Dr. Jens Discusses How Chiropractic Care Can Help You Reach Optimal Health

Megan:

Welcome to HMC HealthWorks podcasts. Today, we are so pleased to invite Dr. Jens. Dr. Jens is a doctor of chiropractic and he’s been practicing the network chiropractic for about 30 years. And he also has a specialty in what is called KST, that’s an acronym for Koren chiropractic. I’m going to have him talk about that acronym shortly, but he’s also been a specialist in that particular discipline of chiropractic for about 15 years.

Megan:

And Dr. Jens, the reason I was so really pleased and interested to have you today is when I was reading your background as to how you got into this particular type of chiropractic, because I know there’s many different methods, I was fascinated. So I’m going to talk to you about what I read about you, and then I’d like you to jump in if there’s anything I didn’t get right. But I want to just highlight the points that I thought were so fascinating. So I thought what was interesting is that as a child, you did grow up with lots of allergies and you had said different GI problems and that your parents had taken you to various doctors, but traditionally they didn’t seem to have anything that was much relief.

Megan:

And then also from having some of these chronic problems that it also was a trigger for like a comorbid of feeling depression and not, not feeling good, which is something we encounter all the time at HMC. When somebody has a physical condition typically it impacts their mental health. So I thought that was a very good fit because we focus on whole person and whole health care. So the next thing that fascinated me was that as you aged, you went into the military, I assume that’s a mandatory service for your country, is that correct?

Dr. Jens:

Well, yeah. So let me just say, thank you for having me because so many times people think of one type of chiropractic. And so that’s kind of why I wanted to get on your show to also talk about there’s so many other ways to do chiropractic. But I actually never made it into a military because when I went in for my physical because it’s mandatory and I found out I had a double scoliosis and I was like 17 or something like that. And they said there’s no way you can serve in the military the way your back is. So, yeah, I never really made it in to serving in the military.

Dr. Jens:

I grew up in the country in Denmark, I grew up on a pig farm and my parents, they didn’t think of bringing me to like a chiropractor or anything. So it wasn’t really until my mid twenties that I started getting chiropractic, actually, when I started chiropractic college. And it was kind of by accident, literally by accident I got into all this holistic stuff because as I was about to start chiropractic college, I think five days before, so I was in a bad car accident. And then through the three years of chiropractic college, I was getting adjusted with probably about 15 different techniques. There’s probably over a couple of hundred different chiropractic methods. But people were practicing on me and I was practicing on other people to learn the craft.

Dr. Jens:

But what happened was every time I would try a new technique out, I would feel a little better and then it would actually get worse. And after three years of that, my back was in so bad shape, like those days I could barely stand up and I just had so much pain. My back felt like a rock, it was just in spasm constantly. At that point a few months before I was actually about to graduate, I didn’t even know, I was like, how can I even become a chiropractor? I can’t even help myself. I was like how can I go out and help other people when I’m in this bad shape?

Dr. Jens:

And by fate, I guess, a friend of mine also who went to school in Denmark before who had come over here a little earlier than me, I saw him working on a patient with this network chiropractic method, this is extremely gentle. And I saw him working on somebody and I thought this looks kind of like hokey, I don’t know how is this possibly going to do anything. But at that point I was just so open, I was like I’m willing to try anything that’s not going to hurt me, you know? That’s my only criteria. And he started working on me and after a month I felt the best I had in three years.

Megan:

Wow.

Dr. Jens:

Now this network chiropractic takes a couple of years of training to learn. And so he had only been to one training in it. And so I found a chiropractor who had gone through the whole training. I’d also been in a few more accidents over chiropractic college, being rear-ended and stuff like that. And so my neck and back had just gotten worse and worse. And I was so focused on my neck and back getting better from this new method. But like you mentioned, I had also had irritable bowel, reflux problem. Like I grew up on antacids pretty much like my whole family was popping antacids like-

Megan:

That sounds like me-

Dr. Jens:

… yeah, yeah.

Megan:

… And that’s why I read that in your bio, I was like, hmm, this makes it even more interesting. I think a lot of people have that problem. And when you discuss this method more, I think it’s interesting because you’re saying about, it’s got such great efficacy and it’s so effective for what people typically see chiropractors for, what we consider as one of the traditional methods for like the different pain back and neck-

Dr. Jens:

Yeah.

