low back pain. That is the reality.
What are we doing wrong then, as people that all of them were not
many of us are popping along to you going I've got low back
pain. Are we not walking enough?
Are we sitting too much? Are we not exercising in the
right? What?
What can we? What are we doing so wrong that
we need you? So this is an interesting thing
when you, I like to say this is really important because you
know, if people listen to everything I said, I probably
would not be in practice because a lot of this is it's
self-directed by the, the person.
In fact, the, the general chiropractic counsel says this
and I fully agree 100%. So important is it's patient
centered care, right? So it's down to the patient to
actually take charge. So we can get joints moving, but
we're advising stretchers and exercises.
So it's a two way kind of street.
So you're not doing that. That's not really going to help
you get to where you want, right?
So it's about meeting patient expectations.
And in fact, before I take anybody on board, we have the
right not to take people on board because we have a duty of
care, just like the hospital. So I take on board people I know
I can help. And if I don't believe I can
help meet their expectations, we won't take them on board because
we can't, right? What can we do?
Well, the reality of back pain, it's endemic.
It's been there since time began.
In fact, there was some, I remember years ago watching them
on TV, they showed a Homo erectus person who just, you
know, starting to stand up a million years ago and they had
degenerative joint disease and L5 in the lumbar spine.
And then it's the most common thing we see as people go
through life. They're getting in that low
back. So it's always been there.
What's made worse is in this day and age out, what are we doing?
We're sedentary. You know, you go back 100,000
years, we're working the fields, we're moving our bodies and
there's a thing called Wolf's Law and it's basically if you
don't use it, you lose it. So if you don't move correctly,
movement is really important and it's also good for emotions.
So I say this to people, think of this, if you've got a day
when you're a bit down, you know, the weather's a bit DRAM,
put on some music, dance around the room and you will find you
can't help but smile and feel better.
You know, there's endorphins, there's things being released in
your bloodstream. So movement is really important
to our emotions and how we feel. And with chiropractic, when we
get joints moving, if you think about the person can function
and move better. A lot of people find in my
experience, this is in not evidence based, but well,
evidence from what I've experienced, people feel better
in themselves, they have better relationships in general.
They just feel better, you know, because they can move better.
Do you deal with women who are going through or have gone
through the menopause? Because that seems to be a point
where suddenly things that used to work stop working.
Things that didn't used to ache start aching.
Yes. So there's elements of things
that change as we get older. These are natural progressions.
So for example, it's more common as somebody gets older to have
wear and tear than they did when they're younger.
It's like a car wears out. Hormones change as we get older,
bone density changes as we get older.
So a lot of these things that are natural, you know, they're
not unnatural for them to occur. And also there's a genetic
element. Some people are more prone than
others, right? But coming back to a
chiropractic is not about its origins, are not about treating
a single condition such as back pain.
It is about making your body function better.
If a joint is restricted and you get that moving and you're
taking pressure out of that area and your body is functioning
better, a lot of these kind of subtle conditions that we see,
in addition to the chemical pain can improve.
People find changes with regards to menopause.
I would not say chiropractic is going to change menopause.
You know, that is an element that there's, as far as I've
seen, I've not seen evidence for that.
I wouldn't make that call. But from a musculoskeletal and
how you move, it's really important.
So for example, I have people with rheumatoid arthritis, I
have people with osteoarthritis. I'm not treating those
conditions, but people that have those conditions also have
mechanical pain from the lack of movement that's associated with
those conditions. And when you address that
component, they can feel a little bit better in themselves
that they can move better from the musculoskeletal component.
So what do you do to people because some people say, right,
I'm I'm going to get my vaccine, so I'm going to have my back
cracked or I'm going to, you know, are you a back cracker or
is there something, is that the osteopaths that we're not going
to talk about today? No.
Well, most people will. And unfortunately they'll go on
a YouTube video or go on a TikTok and they'll see it.
And let's say I know there's people out there, there's people
in all different professions that will push that and certain
countries in the world will be more OK with it than others.
I don't go down that Ave. and I haven't purely because I think
there's a lot of people that don't like that.
There's some people that love it, but it draws away from the
focus of what chiropractic's about.
It's about improving your function.
It's not sensationalism. I want to get a pop click.
And you'll find a lot of them when you look closely, they'll
put a microphone up really close.
It doesn't sound that loud. They're they're amping up and
then they'll amp the mic up to make it sound.
Oh, and then they'll, you know, it's very sensationalism.
It's like in the news, and possibly one of the reasons I
don't listen to the news that much these days, because you
don't see many happy things coming out of the news.
