Have Lifelong Wellbeing Newsletter

January 2025

Welcome to the 124th edition of the Have Lifelong Wellbeing monthly newsletter! 

If you are a new reader, please know it's my life's passion to erase pain from the world and empower lives to age with strength, truth, wisdom, and joy. This newsletter is a cherished labor of love and I thank you for allowing me into your inbox each month. I'm humbled by your trust in me to provide content of value and I will continue to strive to that end. 
- Eileen

UPCOMING CLASSES

This Month's LIVE MELT Class: Age With Joy

January 14th at 5 pm Eastern   Recorded if you can't make it live

Join us for a new MELT Class each month! Purchase 5 classes and get a class FREE! Special discount for Academy and paid level Private Club members.

On-Demand Virtual Classes

For those with a challenging schedule ~ recorded classes to access 24/7, INCLUDING an effective four class series for Urinary Incontinence done on your feet!

JANUARY EVENTS FOR HLW ACADEMY STUDENTS

Monthly Reward Event

January 7th at 12 pm Eastern

Special Guest Speaker, Sunny Harrison, author of Recalibrate Your Mind (due for release in Feb)

Student Choice Workout

January 7th at 11 am Eastern

Student request topic: Strengthen Bones

Office Hours with Eileen

January 8th at 12 pm Eastern

This month's teaching: Injury Free Workouts - What it means and why it matters for lifelong wellbeing.   ~15-20 minute teaching followed by Q&A on any pain, aging, nutrition, or health topic!

This Month's Article

Pain in the Neck Part 2

Everything's Connected

Before I begin, I want to be sure you know about an event set for later this month. It’s an exciting
announcement combined with a first ever online event. I don’t believe you will want to miss it!

Ok, now onto the topic at hand…

Pain in the Neck Part 2

Last month, in Part 1, we covered some commonly reported reasons for neck pain. This month, we will dive into mostly unknown causes of neck pain. These aren’t uncommon reasons. As you learned last month, the commonly reported reasons may not even be the true cause…

         What you are about to read is not mainstream knowledge, but it SHOULD be!

Neck pain caused by impaired ankle function

Let’s begin from the ground up, shall we? Before you start to believe this newsletter provides ‘off the wall’ information, please let me explain.

If you’ve ever heard me talk about neck pain, you’ve probably heard this story. In case you haven’t, I’m going to repeat it now. 

A colleague of mine was on vacation so one of her patients was scheduled with me for a physical therapy session. His diagnosis was cervical pain. He’d been coming to PT for several weeks which included 8 or 9 treatment sessions. His plan of care?

•  Moist hot packs

•  Ultrasound

•  Range of motion exercises

Since his treatment documentation reported there was no decrease in pain since beginning
treatment, I questioned him to get more details regarding his pain issue. He shared that he
experienced neck pain when he took his morning walks. He didn’t want to give those up, so he was here in hopes of stopping the neck pain.

I explained that often there are parts of the body that can cause pain elsewhere when not working well and he agreed to being assessed in other areas instead of repeating a treatment plan that clearly wasn’t helping.

I assessed his low back and found a small alignment issue which was corrected easily; yet I didn’t think that was the culprit behind his neck pain. Understanding how everything is connected to everything else, I asked if he’d ever sprained his ankles. He quickly answered, “yes, countless times while playing sports in college.”

His ankle range of motion was sorely lacking in something called dorsiflexion which is when you
point your toes up and keep your heels down. If you’re standing and you squat down with your knees over your toes, that’s also dorsiflexion. This motion is absolutely essential in order to walk with healthy joint movement throughout your whole body, including your neck.

I’ve written about the complexities of gait that occur from the moment your heel strikes the ground more than once in my newsletters. I won’t repeat that now, but if you’re interested, I cover that topic in my YouTube Plantar Fasciitis Playlist. Normal dorsiflexion range of motion is 

~20 degrees; yet his was actually -5’ at one ankle and 0’ at the other!

This means every time he took a step during his walk, nothing was happening that was supposed to happen from his ankles all the way up to his neck. So, I mobilized his ankles to improve this motion and provided instructions on how to lengthen his calf muscles to ensure full motion was restored. I never touched his neck.

The result of treating his ankles to address his neck pain? He never returned. We spoke on the
phone, and he reported his neck pain was completely gone after that treatment! 

He could now walk as long as he wished free of any pain. I repeat. I never touched his neck.

Neck pain caused by low back dysfunction
Did you know your spine doesn’t have any starts and stops in it? Yes, the anatomical world has
divided it into cervical, thoracic, lumbar, and sacral; yet it doesn’t have any dividing lines where one ends and the other begins. I won’t go into all the anatomical intricacies of each area of your spine in this newsletter. Just know there are some differences in the size and shape of the vertebrae which impacts the movement available in each area.

There are also muscles that attach from the top to the bottom of your spine and everywhere in between. Isn’t it logical to think that one part of the spine could impact another part?