Megan:

… but you’re saying that, what was fascinating that you found when your colleague and friend was first trying this technique on you is that you just noticed it’s also helping these other chronic conditions that you had been suffering from-

Dr. Jens:

Yeah, yeah-

Megan:

… so that I thought was very fascinating.

Dr. Jens:

… yeah, so my allergies, my asthma, all these other things after like three, four months I was starting to notice that I was feeling so much better. I wasn’t taking like any of my medication that I had been taking and at that point I was like, I decided this is something I need to learn. And then I started learning this method and so I actually never really ended up practicing what I learned in school, I ended up practicing this other method.

Dr. Jens:

And yeah, most people don’t think about that chiropractic can help asthma, allergies or reflux problems. They think oh chiropractor’s for back pain and neck pain. But it’s really fascinating, I’ve often been surprised how amazing the body is at healing itself once you give it the help it needs, you know? And sometimes-

Megan:

Sort of guiding it, is what you’re saying-

Dr. Jens:

Yeah-

Megan:

… you’re guiding it.

Dr. Jens:

… yeah, because everything-

Megan:

Okay. Go ahead.

Dr. Jens:

… sorry.

Megan:

No, it’s all right. Go ahead.

Dr. Jens:

So everything works on… The way chiropractic is focused is, it’s all focused on the spine. Every chiropractic pretty much focused on the spine and the nerves. The difference is we’re looking at that nerve flow that has to go from the brain, it has to go to every single cell of the body. It has to go into every organ of the body for that communication to go back and forth. And what can happen is because we have accidents, injuries, stress, muscle tension, I mean, there are so many reasons, chemical stress, emotional stress, physical stress, they can all affect this nerve flow and network chiropractic is really great at addressing all three.

Dr. Jens:

And once that gets going, once you have that nerve flow restored, then the organs and your nervous system controls your immune system, digestive system circulatory system, endocrine system. So if that gets more balanced, all these other systems starts getting more balanced as well. And the body can start healing better. And I’ve often been amazed by people that come in with the conditions they’ve had for 30, 40 years and suddenly the body’s starting to heal itself from those conditions once it gets to that help it needs-

Megan:

Wow, that’s amazing.

Dr. Jens:

… and sometimes you need other things too. It’s often also necessary to have the proper nutrition, but in many ways the body can heal. But nowadays I hear so much about CBD, there’s lotions, potions, but no matter what the problem is, if you have a what’s called misalignment subluxations that interfere with that nerve flow in the spine, no matter what else you do, if you don’t address that, the body just can’t get back because a potion isn’t going to move your vertical alignment.

Megan:

So those methods, it sounds like you’re not saying that they might have a place, but it’s kind of more of a bandaid. And you’re saying that you got to get to the root of what’s causing the problem. And that kind of brings me back. I wanted to, because when you were talking about the technique and tell me if I’m saying this correctly, Koren? Did I say that correctly?

Dr. Jens:

Yeah. Koren Specific Technique-

Megan:

Okay.

Dr. Jens:

… is also a chiropractic technique that I introduced to Connecticut about 15 years ago or so. I was lucky enough to be one of the first in chiropractice that got trained in this. Actually I was at the first seminar that was taught in Philadelphia about 15, 16 years ago. And I just loved it so much that I’ve been going to seminars ever since to learn because everything changes. I think it’s important to keep up with new advances. You don’t practice medicine the way you did a hundred years ago, right? And I think chiropractic for it to be effective, you have-

Megan:

Evolve.

Dr. Jens:

… yeah, you have to evolve, you have to see what’s new. And like new technologies, I use cold laser, I use other things, but everything I use in my office is very non-invasive. But things that have-

Megan:

That’s what I wanted to ask about, is non-invasive-

Dr. Jens:

… yeah?

Megan:

… so one of the things that I thought would be helpful for our listeners is I noticed, and this is one of the other things that fascinated me because I had, had a experience with what I would call more traditional, aggressive adjustments with chiropractic years ago when I lived in Colorado and initially it was good, but then I got hurt. I felt like it wasn’t good I was hurt and had some car accidents like you did. And I’ve never done it since.

Megan:

And so what I liked about looking at your method and looking at the various patients that you’ve helped and what they had to say, I wonder if you could go through, talk to me about… So I noticed, one of the things that was appealing to me and I thought could be appealing to people with chronic pain and different disorders is that it seemed like this particular technique you had used a more minimal force. And if you could talk about the minimal force, some of the effects and maybe about if it’s good for different ages. Kind of just tell me what are those benefits that make it a little bit different than the traditional techniques?