And we know that fear and frustration is far more powerful
emotion than love. And so it's utilized in the
media all the time. And I think this is true of
anything that when people don't check in and check the biases
that are associated with anything's coming out, be it
media, be it we won't go into detailed politics or anything
like that. But, but if you don't check it,
and it's including research on chiropractic, if you don't check
where does those papers come from, then you're slipping down
a slope, which is not a good slope.
So always check the biases. You know, same for same for
chiropractors that do research and say this is amazing.
I check the biases. So for for what you do here, you
don't specialize because that's not a word we're allowed to use.
But if a person with a baby comes in here and says the
baby's doing something, what can you do to help a baby?
Because surely they're lovely and bendy and stretching,
There's nothing wrong with them at that stage.
They they haven't degenerated at all, surely?
Sure. So this goes back again to that
simple principle of chiropractic, which is checking
the spine and make sure it's working well.
So we're all automatically going down this this pathway possibly
that there's something wrong with the baby and that's why
they're coming in. The reality is I have patients
have been with me a long time. They bring their babies in just
because they want to check the nerve system of their baby and
make sure it's operational maximum capacity.
They have no obvious signs or symptoms or any concerns.
It is about optimizing and checking the nerve system and
making sure it's functioning the best.
And that's the origins of chiropractor and that's where it
always will be with all the technologies and things that
come in that are new, they're great.
But what's worked for now over 120 years still works.
The classic example that I'd say with the babies though, a lot of
mums will typically bring babies to me that are maybe presenting
with signs of colicky kind of symptoms, high pitched
screaming, bringing knees to the chest.
Now, as a chiropractor, I'm not treating the collar.
That's very important. That sounds a bit odd, but hold
on. They're coming with those
symptoms. They may be, but I'm checking
their spine to see if there's any joints that are maligned and
not moving as they should. And when I moved those joints,
in my clinical experience, I found a lot of improvement mums
have had. There's studies that show mums
and parents, actually this was years ago, about 15 years ago,
slept better when their child went to a chiropractor, you
know, but it didn't help the child.
I mean, the question is, how is it possible that a parent, I
always questioned that one. But in my clinical experience
with people coming in with babies and, and you can just see
from our YouTube videos with the, which we're actually doing
more on now what mums say and the results are phenomenal
because they're quicker than with an adult.
As to why, my theory is they don't have the stress of having
to pay for a mortgage. I mean, that's one of the
theories, but they just, they bounce back phenomenally fast.
And it is amazing when you, you, you see the change.
You know, the other day I had a baby, wasn't connecting with mom
at all. This is mom's first born coming
out screaming she's concerned. Then there's come seen ourselves
within one session, 8085% improvement.
I think 5-10 minutes. I worked on this baby.
Three days later, eyes connected to mom, Mom's looking directly
into the eyes of a baby. The baby is smiling at mom and
that's just phenomenal. To see how many people even know
that we do this, it's just phenomenal.
I I watch too many reels on Facebook.
I know a lot of what you do, but I'm very not biased.
I'm I'm aware it. I didn't not seeing everything
just. Watch out for the the extreme
kind of extremism that occurs. Because the reality is, I mean,
we've got a technique called. I wonder if I've got it on me
now. Your listeners can't see it.
It's called an activator that. Looks terrifying.
It does to an. Object of torture it.
Does it does? You're right to an adult.
But children love this because when we're young, we're not
covered with all thoughts and what we've learnt.
Right. And if I press on this, so I'm
doing it on myself, You mind if I do it on your knee or your
hand? Nothing so gentle, isn't it?
Yeah. Yeah.
And yet when you see the force that's transmitted, wow.
So that that's. Two pens moving together and
it's like a it's pushed an inch out the way.
Yeah, just by touching one and you'll see, keep the first pen
stationary, hit it, the next pen moves.
But this device and again you can control it with that we may
use on babies. Most of the time we don't.
We just use the weights of the baby itself.
So we just go with the movement of the baby.
It's completely different than an adult.
There's a technique called touch and hold.
It's very gentle technique and some people say, did you do
anything? And yet the interesting thing
is, but the results come, yeah, you know, and like I said, see
the YouTube channel. Would you see what?
Now, I've had a look at your board outside with all the
people that you have working here and there's a lot.
And then, yeah, I won't exactly. You'll be up to 28 before you
even know it. So there seem to be sort of
there's there's people who will deal with dancers, jujitsu,
sports, pregnant women, you know.