Whenever I worked with a patient in the clinic setting who had neck pain, I always assessed their low back. Think of the roof on a house. It very much depends on a strong, level foundation. So does your neck. To complicate matters, your low back very much depends on the hips below and the trunk above. This means locating the cause behind low back dysfunction almost always leads to finding the culprit somewhere else too!

It also works the other way round. I had a patient who couldn’t sit without low back pain. She couldn’t enjoy movies or tv or reading a book while sitting. After a few sessions, she could finally do all these things pain free. The one thing she still couldn’t do without pain was eat dinner. As I sat thinking about what’s needed to perform this task, I pretended I was eating at the dinner table. I looked down at my imaginary dinner plate and it hit me. It was her neck! I corrected a deficit I found in joint motion there and voila! She could now eat dinner with no lower back pain.

Everything really is connected to everything else. Honest! I’m not making this stuff up… 

Neck pain caused by thoracic spine deficits

Your thoracic spine is between your neck and low back, where all your ribs attach. This area of your spine is notorious for being what Dr. Gray at the Gray Institute calls the ‘silent saboteur’. Because your trunk function (or lack of) impacts pretty much every area of your body, yet rarely exhibits pain itself, it is one of the most unknown culprits of chronic pain.

Since your neck sits on top of your thoracic spine imagine how deficits there can wreak havoc to
your neck function. If you’ve ever had treatment for neck pain, please answer me this. Did they ever look at your thoracic spine function? I’m guessing they didn’t.

I consulted with a lovely woman for several months who had experienced neck pain for decades
prior to consulting with me. She’d had pretty much every treatment you could have for your neck,
short of surgery. She’d had physical therapy, chiropractic, acupuncture, massage therapy, etc., for
many rounds of treatment off and on over the decades. Nothing really helped her.

We focused on her body as a whole, not just her neck, from the ground up. She trained her ankles, hips, and thoracic spine in very specific ways to enhance optimal whole-body function. After a few months, she was finally free of neck pain.

Full disclosure. I also recommended a couple of specific techniques to be performed by local
clinicians to ensure all bases were covered. The end result is the fact she needed to restore other
areas of her body in order for her neck to be relieved of pain. Her neck wasn’t the culprit. It was the victim.

I could provide other stories of neck pain that was resolved by looking at other body parts but that would cause this newsletter to become a book chapter. Suffice it to say there are several areas of your body that directly or indirectly impact the function of your neck; including but not limited to your ankles, pelvis, low back, and thoracic spine.

You can treat your neck until the cows come home, but if the culprit causing the pain is elsewhere, you will fail to become pain-free. You are a whole body, not a body part. I am feeling compelled to write Pain Culprits 2! this coming year. An entire chapter will be devoted to your neck.

If you don’t want to wait until then to learn what works to address the parts that can cause neck pain, the Move Without Pain Private Club has a Neck Pain track that ensures you don’t miss any parts that matter, and you can test drive the Private Club for free!

Next month: Can you really prevent joint replacements?

Would you like to locate the core issue(s) of your pain, balance deficits, or weaknesses and learn how to address them with powerful (safe) self-care methods so you can move without pain and age without decline? You can work with Eileen one-on-one! Just ask a question or schedule a consultation via Zoom by clicking the button below.

You CAN resolve pain and age independently by training authentically and nourishing well.

Recipe of the Month: Apple Butter

Ever wonder what you could put on toast that isn’t high in fat like butter, vegan butter, or nut butter? Apple butter is the perfect answer! Especially when you make it yourself without any added sugar. I found a wonderful recipe that doesn’t require standing over the stove or stirring constantly, either. Get your crockpot out and make some magic…Give apple butter a try on Ezekiel Cinnamon Raisin toast and you will think your mouth went to Heaven!
From detoxinista.com

Makes 16-20 ounces
Ingredients:

• 3 lbs. apples (I used Fuji)

• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

• 1/4 cup water

Directions: (VitaClay directions provided on the site page)

• Core and chop the apples and place them in the bowl of your slow cooker. Add in the cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and water then cover and cook on low for 6 hours, or until the apples are tender enough to fall apart when mashed with a fork.

• To make applesauce, use an immersion blender to puree the cooked apples. (If you chose to peel your apples, you can just use a fork or potato masher to break down the apples.) You could stop here, and enjoy this delicious spiced applesauce, but you'll need to keep cooking it down to create apple butter.

• Loosely cover the pot with the lid, leaving a vent for steam to escape, and set the slow cooker to cook for another 6 to 8 hours on low, or until the applesauce has reduced by nearly half.

•  Once the apple butter is nice and thick, transfer it to a glass jar and store it in the fridge for up to two weeks. (You can also freeze any extra for a longer shelf life!)

Serve the apple butter over your favorite toast, pancakes, waffles, or simply enjoy it by the spoonful!
Tip: I used an ice cube tray to freeze in small portions and put in a freezer bags so I can take out
a cube or two when desired. 20 seconds on defrost in the microwave & it spreads perfect!😊

Want peace & joy instead of fear & stress?