Dr. Jens:

Yeah. So I don’t want to put down any other chiropractic technique because there’s a place for all those techniques that are out there. And obviously-

Megan:

Oh, yeah I know. I understand what you’re saying.

Dr. Jens:

… there’s a lot of people that love to go in, they get cracked or adjusted and they’re in and out in two or three minutes and they love it. Now there’s also most of the patients I see, are probably people who are either been to a chiropractor, didn’t get results, didn’t like it, was too scared-

Megan:

Wasn’t a good fit is what you’re saying-

Dr. Jens:

… yeah, it wasn’t a good fit-

Megan:

… it doesn’t mean it doesn’t work for some people, just for someone-

Dr. Jens:

… yeah.

Megan:

… that wasn’t a good fit, you’re offering something else.

Dr. Jens:

Yeah. And the neat thing about both the techniques I practice, I have patients in the nineties, I’ve worked on newborns. I can work on anybody no matter what the problem is because I’m not trying to force anything. I’m teaching… Both of techniques are really geared to help your own body to create its own adjustment. We’re trying to take tension out of the spine. And generally it will in a couple of weeks or so, their own bodies, like it’s supposed to, starts adjusting itself. But it happens to end up when the body is ready for it, not when the chiropractor wants it to happen.

Dr. Jens:

And it’s more like working from the inside and trying to force it from the outside. And so it takes a little longer generally, but then the benefits lasts a lot longer because we’re changing the musculature, we’re changing how the nerves are working. And I can work with people who… A lot of chiropractors might not want to work on somebody who have a disc issue, for example, because you can ended up making it worse or people who have severe osteoporosis, you got to be careful with traditional chiropractic. I can work on people like that because I’m not putting that type of force into the body, you know?

Megan:

So more fragile. Okay. So, that makes sense. So people that traditionally might not be a good candidate for the other techniques, you’re offering something that is very helpful because if they have other fragility, it’s okay-

Dr. Jens:

Yeah.

Megan:

… you’ll still be able to help them. And when you were talking about, I loved how you just said we’re working from the inside out rather than the outside in. That also makes me wonder what type of testing do you do before you start working with someone? Do you have things like x-rays or scans, or just kind of walk me through, like if I was coming, what would it be like the first time?

Dr. Jens:

Yeah, so generally I do different types of scans. One the first things I look at is posture. I do a computerized posture scan, which most people don’t really think about the posture and they if they do, they’re like, “Well I have bad posture.” But you often don’t really see yourself from the side. I would say majority of people have what’s called forward head posture-

Megan:

From our devices-

Dr. Jens:

… yeah.

Megan:

… especially.

Dr. Jens:

… we’re always looking down, looking down on your phone and if you’re on a laptop, you’re looking down and it can create, now they have a term for it, it’s called text neck, that’s very common in teenagers. And so this computerized posture scan actually calculates how good or bad the posture is. So again, a good baseline to see where are we starting out. And generally the worse your posture is, the more stuff is going on in the spine. There’s medical studies that have showed that you can predict how long people are going to live based on their posture. And the worse your posture is, the shorter your lifespan is.

Dr. Jens:

Then I use something called tomography that scans the back for inflammation, because what happens is all the vertebra is supposed to move in different planes. Well, as we have had stress, injuries, stuff happens. Sometimes certain vertebrae are kept locked up and so when you’re trying to move this vertebra can’t move with you. And that joint can get irritated and inflamed from that. And so this tomography scans will actually show that on a computer, where are those places that… And if there’s no inflammation, but people that have a problem, it’s usually because they have a chronic issue because after a few months or so at least three, six months or so, a lot of inflammation goes away, even though the problem is still there. So if I don’t see inflammation, but somebody has told me they have a problem for 10 years, I know why there’s no inflammation. It’s because now it’s become a chronic issue.

Dr. Jens:

And then I use this other instrument called EMG, electromyography. It’s very similar to the EKG for your heart, it picks up electrical activity, but it’s around the spine, because what happens is a lot of times come in and say, “Hey, doc, I have a pain in my neck or I just have this pain right here in my lower back. But everything else is feeling good.” Well, when I do a scan, often what happens is that’s just a small part of the problem.