So there's a there's a lot of people, people you think, all
right, of course they come in. So do you see many sporty people
kind of limping back after the rugby field?
We see a few. I think for me, my focus is not
just on sports. There are chiropractors that
focus on sports. So if somebody wants to go to a
chiropractor that purely does sports, you will find them out
there. I deem myself as a more all
round family based chiropractor. Once Upon a time, a long, long
time ago, I started out working in the City in Canary Wharf.
And what I found was probably not what I expected.
I thought, oh, glimmering lights, this is where it's at.
London is cracking. And I found people would just
leave their family at home and they'd get adjusted at all.
And then adjustment, by the way, just for the listeners is when
we gently move these joints, take the pressure out of the
area, decompress the area and the person feels better, usually
feels better, functions better, moves better.
And they just won't bring the family in.
So they leave their children at home or the, the, the, the wife
or the husband would be at home. And you're thinking, but if you
feel these benefits, if you know the true benefit of chiropractic
and maintaining your health and you leave your family at home,
it just wasn't right for me and I wanted to be family based
chiropractor. You know, original people.
Yeah. So here you are in Brentwood.
Do you? You must get families coming in.
Are most of your, are most of your clients Brentwood based or
are they coming in from elsewhere because you've got a
clinic in Billericay as well? Yeah.
So we're developing Brentwood all the time, expanding it.
Billericay, we've been established a couple of years
longer. We've probably got a more solid
base there. But you know, Brentwood is
growing. I've originated from Brentwood.
We've moved over to Billericay, but we've moved back and forth
between, between the two. I have, and this is interesting.
People say, well, it might be too far for me to travel.
So I have, I've had people come in and they find that 5 minutes
is too far to travel. And I said, well, I don't have
any chiropractor closer than me. I've got 100 yards from your
house, but they're too busy. And then I have a particular
gentleman, John. He travels over an hour and a
half once a month to see me and then he drives an hour and a
half back. He, I said, well, you must see
family. He said no, I just come to see
you for 10 minutes. But he doesn't.
For him, he doesn't trust anybody else.
And that's fair. There's a famous chiropractor,
Gonstead, and I like to always have like a flag in the rock.
So you've got your own value system, right?
And you know where you stand. This guy, Clarence Gonstead,
originated in the United States. He had people fly from all over
the world to see him. He built a hotel with 200 rooms.
He had a an airport landing. He had to build the hotel for
people to stay there because they flew from New Zealand,
Australia, the UK to America to a tiny little town, Wisconsin,
just outside of Wisconsin. And that would stay for two
weeks, get adjusted 2, three times a day.
Sometimes, you know, they've got regularly adjusted.
And so this miscenomer that, oh, I can't see the carpet more for
that. It depends on what you're doing.
So if you're going in with a, you know that more that they're
kind of clicking that we there's probably the higher level of
adjusting to an activator, which is very gentle.
You could obviously be adjusted with an activator probably a bit
more frequently because it's not as much force.
So it's almost like fine tuning an engine.
How often should you get a tune up on your car is the question.
And it's a balance between the time, the cost and also the the
benefit ratio. Somebody who's very sporty and
into athletics, we're maybe getting checked more regularly
because they've got falls. A great example of the benefits
of chiropractic on form and function, not pain, especially
in high level athletes. Usain Bolt and the runner, and
he got the 100 and 200 when he was in the Olympics.
There's a picture 10 minutes before he won those events.
He was getting adjusted with this device by a chiropractor
and not many people have seen that picture.
Now, if you're going to win a gold medal and somebody does
that and they can make you win the gold medal, going to do it.
Great picture. I've got to get it put up in the
wall somewhere. So what's going to keep you in
Brentwood? You know, is it going to be,
you'll get to 28 people in the clinic and you'll go, right,
that's it. I can move on to a hotel
somewhere now. You know what, What do you want
to do when you stay here? Will you move on to somewhere
where there's my space? I would, I would love to stay.
I think the thing that's going to define me staying in
Brentwood per SE, is going to be a combination of things.
The existing support of my patients here, which I love, and
the people that come to us and that they want what we're
offering, the level of care that we're offering, and also the
support from the council, the Brentwood Council.
So I will leave it at that, but just, you know, just support,
support from the community as a whole.
Thanks to Grayson for taking part in the Brentwood Buzz and
he can be found at the chiropractic centres in Pilgrims
Hatch and in Billericay. Coming up on the Brentwood Buzz
soon. Essex girls and witches, some
Shakespeare news and why Shenfield is the place to go for
a good cigar. Please like, share, comment and
keep listening to the Brentwood buzz.