Dr. Jens:

And so a lot of times people go to chiropractors, physical therapists, MDs, other therapies, and a lot of times those therapies only tend to focus on where the pain is. But if that’s the only half the problem you can work on it, work on it, work on it, and a lot of times it doesn’t get better because you often have to address everything that’s going on, because everything is connected, you can’t separate the neck from the rest of the body, right? So even if your pain is just in the neck, but on that scan, it shows everything else is a problem, too, if you don’t address all the rest of the stuff that neck is never going to get better. And so this is-

Megan:

Your whole body?

Dr. Jens:

… yeah.

Megan:

Is what you’re saying?

Dr. Jens:

Yeah-

Megan:

Your whole body’s.

Dr. Jens:

… yeah, because a lot of times things will compensate. If you have a low back problem or a hip problem, if that foundation is out of alignment, everything else from that place on also often gets out of alignment and you have to address all those issues. You can’t just address one area. You have to look at the whole body.

Dr. Jens:

And then I do auto scan, mostly with my hands where I examine how much stresses the body is holding. And there’s like about 12, 14 different parameters we use, where we grade it from a scale from zero to five. Ideally most people’s stress levels should be around two and two and a half. So let’s say for example, somebody’s running late for work or an appointment, they might get a little stressed, it might go up to like three, three and a half. If the nervous system functions the way it should, when they get to that appointment, or get to work or whatever, that should calm back down again. Or let’s say somebody walking across the street and I saw there’s a car coming towards him, well, hopefully the fight or flight kicks in. So it goes up to a five, so you can get out of the way, but what’s then supposed to happen is after 15 minutes, half an hour, depending how close the car was to hitting that person, it should go back down to normal again.

Dr. Jens:

But what can happen is, and this is so common in our society nowadays, we always have all these stresses on us. And it’s kind of like when you have too many you can build a circuit. Well, sometimes we have the physical stress, emotional stress and chemical stress. And sometimes they go on for decades and eventually what can happen is it overload our nervous system. So instead of handling all this stress, it kind of gets stuck. And then it just builds up and up and up.

Dr. Jens:

And so often that I see people come in and they’re like a four and a half, which means their nervous system is behaving as if they’re almost being hit by a car all the time. And often when I talk to these people… I’ve had patients where they come in, they were like, “Oh, I’ve been retired 20, 30 years. And I don’t feel that much stress right now.” They’re like well… Then I find out they hated their job for 30 years. Well, a lot of times people don’t realize that stress often stays in the body because it hasn’t found a way to-

Megan:

Get out. It’s got caught in all those years-

Dr. Jens:

… yeah.

Megan:

… and it’s still, even though they’re not in it, it’s still residual and they’re carrying it physically and mentally-

Dr. Jens:

Yeah.

Megan:

… it sounds like.

Dr. Jens:

Yeah. And sometimes people feel it more physically. Some people feel it more mentally. I see a lot of people that have both, where they feel stressed out, the mind’s and the body’s in total spasm all the time. So you got to… So what’s really neat about the network chiropractic is you’re helping to take the nervous system from that sympathetic state to a parasympathetic state, which I think I’ve seen a lot more of people in the sympathetic state in the last year because of this pandemic-

Megan:

Yeah.

Dr. Jens:

… there’s so much fear, you turn on the TV, there’s fear of not having a job, not having enough money to pay the bills. And 12, 13, 14 months of that, it takes its toll and people come in and they can’t get out of that state. And so the network chiropractor is so helpful and really getting people back to that more like a neutral state instead of being so hyped up all the time, because it’s really unhealthy for the… We probably all have known people who they’re like a five all the time, their in fight or flight all the time. And if one thing-

Megan:

Don’t talk about me like I’m not here.

Dr. Jens:

… yeah, one little thing happens and the person has the whole meltdown, because… Another person who might be at a two, are like, “Why is that such a big deal? That was not a big deal.” But this other person who was already at maximum stressed out, that was another huge deal for them. But so if we can take the nervous system from that five down to a four, that same stress will affect them totally different because now their nervous system actually has room to adapt to stress the way it should. And they’ll usually be able to sleep a lot that better because a lot of times that can be another issue that happens, the mind just goes and goes and goes, if you’re like a four and a half to a five all the time. Even when people are trying to relax, it can be really hard to relax because your nervous system is like going this crazy state all the time. And-

Megan:

They can’t sort of rejuvenate and recharge at night from sleep-

Dr. Jens:

… yeah.

Megan:

So this brings me kind of like where I wanted to end up with you. Talk to me about, even though this is what some people might think less traditional, I’ve noticed how really widespread it is once I started doing research across the country. And I’m wondering if there’s two things that we can close on today that you can answer.

Megan:

So, when we close, I’m going to talk about where you are here locally in Connecticut, but for people that are in other parts of the country, the two things I really wanted to ask you about is, is there a resource to see other Koren practitioners throughout the country, if they’re not in our area? And then prior to you answering that, I’m wondering what is the cost associated with this type of treatment? And do you take insurance? What options are out there for folks in terms of if they want to pursue this and give us a try to help them with the numerous problems that you said that you’ve had luck with and also just getting assessed and trying to get themselves back in balance physically. And then obviously it sounds like mentally follows once that happens.

Dr. Jens:

Yeah. I mean, so it depends on where people live in the country. Probably the best way to find for example a network chiropractor is to use Google and put in either network spinal analysis-

Megan:

Okay.

Dr. Jens:

… or network chiropractic. Network spinal analysis is kind of like a newer name for the network chiropractic. And there’s not really a website where you can go and find practitioners for that. So the best way would just to Google, in your state, like where would a network spinal analysis chiropractor be. The Koren specifically, there’s a website for that. And so I was the first chiropractor to combine these techniques and there’s probably only a handful of chiropractors who’ve done that over the last 15 years. So I would say go with what’s in the area because likely you won’t find a chiropractor who does both, but you can find one that does one or the other and they’re both amazing techniques and both will help-

Megan:

Just see what might be available in your area and what works-

Dr. Jens:

… yeah.

Megan:

… for you. And also we’ll put this in our notes, and make it available through our site and our sources so that folks can know what to Google-

Dr. Jens:

Yeah.

Megan:

… and then talk to me about if someone has insurance, is that something that… Like I know in your practice, you only speak for your practice, but tell me how that works for folks?

Dr. Jens:

Yeah. So I’m a provider for probably about 30 different insurances. So for folks that do not have insurance, I usually charge like $77, but that’s for two hours. I use one hour on the first visit where I do this whole exam and a treatment. And then on the follow up visit, I will go over all the findings and explain exactly how does this work and they get another treatment. And so I spent a lot more time with people because I find it’s really important to educate what is it we’re doing and what are we trying to accomplish and all that stuff. And then after that, if people don’t have insurance, they can either pay per visit, we charge $40. If they pay for four visits, it’s 120, so ends up being a little cheaper-

Megan:

Wow-

Dr. Jens:

… $30 a visit.

Megan:

… that’s wonderful. I mean, that amount of time is just so much longer than often when you’ll see a regular doctor. So that’s wonderful to have that time. And working with people who aren’t fortunate to have insurance, that’s so commendable. It shows that not only are you a practitioner, but this is really a labor of love. I mean, you’re really-

Dr. Jens:

Oh yeah.

Megan:

… it’s really important to you that your people are healthy.

Dr. Jens:

Yeah. I haven’t changed my fees in 20 years. So each treatment is about half an hour, but I work on usually four or five people at a time. I have three separate rooms that I’m in one room where there’s three people, so depending on if people need their own private room, they can have that. But yeah, I’ve always really come from a place I want to help as many people as I can. And I make it affordable for people because a lot of people who don’t have insurance, they might not be able to pay the insurance fees, what the insurance would pay. And so I try to make it more affordable for people to really get the benefit, because it’s not something you just do one or two times-

Megan:

Right.

Dr. Jens:

… I generally recommend doing three times a week for a month and usually two times a week the second month. And then I’d do another re-scan and then depending on how the person is doing and how the scan looks like, then we decide what’s the next step after that.

Megan:

Right. That makes sense. So, Dr. Jens, thank you so much for spending time with us today. I want to thank our listeners for being here and the specific information about the network spinal analysis providers and Koren providers, we’ll get those notes for you all. But I also want to say for anyone that’s in the local area, Dr. Jens’ site is www.community-chiropractic.com.

Megan:

And I also want to thank him again so much for being here. And I would like to ask you to come back some other time in the future, because I am going to come to see you myself as a patient. So I’d love to do it again. And if there were any questions or things that I noticed when I came, I’d love to have the opportunity to talk to you in the future. So if you were able to join us sometime later, that would be great.

Megan:

And finally, I just want to remind all our listeners, please stay tuned for future HMC HealthWorks podcasts, and go to hmchealthworks.com for more information on physical wellness and mental wellness. Thank you, Dr. Jens.

Dr. Jens:

Thank you for having me, I appreciate it.